Philosophical Vegan Forum

Virtue Ethics is often touted as one of the big three ethical schools, along with consequentialism and deontology. It isn't really, though, when we ask some pointed "why" questions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_ethics#Subsumed_in_deontology_and_utilitarianism
(never mind the false equating of Utilitarianism and Consequentialism; virtue ethics is not Utilitarian... Wikipedia is not always the best source, but it's usually a decent starting point)

1. Virtue ethics is primarily concerned with judgement of character.

2. When actions are judged or prescribed, virtue ethics involves acting in ways to cultivate virtues; that is, it is concerned with the consequences of the actions and how they inspire or degrade virtues. Rather than with Utilitarianism, where utility is the goal, virtue ethics aims to maximize personal virtue.

3. Another round of "why" can either come down to an egoist or existential justification and end there, or wax rule consequentialist saying the best way to see good consequences are to increase virtues which has the emergent effect of good consequences (likely Eudaimonia) which in the modern context may be one statement of lack of faith in human reason, probably due to rationalization, when aiming directly for certain consequences. To the Greeks, Virtues meant being very good at what humans are supposed to do and supposedly doing those things successfully to prove it. Both of these are, again, appeals to a certain consequence.

While Virtue Ethics is certainly distinct from Utilitarianism, it shares the same family of consequentialism which Deontology does not (being unconcerned with consequence or ability/other qualities, only with his inconsistent interpretation of duty. Kant spoke of virtues, but they are not part of the categorical imperative).

Virtue ethics CAN be incoherent.
Defining and justifying the virtues themselves is another matter, and can even become relativistic or subjective. Despite the inconsistencies and contradictions among Virtue Ethicists (which makes it look more like a religion or an exercise of literature than a school of ethics), there is a core there which can orient itself around empirical argument of well being that has something to offer the conversation (such as if we look at the end goal of Eudaimonia for all human beings, or all sentient life), if it can shake off the inconsistent treatment by others.

I would say that if we can't find enough consistency in Virtue Ethics to call it a subset within consequentialism, we have to come to terms with it not being a coherent school at all on its own, and just being a disjointed set of ideas and rhetoric that's subsumed completely and appealed to by others when it works.

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Sun Aug 06, 2017 1:17 am I would say that if we can't find enough consistency in Virtue Ethics to call it a subset within consequentialism, we have to come to terms with it not being a coherent school at all on its own, and just being a disjointed set of ideas and rhetoric that's subsumed completely and appealed to by others when it works.

Aha harsh opening gambit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_ethics#Subsumed_in_deontology_and_utilitarianism

Nussbaum is one of my favourite writer's and the book I mentioned on arrival, 'The Therapy of Desire; Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics' had a big influence on me. I don't have a problem with anything she writes on the subject, there are rigid system Greek virtue ethicists and anti-system virtue existentialists, in academia they are more easily understood in their opposition to the universal decrees about how everything should be run to the letter from consequentialists and deontologists which virtue ethics refuses to do with it's holism.

Virtue Ethics: A Misleading Category?
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226318565_Virtue_Ethics_A_Misleading_Category

There are, to be sure, quite a few contemporary philosophical writers about virtue who are neither Utilitarians nor Kantians; many of these find inspiration in ancient Greek theories of virtue. But even here there is little unity. Although certain concerns do unite this disparate group (a concern for the role of motives and passions in good choice, a concern for character, and a concern for the whole course of an agent''s life), there are equally profound disagreements, especially concerning the role that reason should play in ethics.

One group of modern virtue-theorists, I argue, are primarily anti-Utilitarians, concerned with the plurality of value and the susceptibility of passions to social cultivation. These theorists want to enlarge the place of reason in ethics. They hold that reason can deliberate about ends as well as means, and that reason can modify the passions themselves. Another group of virtue theorists are primarily anti-Kantians. They believe that reason plays too dominant a role in most philosophical accounts of ethics, and that a larger place should be given to sentiments and passions -- which they typically construe in a less reason-based way than does the first group. The paper investigates these differences, concluding that it is not helpful to speak of virtue ethics, and that we would be better off characterizing the substantive views of each thinker -- and then figuring out what we ourselves want to say.

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brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Sun Aug 06, 2017 1:17 amTo the Greeks, Virtues meant being very good at what humans are supposed to do and supposedly doing those things successfully to prove it. Both of these are, again, appeals to a certain consequence.

