Virtue

Heather Battaly

• Publisher: Polity
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780745688701
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

What is a virtue, and how are virtues different from vices? Do people with virtues lead better lives than the rest of us? Do they know more? Can we acquire virtues if so, how? In this lively and engaging introduction to this core topic, Heather Battaly argues that there is more than one kind of virtue. Some virtues make the world a better place, or help us to attain knowledge. Other virtues are dependent upon good intentions like caring about other people or about truth. Virtue is an original approach to the topic, which carefully situates the fields of virtue ethics and virtue epistemology within a general theory of virtue. It argues that there are good reasons to acquire moral and intellectual virtues virtuous people often attain greater knowledge and lead better lives. As well as approaching virtue in a novel and illuminating way, Battaly ably guides the reader through the dense literature surrounding the topic, deftly moving from important specific and technical points to more general issues and questions. The final chapter proposes strategies for helping university students acquire intellectual virtues. Battaly's insights are complemented by entertaining examples from popular culture, literature, and film, really bringing this topic to life for readers.

Virtue is the ideal introduction to the topic. It will be an equally vital resource for students who are encountering the topic for the first time, and for scholars who are deeply engaged in virtue theory.

1
What Are the Virtues?

1.1 A Working Definition of Virtue

What is a virtue, and how are virtues different from vices? To get started on a definition of virtue, let's think about the people we know well – our friends. Which of their qualities count as virtues? What qualities do they have – not just as friends, but as people in general – that we would classify as obvious examples of virtues?

We might reasonably reply that our friends are, for instance: honest, smart, fair, dependable, brave, generous, open-minded, or funny. Or that they: enjoy life, do not give up easily, care about others, stand up for themselves and others, have good judgment, offer good advice, or know when others are upset and how to make them feel better. Philosophers have, at one time or another, counted all these qualities as virtues. Several of these qualities – courage (bravery), justice (fairness), temperance (enjoying life), and wisdom (which is connected to having good judgment and giving good advice) – are widely thought to be virtues. They appear on the lists of virtues generated by ancient philosophers, like Plato and Aristotle, early modern philosophers, like David Hume, and contemporary philosophers, like Rosalind Hursthouse and Linda Zagzebski. Other qualities – like wit (being funny) – appear on some lists (Aristotle's and Hume's), but not others. Likewise, being open-minded appears on some lists (Zagzebski's), but not others. Any initial definition of virtue – one whose primary job is to distinguish virtue from vice – should be broad enough to include all of the above qualities. Finer distinctions among different sorts of virtues can be made after we have generated a working definition of virtue in general.

Since we do not know one another's friends, let's examine some familiar illustrations of four of the above qualities: being smart, empathy (which is connected to caring about others and knowing when they are upset), open-mindedness, and courage.

First, Hermione Granger, one of the characters in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, is by all accounts smart. Hermione is smart in the sense that she knows a pile of facts, in her case “facts” about spells and the history of magic. But more importantly for present purposes, she is also smart in the sense that she has reliable intellectual capacities and skills. For instance, she has an excellent memory, and is skilled at logical problem solving. Hermione is so good at remembering magical facts that she annoys her classmates (whose memories are not as good) and even some of her teachers (who grow tired of calling on her). Hermione's memory contributes to her success as a student – she scores high marks on her exams. Outside the classroom, her memory saves her friends' lives on more than one occasion. For example, in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Hermione saves Ron Weasley by remembering which spell to use against Devil's Snare. Hermione uses her skills in logic to figure out that the creature guarding the chamber of secrets is a basilisk (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets) and that Professor Lupin is a werewolf (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban). Qualities like reliable memory and logical skills are featured on Ernest Sosa's list of intellectual virtues. According to Sosa, these qualities count as virtues because they reliably produce true beliefs. Sosa's theory is addressed in Chapter 2.

