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A New Form of Agent-Based Virtue Ethics

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Abstract

In Morals From Motives, Michael Slote defends an agent-based theory of right action according to which right acts are those that express virtuous motives like benevolence or care. Critics have claimed that Slote’s view— and agent-based views more generally— cannot account for several basic tenets of commonsense morality. In particular, the critics maintain that agent-based theories: (i) violate the deontic axiom that “ought” implies “can”, (ii) cannot allow for a person’s doing the right thing for the wrong reason, and (iii) do not yield clear verdicts in a number of cases involving “conflicting motives” and “motivational over-determination”. In this paper I develop a new agent-based theory of right action designed to avoid the problems presented for Slote’s view. This view makes morally right action a matter of expressing an optimal balance of virtue over vice and commands agents in each situation to improve their degree of excellence to the greatest extent possible.

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Notes

  1. In Slote’s words, an agent-based theory of right action “treats the moral or ethical status of an action as entirely derivative from independent and fundamental ethical/aretaic facts (or claims) about the motives, dispositions, or inner life of moral individuals”, Slote (2001), p. 7.

  2. Slote (2001).

  3. For general criticism of agent-basing, see Karen Stohr and Christopher Heath Wellman (2002), pp. 49–54. See also David Copp and David Sobel (2004) pp. 518–525, and pp. 547–551, and Ramon Das (2003), pp. 324–39.

  4. See Thomas Hurka (2001), pp. 225–226. See also Daniel Jacobson (2002), pp. 53–67, and Copp and Sobel (2004), pp. 550–551. For a defense of the idea that virtue-ethicists in general need not accept “ought” implies “can”, see Stocker (1971), pp. 303–315.

  5. See Scott Gelfand (2000), pp. 87–88; Jacobson (2002), pp. 58–62; Ramon Das (2003), pp. 324–30; and Michael Brady (2004), pp. 1–10.

  6. See Julia Driver (1995), pp. 281–288, and Jacobson (2002), pp. 56–57.

  7. Scott Gelfand (2000) pp. 85–94 and Liezel van Zyl (2005) pp. 273–288 and (2009a) pp. 50–69 have formulated “hypothetical” agent-based approaches to right action. They claim that their views avoid some of the main problems listed above (van Zyl (2009a) focuses her attention solely on the right action/wrong reason objection). I will not discuss either of these views in any detail here. I will only register my doubts about their plausibility. The reason I am suspicious of these views is that each seems to collapse into one that is equivalent to Hurtshouse’s (1999). On Hursthouse’s view, an action is morally permitted if it is what a virtuous person would do in the agent’s circumstances. This problem with this theory is that it is extensionally inadequate. There are situations no virtuous person would ever be in (e.g. ones that have as prerequisites the manifestation of some vice); in such situations, Hursthosue’s criterion implies (counter-intuitively) that every action is wrong. See Robert Johnson (2003), pp. 810–834 for a lucid presentation of this criticism. For an interesting virtue-based hypothetical criterion of right action that avoids this problem see Jason Kawall (2002), pp. 197–222. Kawall essentially ties right action to what an ideally virtuous person would deem right in the agent’s situation and not to what the ideally virtuous person would do in such a situation. For another hypothetical criterion of right action that purports to avoid the criticisms of Hursthouse’s view, see Tiberius (2006) pp. 247–265. Tiberius makes the rightness of an action a function of the reasons that would guide the perfectly virtuous person in a situation similar in certain respects to the agent’s.

  8. For general defenses of agent-based approaches to right action, see Watson (1990), van Zyl (2005) and (2009a), and Kawall (2009).

  9. Slote (2001), pp. 29–30 and 36–37. As Slote points out, partialistic varieties of agent-basing bear close affinity to the care-based theories of Carol Gilligan (1982), and Nel Noddings (1984).

  10. Slote (2001), p. 35.

  11. In Slote’s own words, “an act is morally acceptable if and only if it comes from a good or virtuous motivation involving benevolence or caring (about the well-being of others) or at least doesn’t come from bad or inferior motivation involving malice or indifference to humanity” (2001), p. 38.

  12. These definitions logically imply the following:

    1. (1)

      Some permissible actions are not morally right (since some permissible actions are performed from morally neutral motives).