Not so, sorry:

Virtue Ethics
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-virtue/

Whereas consequentialists will define virtues as traits that yield good consequences and deontologists will define them as traits possessed by those who reliably fulfil their duties, virtue ethicists will resist the attempt to define virtues in terms of some other concept that is taken to be more fundamental. Rather, virtues and vices will be foundational for virtue ethical theories and other normative notions will be grounded in them.

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brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Sun Aug 06, 2017 1:17 amWhile Virtue Ethics is certainly distinct from Utilitarianism, it shares the same family of consequentialism which Deontology does not (being unconcerned with consequence or ability/other qualities, only with his inconsistent interpretation of duty. Kant spoke of virtues, but they are not part of the categorical imperative).

Though I share your disdane for moral absolutes in the categorical imperative, Kant isn't Deontology's whole ball game, WD Ross's prima facie duties allow one's imperative to be overridden by a lattice of social duties that each are determined by how great a charachter judge the person is of the virtues. And even if all modern deontologists draw from Kant as reference point to engage the reader as Nausbaum says, virtues are still highly valued to them:
"She argues that contemporary virtue ethicists such as Alasdair MacIntyre, Bernard Williams, Philippa Foot, and John McDowell have few points of agreement, and that the common core of their work does not represent a break from Kant."

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Internal threads on the forum:

Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics (Nussbaum)
- http://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=3366
Virtue and Utopia (Andy Blunden)
- http://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?t=3342
Can Franks’ Practical Anarchism Avoid Moral Relativism? by Thomas Swann
- http://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=3329
How to deal with assholes who constantly lie about and misrepresent your views?
- http://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2965
Super fantabulistic introductions to virtue and existentialist ethics here
- http://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=3279
Is veganism based on utilitarian ethics?
- http://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?t=968

External links:

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-virtue/
Wikipedia
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_ethics
Aristotle & Virtue Theory: Crash Course Philosophy #38
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrvtOWEXDIQ
The philosophy of Stoicism - Massimo Pigliucci
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9OCA6UFE-0

NonZeroSum wrote: ↑Sun Aug 06, 2017 3:00 am there are rigid system Greek virtue ethicists and anti-system virtue existentialists,

It seems, then, that being a virtue ethicist doesn't really tell us anything about a person's views at all.
A system which is a non-system, well, isn't a system at all. Talking about virtue ethics as a whole, other than to do so in a way of saying it's not really a system but a collection of vastly different views that has been categorized together only because of the similar rhetoric they employ, may just be confusing.

NonZeroSum wrote: ↑Sun Aug 06, 2017 3:00 amin academia they are more easily understood in their opposition to the universal decrees about how everything should be run to the letter from consequentialists and deontologists which virtue ethics refuses to do with it's holism.

This sounds more like subjectivism.

The negation of all systems isn't necessarily a system.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226318565_Virtue_Ethics_A_Misleading_Category

There are, to be sure, quite a few contemporary philosophical writers about virtue who are neither Utilitarians nor Kantians;

The problem I have here is fixation on utilitarianism as a broad category, when it's a form of consequentialism. Not only does this kind of grouping exclude all non-utilitarian consequentialist ethics, but if we refuse to look at the actual broad categories these fit in, we end up with confusing and uneven treatment.

For example, we could make the categories:
Mammal, Bird, Fish

This in itself is deceptive, because Mammals and Birds are much more closely related to each other than they are to fish, both being in the subclass Tetrapoda.
It creates the false impression that these animals are all equally distantly related.

You could confuse things even more by throwing Octopus up there too, which are even more distantly related to all three, which are all chordates.

many of these find inspiration in ancient Greek theories of virtue. But even here there is little unity. Although certain concerns do unite this disparate group (a concern for the role of motives and passions in good choice, a concern for character, and a concern for the whole course of an agent''s life), there are equally profound disagreements, especially concerning the role that reason should play in ethics.

This seems to be a compelling argument for it being a non-system.
Motive-based evaluation sounds more like subjectivism. I don't think anything that's legitimately anti-reason has a place in philosophy; that sounds like religion. It's fair as a foot-note, but maybe doesn't need a lot of coverage.

NonZeroSum wrote: ↑Sun Aug 06, 2017 3:00 am One group of modern virtue-theorists, I argue, are primarily anti-Utilitarians, concerned with the plurality of value and the susceptibility of passions to social cultivation.

Sure, but that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with consequentialism as a whole.
You don't have to have fur and produce milk to be a tetrapod.

NonZeroSum wrote: ↑Sun Aug 06, 2017 3:00 am These theorists want to enlarge the place of reason in ethics. They hold that reason can deliberate about ends as well as means, and that reason can modify the passions themselves.