Second, television character Deanna Troi, therapist to the crew of the Enterprise on Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–94), is clearly empathic. She excels at knowing others' emotions: for instance, she knows when others are upset, happy, angry, afraid, despairing, or in love. As a member of a species of “empaths” (Troi is part Betazoid), she has the ability to directly feel what others in the vicinity are feeling. Her empathic ability to detect the emotions of aliens extricates the Enterprise from several dangerous situations, and proves vital in diplomatic negotiations. Troi can also feel the emotions of the Enterprise crew as a whole (she can gauge the overall mood of the crew), and can detect specific emotions in individual crew members. For example, she recognizes that Dr. Beverly Crusher is in love (“The Host”), and that Captain Jean-Luc Picard is grieving (Generations, 1994), though each emotion is meant to be secret. Troi even uses her empathic abilities to discover and solve a murder (“Eye of the Beholder”). She also cares about her crewmates, and counsels them through their troubles – she knows how to make them feel better, and get better. Of course, we do not have the advantages of Troi's Betazoid physiology – her empathic abilities far exceed our own. But we do still succeed in sharing the emotions of others and caring about their well-being. In contrast with Troi, this sometimes requires effort on our part: we must actively imagine the emotions of a person who is a different gender or race, or who lives in a culture that is different from our own – their emotions do not simply pop into our heads. Our ability to empathize likely relies both on our voluntary efforts to take another person's perspective, and on our hard-wired capacities for mimicking and mirroring others. Empathy plays a central role in Michael Slote's virtue ethics. Slote thinks that qualities like empathy and empathic caring count as virtues because they involve morally valuable motives. Slote's theory is addressed in Chapter 3.

Third, Dr. Gregory House, protagonist of the medical drama House M.D. (Fox, 2004–12), is clearly a brilliant diagnostician – he reliably succeeds in diagnosing patients whom no one else can diagnose. He is also a spectacular misanthrope. He is frequently cruel to his patients and colleagues, and often lies to get what he wants. House is neither caring, honest, just, nor temperate (he is addicted to Vicodin). But, arguably, he is open-minded. In nearly every episode, House elicits possible diagnoses from his team, and considers whether those diagnoses are true. He is simultaneously alive to the possibility that his own diagnoses might be false. To illustrate: in “Occam's Razor” (2004), House and his team consider multiple conditions that their patient might have, including: a viral heart infection (Dr. Foreman), a carcinoid tumor (Dr. Chase), an allergy (Dr. Cameron), and a combination of sinusitis and hypothyroidism (Dr. House). When all of their hypotheses – including his own – are proven false, House considers yet another alternative: that the patient, whose first symptom was coughing, accidentally received the wrong medication for his cough. (The team discovers that House is correct – the patient was given gout medication, which caused the rest of his symptoms.) Considering alternative hypotheses helps House get to the truth. In fact, House is so dependent on this process that when his team quits, he relies on other people – like the hospital's janitor – to help him evaluate alternative diagnoses and solve his case. House also cares about the truth. He is not motivated by money or fame, or even because he cares about his patients; he doesn't. He only cares about one thing: getting the truth. Dr. House is clearly not morally virtuous. But, given that it is possible to have some virtues but not others, House is not precluded from being open-minded. Open-mindedness is one of the key intellectual virtues identified by Linda Zagzebski. She argues that open-mindedness is a virtue both because it reliably produces true beliefs and because it involves a valuable motivation for truth. Zagzebski's view is addressed in Chapter 3.

