Abstract
In this essay, I identify an important problem that has plagued virtue ethics since its inception and offer something of a solution. The problem to which I refer is the inability of many virtue ethicists to understand properly the relationship between law and virtue. This essay will unfold in four sections. First, we will discuss the causes of this inability among virtue ethicists to see clearly the connection between law and virtue. We will focus on the work of Rosalind Hursthouse and argue that she does not adequately understand the political dimension of human nature. Second, we will draw upon both Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, two crucial sources for virtue ethics, to understand how law functions as a necessary foundation for virtue; we will argue that law is a training in and support for virtuous action, while virtue in turn perfects the law by bringing out its full dynamism and intelligibility. Third, we will continue to discuss Aristotle’s understanding of law and virtue by appealing to his distinction between natural and legal justice, and we will offer an Aristotelian account of how one comes to know the natural law. Finally, fourth, we will develop points from the ancient craft analogy to virtue. Just as skillful activity is founded upon rules but transcends mechanical rule-following behavior, so too virtuous actions are founded upon law but transcend mere law-abiding behavior. This section shows that our account does not violate the so-called “non-codifiability” thesis, nor does it fall into law or rule “fetishism.”
We should have said that [the law-giver] enacted laws aimed not to some one fraction, and that the most paltry, of virtue, but to virtue as a whole, and that he devised the laws themselves according to classes, though not the classes which the current law-givers propound.
(Plato, Laws).
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Hursthouse (1999, 35).
- 3.
Ibid., 37.
- 4.
Ibid., 36.
- 5.
Ibid., 39. For an account of objections to virtue ethics, including the objection that it does not provide action guidance, and an attempt to respond to these objections, see Solomon (1997).
- 6.
Ibid., 192.
- 7.
As we will discuss below, Hursthouse often speaks of human beings as social, but she fails to note that we are not just social but political. See Hursthouse (1999, 219 and 251), inter alia. She comes closest to recognizing the importance of law on p. 253. Philippa Foot, by contrast, comes much closer to understanding the political dimension of human nature by acknowledging that it is natural for human agents to live by law. Foot says, «The making of laws, and obedience to them, is as much part of human life as flying is of bird life or hunting in packs a part of the life of wolves.» Foot (2004). Foot’s admission of the importance of law does not weaken my objection against “virtue ethics” because Foot herself claims that she is not committed to a “virtue theory of ethics.” She says virtue ethicists, such as Hursthouse, «insist that dispositions, motives, and other ‘internal’ elements are the primary subjects and determinants of moral goodness and badness. I myself have never been a ‘virtue ethicist’ in this sense. For me it is what is done that stands in this position.» Ibid., 2.
- 8.
Hursthouse (1999, 5–7). In another work, Hursthouse discusses a “continuity” between ethics and political science, and she claims that virtue poses a constraint on law and political authority. See Hursthouse (1990). In this essay, she attempts to locate a concept of rights within an Aristotelian framework. While I do not have space to give a detailed response to this claim, I would argue that such attempts are ultimately unsatisfactory. For an overview of various attempts to integrate some version of virtue ethics with political philosophy, see Lebar (2013).
- 9.
O’Connor (1988, 417).
- 10.
Coope (2007, 20).
- 11.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (NE), V.1, 1129b39-33. I consult and modify the translation of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics by Irwin (1999). Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company.
- 12.
NE, V.1, 1130a2-4.
- 13.
NE, V.1, 1129a33-35.
- 14.
It is helpful to see virtue ethics as one species of ethical naturalism. The problems I have identified do not pertain equally to every form of ethical naturalism. Indeed, the approach I develop in the following sections could be called a kind of ethical naturalism. For an overview of various kinds of ethical naturalism, including a discussion of how law functions in Alasdair MacIntyre’s work, see Toner (2008). Sorts of naturalism: Requirements for a successful theory. Metaphilosophy 29: 220–250.
- 15.
See Hursthouse (1999, 197–205).
- 16.
Ibid., 218.
- 17.
I would add that we must identify a “sixth end”; political life is the penultimate end for rational beings, and I would argue, in agreement with Plato, Aristotle, and Thomas Aquinas, that the theoretic life is the highest end of a rational animal. See Aristotle, Politics, Book VII, Chaps. 2–3. Translations of the Politics will be taken from Aristotle (2013). Politics.
- 18.
Ibid., 219.
- 19.
See Aristotle, Politics, I.2, 1253a7-18.
- 20.
