Virtue Ethics: The Foundation of Morality

So, I have this really awful class which actually makes me think (it's terrible!) with the worst teacher imaginable... heehee! :D Sorry, just had to joke around. You see, I'm taking philosophy this semester, and my dad teaches it. Really, what's family for but to give each other a hard time. In actuality, it's pretty much my favorite class and he's my favorite teacher (though all of my classes and teachers are great this semester). 

Anyway, we studied ethics these past couple of weeks, and I chose to write my essay on virtue ethics. Truthfully, I don't know how much the following will make sense if you don't know anything about ethics, but I thought I'd post it considering I haven't posted anything for a while (...unless you count the rants, of course).

Virtue Ethics: The Foundation of Morality

Aristotle believed that one could not be a moral person simply by having the correct ethical theory. He stated in his work Nicomachean Ethics that most people will theorize without acting and imagine that simply doing so will make them virtuous, much like a patient who listens to his doctor and then never does anything the doctor says, believing all the while he is getting better. In other words, he believed that knowledge concerning morality is nothing without action and that it is only through action that we can become moral and virtuous. So, in essence, philosophical theories concerning ethics may state what is or isn’t moral, but that means nothing if we never act on those theories. Many times, even when we do act, we still cannot determine if we are moral people, due to the strong focus on action and not on character. Unlike the other ethical theories, virtue ethics focuses on being a moral person, not on the morality of actions. Only virtue ethics addresses the significance of character in the study of ethics and proposes the perspective that it is virtue and not theory that influences our actions.

It is more important to be a moral person than to simply perform moral acts. Studying and applying moral theories does little to make us moral people. Applying the principles proposed in a theory can be beneficial to your endeavor to be a moral person, but even if you consistently act according to those principles you are not necessarily a truly moral person. Suppose you decide to shovel your widowed neighbor’s walk. If you do this simply because it is your duty, not through generosity and concern, then you are doing the right thing, but you are not a moral person. You are moral when you act sincerely because it is in your nature, and you develop this second nature by cultivating habits. In other words, in order to be a moral person, we must endeavor to become virtuous. This means that we must act morally not because it is our duty, but because it is what a virtuous person would do.

Some might object that, in order to be virtuous, we must know and practice what is moral. We need to know what is right and wrong to practice being virtuous. They may argue that the theory of virtue ethics offers little guidance in knowing what is moral, while other theories such as utilitarianism and Kantian ethics provide straightforward principles.

However, the common belief that moral theories such as utilitarianism and Kantian ethics provide the groundwork for our moral intuitions is not true. Take the well-known thought experiment of stopping a runaway trolley by pushing a man off a bridge. Intuitively we sense that pushing him off would be immoral, but theories attempt to account for those intuitions in different ways. This shows that our moral intuition is not formulated from or based on moral theories. In fact, it is our concept of what a moral person would do that determines our choices. That moral person is our personification of the ideal or, in other words, of virtue. Therefore, ethical theories do not affect our choices and actions. It is virtue that influences our actions.

I have shown that theories or, more specific, their moral principles do little to determine the morality of persons and that they do not actually provide the foundation for our moral intuitions and actions. Instead of asking what we should or shouldn’t do, we must ask, “What would an ideal moral person do?” This question is at the core of ethics. Thus, moral virtues and the conception of the ideal moral person lay the foundation for morality and, therefore, for ethics. One remaining question is what constitutes virtue in a diverse society.