    2. (2)

      Some obligatory actions are not morally right (since sometimes the only permissible action in the situation stems from a morally neutral motive).

    See van Zyl (2009b), pp. 91–104 for a defense of claim (1) and Russell (2008), pp. 299–315 for a defense of claim (2).

  13. Hurka, (2001), p. 227.

  14. Jacobson, (2002), p. 59.

  15. Of course, Slote could save his view from this consequence by denying that the wicked individual has an obligation to avoid harming the innocent person. After all, if the wicked individual cannot refrain from harming the innocent person with an acceptable motive, then, by the contraposition of “ought” implies “can”, he has no obligation to refrain from harming the innocent person. But, of course, accepting this implication would render the view deeply implausible.

  16. Das (2003), pp. 327 and van Zyl (2009a) pp. 56 make similar points.

  17. Jacobson (2002), pp. 57–62.

  18. Brady (2004), pp. 4–7.

  19. Hurka (2001), pp. 226–227.

  20. It should be obvious that the “right action/wrong reason” objection is related to the “ought” implies “can” objection. Both objections are based on individuals who are not properly motivated; accordingly, either case could be used to introduce either objection. I am here keeping the objections separated primarily because they are distinguished in the literature, but also because the objections raise distinct problems. The “ought” implies “can” objection represents a formal defect in Slote’s theory; it shows how Slote’s interpretation of “ought” fails to cohere with the ordinary logic of this concept. By contrast, the “right action/wrong reason” objection represents a practical defect in the theory since it shows why the theory fails to be action guiding in certain circumstances.

  21. Jacobson (2002), p. 56.

  22. Driver (1995), p. 286.

  23. Thus, I am more or less following Slote (1992), pp. 93–96 in my analysis of virtues and vices.

  24. Cf. Thomas Hurka (2006), pp. 69–76, and Williams (1985), pp. 13–23.

  25. Other conditions would have to be specified by a full-blown theory of justice. It is not my intention here to offer an analysis of justice or of any other virtue.

  26. To be clear, on the current view, alternatives contain as constituents the agent’s psychological configuration.

  27. The claim that expressions of virtue and vice are measurable phenomena is entirely compatible with the kind of contextualism that Swanton (2003) endorses. To make the measures of expression of virtue and vice compatible with contextualism, all that we would need to do (formally speaking) is let the standards for satisfying the conditions of the various virtues (and of the various vices) vary from circumstance to circumstance.

  28. We could, of course, weight some virtues more heavily than others in order to discount “easy virtue”. This would complicate the computation of net-IVV but perhaps make the view more plausible. Thanks to an anonymous referee for making this suggestion.

  29. Some temporal issues surrounding the calculation of net-IVV are worth mentioning. To find an action’s net-IVV, we have to consider the interval of time that it takes the agent to perform the action. Sometimes, actions amount only to “decisions” and are nearly temporally un-extended. In these circumstances, the action’s net-IVV is quite easy to find. Just consider the time of the decision: add up the values of all of the expressions of virtue and all of the expressions of vice that occur in the performance of that action at that time. In other cases, the actions include more than just single decisions: they include a number of complex behaviors that take some longer period of time to perform. To find the agent’s net-IVV for a complex action, we have to consider all of the expressions of virtue and all of the expressions of vices that occur in the performance of that action over that extended interval.

  30. Though the view Swanton (2003) endorses is pluralist, it is in at least two ways distinct from the present proposal. First, Swanton says her view makes actions that are “overall vicious” wrong, p. 240. Second, she claims that her “target-centered view will tolerate moral luck in the attainment of moral rightness, for rightness may depend in part on the results not entirely within the control of the agent”, p. 232. Since MEV is an internalist form of agent-basing it does not countenance luck (at least with respect to the results of actions); thus it is clearly different from Swanton’s.

  31. To some, this last implication may sound strange. However, it is no more strange than the implications that standard forms of consequentialism have for cases in which no matter what the agent does, he will bring about a bad result. In these sorts of situation, the agent is obligated to bring about the least worst outcome.

  32. Many thanks are due to Fred Feldman, Meghan Masto, and two anonymous reviewers for valuable comments and helpful suggestions on earlier drafts of this paper.

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    Daniel Doviak

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Doviak, D. A New Form of Agent-Based Virtue Ethics. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 14, 259–272 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-010-9240-0

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