I think the latter, and the idea of cultivating habits that have good outcomes, is one of the more valuable contributions from virtue ethics.
We can certainly look at the consequences of how the means affect us as agents, in a way that Utilitarians tend not to. Otherwise, assessing the means can lead to logical contradictions if we don't consider consequential metrics.

NonZeroSum wrote: ↑Sun Aug 06, 2017 3:00 am The paper investigates these differences, concluding that it is not helpful to speak of virtue ethics, and that we would be better off characterizing the substantive views of each thinker -- and then figuring out what we ourselves want to say.

Seems reasonable.

NonZeroSum wrote: ↑Sun Aug 06, 2017 3:00 am Not so, sorry:

Virtue Ethics
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-virtue/

Whereas consequentialists will define virtues as traits that yield good consequences and deontologists will define them as traits possessed by those who reliably fulfil their duties, virtue ethicists will resist the attempt to define virtues in terms of some other concept that is taken to be more fundamental. Rather, virtues and vices will be foundational for virtue ethical theories and other normative notions will be grounded in them.

Maybe some contemporary ones try to do this, but that is not to their credit. The Ancient Greeks attempted to apply reason as far as I can tell.

Eudaimonia (εὐδαιμονία) is a state variously translated from Greek as 'well-being', 'happiness', 'blessedness', and in the context of virtue ethics, 'human flourishing'.[6] Eudaimonia in this sense is not a subjective, but an objective, state. It characterizes the well-lived life. According to Aristotle, the most prominent exponent of eudaimonia in the Western philosophical tradition, eudaimonia is the proper goal of human life. It consists of exercising the characteristic human quality -- reason—as the soul's most proper and nourishing activity. In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle, like Plato before him, argued that the pursuit of eudaimonia is an "activity of the soul in accordance with perfect virtue",[7] which further could only properly be exercised in the characteristic human community—the polis or city-state.

Although, eudaimonia was first popularized by Aristotle, it now belongs to the tradition of virtue theories generally. For the virtue theorist, eudaimonia describes that state achieved by the person who lives the proper human life, an outcome that can be reached by practicing the virtues. A virtue is a habit or quality that allows the bearer to succeed at his, her, or its purpose. The virtue of a knife, for example, is sharpness; among the virtues of a racehorse is speed. Thus, to identify the virtues for human beings, one must have an account of what the human purpose is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_ethics

These are very grounded, consequential terms of definition. A virtue is that which makes a thing good at what it's supposed to do, and humans are supposed to achieve Eudaimonia. If you're not going to cut with a knife, it being sharp is not a virtue.

To disregard any context or definition, and to fail to appeal to grounded qualities sounds suspiciously esoteric, like the theological notion of "free will" which is not defined in terms of anything else, but simply supernatural and incoherent. In attempt to save virtue ethics and set it aside as a unique category, these well-meaning philosophers may just be destroying it, abandoning philosophy, and forming a religion.

NonZeroSum wrote: ↑Sun Aug 06, 2017 3:00 am Though I share your disdane for moral absolutes in the categorical imperative, Kant isn't Deontology's whole ball game, WD Ross's prima facie duties allow one's imperative to be overridden by a lattice of social duties that each are determined by how great a charachter judge the person is of the virtues.

Sounds like poker, can we find something with even more convoluted ad-hoc rules?

NonZeroSum wrote: ↑Sun Aug 06, 2017 3:00 amAnd even if all modern deontologists draw from Kant as reference point to engage the reader as Nausbaum says, virtues are still highly valued to them:
"She argues that contemporary virtue ethicists such as Alasdair MacIntyre, Bernard Williams, Philippa Foot, and John McDowell have few points of agreement, and that the common core of their work does not represent a break from Kant."

Yes, they are valued, but in a meaningless way. It's more like a sentimental value; it has no exchange rate in those ethical systems, they're just spoken highly of or in a symptomatic sense. If you are doing the right thing by way of deontological rules, then you have virtue, but the virtue isn't the thing we're after (we're after the behavior dictated by those rules). Virtue in those systems is just a turn of phrase defined arbitrarily by the deontologist as an advertisement to try to entice people to the system.

The best case for virtues as core to the ethical system is a rule consequentialist system. This is the steel man of virtue ethics, it's its best argument for being something coherent, and its most useful contribution.