Fourth, Alice Paul (1885–1977) fought for and helped to achieve women's suffrage in the United States, and (to a lesser extent) in Britain. In both the US and Britain, Paul risked her health, and even her life, to get women the right to vote. Though it is more difficult to identify virtues in real people than in fictional characters, Alice Paul had the virtue of courage if anyone did. As the leader of the Congressional Union of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, and founder of the National Woman's Party (NWP), Paul fought for and attained an amendment to the US Constitution that guaranteed women the right to vote. This achievement came at great risk. Paul argued for suffrage in speeches and in writing, organized and marched in suffrage parades, and picketed the Woodrow Wilson White House.¹ Suffragist speakers and marchers were subject to verbal derision and physical threats. White House picketers, who carried banners but were otherwise silent, were attacked by mobs and arrested for obstructing traffic. Paul, and other suffragists, continued picketing the White House even though they knew that they were risking physical harm, arrest, and jail-time. During the Fall of 1917, 168 suffragists were imprisoned, choosing to serve jail-time rather than pay fines (Adams and Keene 2008: 173). In October 1917, Paul was sentenced to seven months in jail. While in prison, she went on a hunger strike in order to demonstrate that she was willing to risk her health and life for suffrage. As a result of her disobedience, she was placed in solitary confinement, threatened with institutionalization, and physically restrained and force-fed. She did not give up: she continued her hunger strike until she was released from prison in November 1917. Less than two years later, the US Congress passed the 19th Amendment. Paul faced dangers, stood up for herself and others, and did so not for the sake of fame but because she believed that women should have the right to vote. Due in good part to the courage of Alice Paul and other suffragists like her, women in the US and the United Kingdom have been enfranchised for nearly 100 years. Courage is widely counted as a virtue, appearing on the lists of many philosophers, including Aristotle. Aristotle argues that courageous people face dangers that are worthwhile, and do so because of good motives. Arguably, he thinks that courage is a virtue because it both attains good ends or effects, and involves valuable motivations. Aristotle's account of the virtues is addressed in Chapter 3.

The qualities in the above examples are diverse. Some are (largely) hard-wired capacities, like reliable memory. Others are acquired skills, like the ability to solve logical puzzles. Still others are acquired character traits, like empathy, open-mindedness, and courage. So, what makes all of these qualities, and the other qualities we attributed to our friends, virtues? The answer is that they all make us better people. Virtues are qualities that make one an excellent person. A person can be excellent in a variety of ways: she can be excellent insofar as she has a good memory, or insofar as she is skilled at logical problem solving, or insofar as she is open-minded, just, or benevolent. In short, virtues are excellences.² In contrast, vices are defects. Vices are qualities that make us worse people. Analogously, a person can be defective in a variety of ways: she can be defective insofar as she has a bad memory, or insofar as she lacks logical skills, or insofar as she is dogmatic, unjust, or cruel. It is important to note that according to these working definitions, virtues are qualities that make us excellent as people in general, rather than merely excellent in some specific occupation or role. Likewise, vices make us worse as people in general, rather than merely worse at some specific occupation or role. We do not all share the same occupations or roles – some of us are parents, others are not; some of us are teachers, others are students, still others are CEOs. But we are all people. Accordingly, the virtues and vices in these working definitions pertain to all of us, no matter what our specific jobs or roles. Sometimes the qualities that make us better at some specific occupation or role overlap with the qualities that make us better people in general. For instance, empathy arguably makes us better parents, teachers, and doctors; and also makes us better people. But these qualities do not always overlap. In fact, sometimes the qualities that make us better at a specific occupation or role make us worse as people in general. To illustrate: dishonesty arguably makes one better in the role of police interrogator, but it makes one worse as a person in general. (Jane Tennison, protagonist of the television series Prime Suspect [ITV, 1991–2006], is a superb interrogator partly because she misleads and manipulates the people she interviews.) Since dishonesty makes one worse as a person in general, it is a vice, not a virtue. Likewise, honesty arguably makes one worse as an interrogator, but better as a person in general. Accordingly, honesty is a virtue, not a vice.

These working definitions of virtue and vice are broad. They include moral qualities – like benevolence and cruelty – but they also include intellectual qualities – like open-mindedness and dogmatism. They include qualities over whose acquisition we exercise considerable control, and for which we can clearly be praised (e.g., courage) or blamed (e.g., cowardice). But they also include qualities over which we exercise little control – like reliable memory – qualities which we find ourselves either with or without, due to no merit or fault of our own. David Hume famously includes all of these sorts of qualities – intellectual as well as moral, and involuntary as well as voluntary – on his lists of virtues and vices. In his Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, Hume argues that attempts to exclude intellectual qualiti...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Acknowledgments
• Dedication
• 1: What Are the Virtues?
• 2: Ends Matter: Virtues Attain Good Ends or Effects
• 3: Motives Matter: Virtues Require Good Motives
• 4: Vice and Failures of Virtue
• 5: Virtue, Right Action, and Knowledge
• 6: Virtue and Living Well
• 7: How Can We Acquire the Virtues?
• References
• Index