Practical Philosophy: Moral Character

Aristotle on virtue

Go back to list of character descriptions you thought of about yourself and the ones your friends used to describe you. How many are moral traits and how many are morally neutral traits?

Why do we discuss, remember and admire people like Malala and Mandela? Is it for their moral traits or their non-moral traits? Do we care if Malala is good fun at parties? If Mandela was extroverted and flamboyant?

If your friends used mainly non-moral terms to describe you, don’t be discouraged – most people are not used to thinking in moral terms. We need to take some time to understand even the most fundamental terms in the discussion.

Consider the following three cases. We usually praise people when they do something good, something praiseworthy. In the following three cases, something good happens but we are reluctant to award full praise. Can you identify what is not quite right in each of the cases? Why would we be reluctant to fully praise each of these people?

1. Mary is trying to buy a really expensive prom dress online. She has saved for ages for this dress and she wants to spend £1000 on it because it is a special night and she wants to indulge herself. She has found the perfect dress, but she becomes a bit confused with all the different advertising pop ups that come up as she is trying to complete the purchase. Because she is so flustered she presses the wrong button and instead of buying the prom dress she donates £1000 to a charity which brings clean water to isolated villages. The charity is a genuine, effective charity and the donation goes towards a well which benefits hundreds of people living in a remote village. Has something good happened here? Should we praise Mary for her action?
2. Amir is on a date with Maya. He has liked Maya for a long time and this is his first chance to impress her. As they are walking around the campus lake they notice a young child drowning in the water. There is no one else around to help. Amir quickly calculates how impressed Maya will be if he saves the child and he rushes into the lake. His quick actions save the child and Amir is pleased because Maya will now think of him as a brave and kind person. Has something good happened here? Should we praise Amir for his action?
3. Ms Saunders is a teacher in a school with a serious bullying problem. On Monday she is in a really good mood because she had a wonderful weekend, so when she sees a group of bullies tormenting a student she steps in and saves him. On Tuesday she is very annoyed because she spilled sauce on her favourite top so when she sees the bullies at it again, she doesn’t even notice them because she is so focused on her annoyance. On Wednesday she is feeling pessimistic about the world. The bullies are taunting another child, she watches them from afar but can’t be bothered to interfere – what is the point anyway? On Thursday she has just gotten news that she has been promoted so she is full of good cheer and gives everyone including the bullies the reward of a double recess.

REFLECT ON THE ABOVE BEFORE READING ON

If you can, write down your thoughts on each on of these cases.

All these three cases show that doing the right thing isn’t quite enough for moral praise.

• Mary does something good – a large number of people benefit from her donation. But she did it by accident. She did not intend to donate, she intended to benefit herself. So she can’t be praised for being self-serving and benefiting others by accident or mistakenly.
• Amir does something good – he saves a life. But he doesn’t do it because lives are worth saving, he does it to impress Maya. Presumably if Maya was not around Amir would not bother with saving the child.
• Ms Saunders seems quite weird. She seems to do the right thing only when she is in a good mood. She doesn’t have a disposition to act well, which suggests that she doesn’t understand why acting well matters.

Now consider Aristotle’s definition of virtue from the Nicomachean Ethics:

Virtue is a purposive disposition, lying in a mean relative to the person and the situation and determined by the right reason and by what they virtuous person would use to determine it.

REFLECT ON THE ABOVE BEFORE READING ON

Can you see the link between the three case studies and Aristotle’s understanding of virtue?

Answer: Aristotle’s conception of virtue is purposive. That means that the act is chose, knowingly and for its own sake. The act is not done by mistake, by accident or in ignorance. It is chosen because it is the right thing to do. For example, the charitable person makes a donation for the purposes of benefiting the cause of the charity. Virtue is also a disposition. This means that it is not a one off, or an unpredictable series of acts, or whimsical. A disposition is a stable, settled character trait, which is displayed reliably and over a long period of time. For example, kind person stands up to bullies every time she comes across them because kindness is part of who she is and not something she can switch on and off depending on how she feels on that day. Virtue is also determined by the right reason. That is, courage is displayed for the sake of courage not for the sake of impressing other people or making a personal gain.
We will not be discussing Aristotle’s claim that virtue lies in a mean here, but you can continue more in depth with these ideas in this lesson. We have touched a little bit on the possibility of the virtuous person acting as a role model in our discussion of Malala and Mandela, and we will develop this further in this lesson.

Click here for the answer Hide answer

For a short discussion of Aristotle’s virtue see this video.