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Sun Aug 06, 2017 5:36 pm

NonZeroSum wrote: ↑Sun Aug 06, 2017 3:00 am there are rigid system Greek virtue ethicists and anti-system virtue existentialists,

It seems, then, that being a virtue ethicist doesn't really tell us anything about a person's views at all.
A system which is a non-system, well, isn't a system at all. Talking about virtue ethics as a whole, other than to do so in a way of saying it's not really a system but a collection of vastly different views that has been categorized together only because of the similar rhetoric they employ, may just be confusing.

I'm not the right person to be arguing for this as an existentialist, because those rigid neo-stoics would happily kick us out, because we want a piece of everyone's pie, as I said before:

Amoral nihilism is the obvious truth that we enter into the world as more or less blank slates with tools to learn faster in some areas better than others.
Consequentialism is the minimal universal prescription we can sign up to and know things will get better. Don't attend to the virtues and people will resist the slow pace of change.
Virtue ethics is the coping mechanism to finding meaning in suffering. Only act like moral exemplars because that is what one does without understanding it and risk bad faith.
Subjective Deontology means attending to a web of prima facie duties, in order to have your character judgement have meaning.
Ethical nihilism is the highest order help principle driven by authentic desire cultivated in virtues throughout your life.

Each of these has their negative opposite from utilitarians cynical hard ceiling, to deontology's absolutism, to liberation theology's authoritarianism. In as much as someone sees no value in expanding their circle of development they are being authentic by staying on the rung they feel is most productive, but there is a through line that follows through all these universalist prescriptions towards a spectulative realism that matches the truth of our chaotic existence.

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Sun Aug 06, 2017 5:36 pm

NonZeroSum wrote: ↑Sun Aug 06, 2017 3:00 amin academia they are more easily understood in their opposition to the universal decrees about how everything should be run to the letter from consequentialists and deontologists which virtue ethics refuses to do with it's holism.

This sounds more like subjectivism.

It might well be, maybe you could respond to the thread I posted on Hume, it would still have a good hand to play in social and political philosophy on systems that best ferment and facilitate virtues like justice and eudaimonia.

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Sun Aug 06, 2017 5:36 pm

Rather, virtues and vices will be foundational for virtue ethical theories and other normative notions will be grounded in them.

Maybe some contemporary ones try to do this, but that is not to their credit. The Ancient Greeks attempted to apply reason as far as I can tell.

I mean you don't see deontology as possible of being universally ethical but you can still accept it as a school of thought.

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Sun Aug 06, 2017 5:36 pm

For the virtue theorist, eudaimonia describes that state achieved by the person who lives the proper human life, an outcome that can be reached by practicing the virtues. A virtue is a habit or quality that allows the bearer to succeed at his, her, or its purpose. The virtue of a knife, for example, is sharpness; among the virtues of a racehorse is speed. Thus, to identify the virtues for human beings, one must have an account of what the human purpose is.

These are very grounded, consequential terms of definition. A virtue is that which makes a thing good at what it's supposed to do, and humans are supposed to achieve Eudaimonia. If you're not going to cut with a knife, it being sharp is not a virtue.

To disregard any context or definition, and to fail to appeal to grounded qualities sounds suspiciously esoteric, like the theological notion of "free will" which is not defined in terms of anything else, but simply supernatural and incoherent. In attempt to save virtue ethics and set it aside as a unique category, these well-meaning philosophers may just be destroying it, abandoning philosophy, and forming a religion.

Not at all, humans are supposed to procreate and be as brutal and manipulative in order to succeed at that task, eudaimonia is simply a higher order contentment with our absurd existence, just because it can be subsumed in ends does not make it consequentialist.

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Sun Aug 06, 2017 5:36 pm

NonZeroSum wrote: ↑Sun Aug 06, 2017 3:00 amAnd even if all modern deontologists draw from Kant as reference point to engage the reader as Nausbaum says, virtues are still highly valued to them:
"She argues that contemporary virtue ethicists such as Alasdair MacIntyre, Bernard Williams, Philippa Foot, and John McDowell have few points of agreement, and that the common core of their work does not represent a break from Kant."

Yes, they are valued, but in a meaningless way. It's more like a sentimental value; it has no exchange rate in those ethical systems, they're just spoken highly of or in a symptomatic sense.

I just can't agree, Nussbaum was ascribing to rigidly virtue ethicists kantian influence, which is the reality, value theory is borrowed from and used integrally or not to deontology and consequentialism, just like existential moral skepticism or not, but they have their own schools, nihilist and virtue ethics that it is best to label as such, even if they don't ask to be seated at the table ascribing whether it was right to have put a piece of toast in the bin last thursday on a rainy day. That was Nussbaum's point, not that virtue ethics is or should be consequentialist.

inator wrote:...

We should bring inator in on this conversation.

NonZeroSum wrote: ↑Sun Aug 06, 2017 8:18 pm Consequentialism is the minimal universal prescription we can sign up to and know things will get better. Don't attend to the virtues and people will resist the slow pace of change.

Do you mean to say Utilitarianism?

NonZeroSum wrote: ↑Sun Aug 06, 2017 8:18 pm It might well be, maybe you could respond to the thread I posted on Hume, it would still have a good hand to play in social and political philosophy on systems that best ferment and facilitate virtues like justice and eudaimonia.

Not sure if I'd have time. Can you paraphrase the relevant argument here or quote a bit, and I can try (probably tomorrow)?

NonZeroSum wrote: ↑Sun Aug 06, 2017 8:18 pm I mean you don't see deontology as possible of being universally ethical but you can still accept it as a school of thought.

You can play chess with somebody who uses a poor strategy, as long as they're basically trying to play by the same rules. They'll lose quickly and it won't be much of a challenge, but it's a game.

Deontologists attempt to justify their dictates using a [flimsy] rational construct. That's where deontology is attacked and toppled. For the Virtue Ethicist of this type, it's just an assertion, and can neither be argued nor hold any philosophical merit. They must at least attempt to justify their meta-ethical position, otherwise they're "chess players" who sit down and declare victory by rewriting the rules in their favor.

NonZeroSum wrote: ↑Sun Aug 06, 2017 8:18 pm Not at all, humans are supposed to procreate and be as brutal and manipulative in order to succeed at that task,

No, they aren't. That would be an appeal to nature fallacy, giving agency or even god-like authority to evolution.

NonZeroSum wrote: ↑Sun Aug 06, 2017 8:18 pm eudaimonia is simply a higher order contentment with our absurd existence, just because it can be subsumed in ends does not make it consequentialist.

If we judge virtues as virtuous based on how they facilitate Eudaimonia, it is precisely rule consequentialism. It's just after Eudaimonia instead of Utility, or Well Being, or Pickles, or whatever you consequentially aspire to.
I'm not saying Eudaimonia is a credible end goal.

NonZeroSum wrote: ↑Sun Aug 06, 2017 8:18 pm I just can't agree, Nussbaum was ascribing to rigidly virtue ethicists kantian influence, which is the reality,

I was disagreeing with Nussbaum. I don't think that's credible, where it is borrowed by deontology it's too superficial.
Virtue ethics has consequential roots, and consequential justifications in so far as it is any coherent philosophy. NOT utilitarian, but consequentialist of a radically different type.

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Mon Aug 07, 2017 1:07 amDo you mean to say Utilitarianism?

Yeah no I understood Utilitarian is most minimal in it's prescriptions, just that the school of consequentialism is more than virtue ethics, and deontology again with it's many virtues and duties. You might say interests is a more complex system than intersecting virtues, I'm simply talking about the gradations of subjectivity accepted in the formula.

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Mon Aug 07, 2017 1:07 amCan you paraphrase the relevant argument here or quote a bit, and I can try (probably tomorrow)?

Of the Standard of Taste by David Hume (1909)
http://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=3361

Kauffman summarising wrote:Hume thinks that moral values are subjective in the sense that they are perceiver dependent, or value dependent, but he also believes that there is a normativity, that there are ought’s, that there are moral ought’s.

Bob: So how does he get there?

Okay so let me explain how he gets and this is a common strategy again that he employees across the various subjective properties, so let me start with a very easy case, so in the case of color perception, if you tell me that a stop sign is blue, there's a very straightforward sense in which I can say not only that you are wrong, but that you ought to see it as red.

And the sense of ought there that's at work, is in terms of what we would call a competent perceiver or a competent judge. The reason why you're seeing blue is because you are in some way physiologically defective right and this doesn't have any sort of moral conotations, this is simply a statistical judgment, if most people saw stop signs as blue, that would be the norm. So I don't want anyone to get all worked up about this that I'm you know saying that people with disabilities are defective in some moral sense in a purely statistical sense, otherwise we wouldn't call it a disability.

Hume thinks that this can be carried over, so in the case of aesthetic value, he has a paper called ‘Of the standard of taste,’ which I just taught in my aesthetics class and what Hume says there is that beauty is a subjective property, but that there are better and worse judges of beauty.

Such that if someone was to say Britney Spears is better than Mozart, Hume would say there's a very straightforward sense in which that's wrong, and in which we could say to them, you ought to think that Mozart is better than Britney Spears, and the ground on which you want to think that is that that is what a competent judge of music would say.

And Hume’s account of competence in the case of aesthetics is roughly by appeal to certain credentials, experience, sensitivity, etc.

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brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Mon Aug 07, 2017 1:07 amFor the Virtue Ethicist of this type, it's just an assertion, and can neither be argued nor hold any philosophical merit. They must at least attempt to justify their meta-ethical position, otherwise they're "chess players" who sit down and declare victory by rewriting the rules in their favor.

On ethics, part IV: Virtue ethics
http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/on-ethics-part-iv-virtue-ethics.html

Massimo wrote:Modern virtue ethicists tend to have a more expansive and more pluralist view of eudaimonia, recognizing that there are many paths (though not arbitrarily so) to human flourishing. The crucial point is that none of these goes through bad character: for a virtue ethicist, someone who achieves material gains by acting in an non-virtuous way is literally sick, morally speaking, and cannot possibly achieve eudaimonia, regardless of how many riches he accumulates, or how “happy” he tells you (or himself) he is. (As an analogy, think of a drug addict, his insistence that he is happy when experiencing a high, and your reasonable dismissal of his concept of happiness. He is sick, and part of his sickness is found in his delusion that he is happy.)

Another crucial thing to understand about virtue ethics is that there is no contradiction between seeking virtue for one’s own sake (because it’s the path to eudaimonia) and acting right towards other people: the virtues are other-directed, and the concept embeds the intriguing idea that — contra much philosophical and psychological literature — there is no opposition between seeking one’s own and other people’s good. One way to think of this is that for a utilitarian, for instance, a virtue may be good in that it brings about certain consequences rather than others; for a eudaimonicist virtue is good because it is a constituent of eudaimonia, which is good in itself. (Mull that one over for a minute.)

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brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Mon Aug 07, 2017 1:07 am. . .giving agency or even god-like authority to evolution.

Obviously not what I mean as we've talked about on other threads and as I said here more or less blank slate, I have high hopes for cultural evolution surpassing the primal stuff, and an evolutionary ethic attacking it. But anyways agree inator or someone jumping in would be helpful.

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Mon Aug 07, 2017 1:07 am. . .where it is borrowed by deontology it's too superficial.
Virtue ethics has consequential roots. . .

Both consequentialism and deontology have their roots in virtue ethics, deontologists take Aristotle and simply go in another direction.

Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics (Nussbaum)
http://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=3366

Nussbaum wrote:Hellenistic philosophy is hard to study partly on account of its success. The B.C.E. teachings of the major schools beginning in the late fourth century at Athens, have a continuous C.E. history of dissemination and elaboration until (at least) the early centuries at Rome, where some of the most valuable writings in these traditions are produced and where philosophy exerts an enormous influence on the literary and the political culture. This means that one must deal, in effect, with six centuries and two different societies. One cannot deal exhaustively with all the relevant material, copious and heterogeneous as it is. Any treatment must be a sampling. This, then, will not even attempt to be the entire story of Hellenistic ethical thought; nor will it be a highly systematic selective outline. Instead, it will be a somewhat idiosyncratic account of certain central themes, guided by an obsessive pursuit of certain questions-taking as its central guiding motif the analogy between philosophy and medicine as arts of life.

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Mon Aug 07, 2017 12:55 am 2. When actions are judged or prescribed, virtue ethics involves acting in ways to cultivate virtues; that is, it is concerned with the consequences of the actions and how they inspire or degrade virtues. Rather than with Utilitarianism, where utility is the goal, virtue ethics aims to maximize personal virtue.

3. Another round of "why" can either come down to an egoist or existential justification and end there, or wax rule consequentialist saying the best way to see good consequences are to increase virtues which has the emergent effect of good consequences (likely Eudaimonia) which in the modern context may be one statement of lack of faith in human reason, probably due to rationalization, when aiming directly for certain consequences.

I also feel that when virtue ethicists talk about human flourishing, consequentialism is often being smuggled in through the back door. But more in the sense of 3. rather than 2.

The problem of “doing the right thing” is about 1. knowing what the right thing is, and 2. acting correctly when we know what the right thing is. A useful version of virtue ethics may be primarily about moral education, not so much about moral reasoning. It requires people to refine their intuitions and to focus on making themselves into the kind of agents who would make the right choices in general.
But in order for virtue ethics to not be circular, we need some justified measure for which habits are good and which habits are bad, and I think most virtue ethicists haven't really been able to provide a satisfying answer yet. At least not without drawing on consequentialism or deontology.

As for the 2nd point, couldn't we also say that the "goal" of deontology is to maximize correct action, therefore it has a consequentialist layer to it? I think what separates the three schools of thought is which object they see as ethically fundamental. For virtue ethics, that object is character.

I agree that dispositions of character cannot be conceptually prior to actions because they are defined in terms of what actions they are dispositions towards. "Virtues" are meaningless in isolation from actions.
In that sense, if you try to discard all your consequentialist and deontological knowledge and build your ethics up from a virtue ethical foundation, you’re going to have a hard time.

But this may not be an interpretation of virtue ethics as having a consequentialist foundation, it may just be a denial of virtue ethics. I'm not sure.
That's because, at least for the ancient Greeks, virtue ethics is tied to the concept of purpose and the objective ends of human beings. It is, at least a lot of the time, the claim that dispositions of character are ethically fundamental. Not actions, even if actions are our only epistemic ground for talking about character.

NonZeroSum wrote: ↑Mon Aug 07, 2017 2:49 am Yeah no I understood Utilitarian is most minimal in it's prescriptions, just that the school of consequentialism is more than virtue ethics, and deontology again with it's many virtues and duties. You might say interests is a more complex system than intersecting virtues, I'm simply talking about the gradations of subjectivity accepted in the formula.

I don't really know what you're saying here.

Kauffman summarising wrote:if most people saw stop signs as blue, that would be the norm.

That would not make it right, unless the definition was changed.
Blue light is in the range of 450–495 nm, it has a rigorous definition.
Most people would then be wrong.

Kauffman summarising wrote:And Hume’s account of competence in the case of aesthetics is roughly by appeal to certain credentials, experience, sensitivity, etc.

Aesthetics have a clear goal of being pleasing to a certain audience, and if that's people in general we can judge its success relative to that.
The same is not applicable to morality. This is just something like cultural relativism, where majority rules in deciding these things. In morality we are concerned with the being experiencing the consequences of our actions and how it violates that being's interest, not with what most people regard as right or wrong. What people think is only relevant to the word that we find most suitable.

Massimo wrote:Modern virtue ethicists tend to have a more expansive and more pluralist view of eudaimonia,

The key word here is "modern"; then this has nothing to do with the Ancient Greek notion, and we shouldn't equate them.

As an aside:
Consequentialism and Deontology certainly did not evolve from modern virtue ethics.
It's dubious to claim they evolved from anything, but that would be like claiming humans evolved from modern monkeys (something of course you wouldn't do, but if you're relating modern and ancient virtue ethics that's a problem).

Current systems were discovered (did not evolve) through rational investigation into an otherwise incoherent notion. They rose from the primordial soup of pre-philosophical ethics. If you want to equate the non-system of primitive ethical concepts (which is not philosophy but more akin to religion and culture) to modern virtue ethics, that's only an argument that virtue ethics isn't a real ethical system and it has no place as a school of ethics along side more rigorous claimants.

Are we talking about the ancient Greeks here, or contemporary virtue ethics?

Massimo wrote:recognizing that there are many paths (though not arbitrarily so) to human flourishing. The crucial point is that none of these goes through bad character:

This is a useless tautology if you define bad character as something that doesn't result in human flourishing. If you don't define it, you're back to religious assertions and mere culture.

Massimo wrote:for a virtue ethicist, someone who achieves material gains by acting in an non-virtuous way is literally sick, morally speaking, and cannot possibly achieve eudaimonia, regardless of how many riches he accumulates, or how “happy” he tells you (or himself) he is.

So... you just don't believe them if what they tell you is in disagreement with your dogma?
This is an empirical claim, but an unfalsifiable one which again makes this sound more and more like religion and less like philosophy.

Massimo wrote:(As an analogy, think of a drug addict, his insistence that he is happy when experiencing a high, and your reasonable dismissal of his concept of happiness. He is sick, and part of his sickness is found in his delusion that he is happy.)

You need to look at empirical factors and develop a more rigorous definition of eudaimonia that isn't prone to circular logic like this.
In philosophy we don't just dismiss claims like this. Even a drug addict's claim needs to be explored and understood.

Massimo wrote:Another crucial thing to understand about virtue ethics is that there is no contradiction between seeking virtue for one’s own sake (because it’s the path to eudaimonia) and acting right towards other people:

It depends on what virtues you arbitrarily define. If being selfless is a virtue, you have failed to embody it for trying instead for reach eudaimonia for yourself, and so you can never reach it.

Massimo wrote:the virtues are other-directed, and the concept embeds the intriguing idea that — contra much philosophical and psychological literature — there is no opposition between seeking one’s own and other people’s good.

And Jesus is 100% God but also 100% man. And god is one, but also three. How is that kind of assertion useful?

You can't just assert this. Let's see a formal argument, and actually look at the criticism. Let's see a formal structure for any of them; virtue ethics seems to scrape by, like religious mysticism, through being vague and failing to do what is required to be a legitimate philosophy. It dodges criticism by being opaque, and then demands inclusion along side other ethical schools which submit themselves to criticism and formulate their prescriptions rationally.

Deontology is wrong, but at least deontologists are trying to be transparent, to be rational, and to define their terms carefully. That makes it worth talking about. I'm becoming increasingly convinced that virtue ethics as a school is not worth talking about (virtues are, outside the context of its own ethical school, but "virtue ethics" isn't).

Massimo wrote:for a eudaimonicist virtue is good because it is a constituent of eudaimonia, which is good in itself. (Mull that one over for a minute.)

Mull it over forever, because it's circular reasoning.

God is omnibenevolent, we know that because he said so and he can't lie because he's omnibenevolent. He also said he's omniscient, so we know he's not mistaken.

Convenient self-referential definitions and circular reasoning. This is called religion, not philosophy.

NonZeroSum wrote: ↑Mon Aug 07, 2017 2:49 am

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Mon Aug 07, 2017 1:07 am. . .giving agency or even god-like authority to evolution.

Obviously not what I mean as we've talked about on other threads and as I said here more or less blank slate, I have high hopes for cultural evolution surpassing the primal stuff, and an evolutionary ethic attacking it.

That's faith, not an argument.
I think you're using evolution very generously here. Memes can be derived whole cloth; they do not need to evolve like that. We can reason things that are true, and no amount of evolution is going to improve on that accuracy.

I think this is much like the misconception of scientific revolutions. E.g. Einstein did not make Newton wrong in the scope of what he studied, the scope just changed and we got a lot more precise.

NonZeroSum wrote: ↑Mon Aug 07, 2017 2:49 amBut anyways agree inator or someone jumping in would be helpful.

Any thoughts on his contribution above?

NonZeroSum wrote: ↑Mon Aug 07, 2017 2:49 am

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Mon Aug 07, 2017 1:07 am. . .where it is borrowed by deontology it's too superficial.
Virtue ethics has consequential roots. . .

Both consequentialism and deontology have their roots in virtue ethics, deontologists take Aristotle and simply go in another direction.

I covered this above. They are not rooted in contemporary virtue ethics, ore really even classical virtue ethics they basically came from nothing. This is deduction, this isn't scripture; phylogeny of authority or ancestry doesn't matter.

Why I mentioned roots was because when we look at classical philosophy (I thought that was what you were pointing at for authority) it's very consequentialist. That was my point, and I think that's the only rational claimant to the title "virtue ethics", since modern virtue ethics hasn't contributed anything more to it.

I'm not talking about just historical roots (obviously they did not have the term "consequentialism" then), but the grounding that gives the arguments authority.

inator wrote: ↑Tue Aug 08, 2017 5:26 am As for the 2nd point, couldn't we also say that the "goal" of deontology is to maximize correct action, therefore it has a consequentialist layer to it?

No. I think Kant was pretty clear about this. If you asked him why he came up with and wrote on Deontology, I think he would have told you it was his duty (specifically imperfect duty) to cultivate/not waste his intellectual gifts.

For a deontologist, deontology is just a means of saying what is right. It is prescriptive in telling us right and wrong, but it does not have any particular goals in terms of outcome or consequence beyond the immediate action "let justice be done, though the world perish".
It's somewhat more of a "here it is, take it or leave it". It could explain why Kant put in so little energy to addressing criticism or making any kind of apologia. Now as to why some contemporary deontologists DO seem concerned with what people actually do, that's a puzzler.

inator wrote: ↑Tue Aug 08, 2017 5:26 am I agree that dispositions of character cannot be conceptually prior to actions because they are defined in terms of what actions they are dispositions towards. "Virtues" are meaningless in isolation from actions.
In that sense, if you try to discard all your consequentialist and deontological knowledge and build your ethics up from a virtue ethical foundation, you’re going to have a hard time.

But this may not be an interpretation of virtue ethics as having a consequentialist foundation, it may just be a denial of virtue ethics. I'm not sure.

Either way can work, I suppose.
Which is more useful?
I would say giving people more ways to think about consequentialism may be helpful. Diversity of thought and perspective has a certain value in narrowing down on empirical reality. A virtue bias may provide for motivation to discover something that otherwise might not have been.