For an exception to the tendency among virtue ethicists to neglect the role of law, see Slote (1995).
- 21.
See Aquinas, Thomas. Summa theologiae (St), I–II, Question 90. Timothy Chappell fails to adequately distinguish between laws and rules in an otherwise interesting and insightful essay. See Chappell (2014).
- 22.
For Aristotle, an entity’s ergon, arete, and telos are inseparably linked; what a thing is determines its end and perfection. See Aristotle. NE, I.7, 1097b21-1098a21.
- 23.
Aristotle. Politics, VII.1, 1323b21-23.
- 24.
See Politics, I.2, 1253a3-4, 27–29.
- 25.
For the claim that human beings are political animals, see Politics, I.1, 1253a2-4; NE, IX.9, 1169b16-23.
- 26.
Politics, VII.8, 1328a35-b1.
- 27.
Politics, VII.1, 1323b31-36.
- 28.
See NE, II.1, 1103b22-25.
- 29.
NE, X.9, 1179b32-36.
- 30.
See NE, X.9, 1180a1-5.
- 31.
For Aristotle’s claim that the works of friendship are the telos of the city, see Politics, III.V, 1280b39-40.
- 32.
See Eudemian Ethics, 1234b18-30.
- 33.
NE, VIII.1, 1155a24-25.
- 34.
See NE, IX.6, 1167b1-5; VIII.1, 1155a24-30.
- 35.
NE, V.1, 1129b20-30.
- 36.
See NE, V.7 and Rhetoric, I.13.
- 37.
Miller (1991, 305).
- 38.
Ibid., 306. Miller also recognizes that Aristotle’s theory of natural law differs in important respects from later natural law thinkers, such as Aquinas.
- 39.
I refer to the laws of a given political community as “positive law,” which is distinct from “natural law” that, according to Aristotle, binds all people in all polities.
- 40.
See Anscombe (1981, 30–33). For a discussion of the separation between virtue ethics and natural law ethics, see (2015, 227–254).
- 41.
Anscombe. “Modern Moral philosophy,” 38.
- 42.
Aristotle. Physics, I.1, 184a15-21. Aristotle uses this distinction at NE, I.4, 1095b1-6.
- 43.
- 44.
Slade (1997, 83).
- 45.
See NE, III.2, 1111b19-30.
- 46.
Slade. Ends and purposes, 83.
- 47.
MacIntyre (2014, 808).
- 48.
See Plato, Apology, 17d-18a. Socrates asks the jury members to “pay no attention to my manner of speech—be it better or worse—but to concentrate your attention on whether what I say is just or not, for the excellence of a judge lies in this, as that of a speaker lies in telling the truth.”
- 49.
MacIntyre (2014, 817–818). MacIntyre also makes excellent use of Slade’s distinction between ends and purposes in 2016.
- 50.
Slade (2000, 67–68).
- 51.
See Aristotle. NE, V.7, 1134b19-1135a15.
- 52.
See St, I-II, q. 94, a. 5; I-II, q. 96, a. 4, ad. 1; I-II, q. 96, a. 5, ad. 2.
- 53.
Not every action that runs counter to the ends of things constitutes a serious moral offense. “Walking” on one’s hands may be unintelligent, but it is not morally significant in most cases. The closer an end approaches to the core of human happiness in political community, the more serious an action directly frustrating that end would be. This view also requires something like an ecological awareness, a vision of human beings as embedded in a natural environment that they transcend in dignity but must steward. Due to limitations in space, I cannot develop these points further. See my article 2016.
- 54.
Sokolowski (2004, 523).
- 55.
See Aquinas (1993), Book III, lect. 10, n. 494.
- 56.
Anscombe says, «We have absolute prohibitions indeed, but you would not be guaranteed to do no wrong purely by abstaining from what they positively prohibited. Take lying. If you are not to lie, that doesn’t tell you what you are to do in a particular situation: tell the truth? Mislead in some other way? Turn the subject? Make a joke? Say nothing? Lose your temper? Or whatever else might be a good course of action. Nor is it always clear what committing the offending action is.» This text is from her essay (2008, 231).
- 57.
- 58.
Vogler (2013, 244).
- 59.
Ibid., 257.
- 60.
Hursthouse (1999, 211).
- 61.
I wish to thank Francis Petruccelli for helpful comments on an earlier version of this essay.
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Roniger, S.J. (2019). Virtue Without Law? A Problem and Prospect for Virtue Ethics. In: Grimi, E. (eds) Virtue Ethics: Retrospect and Prospect. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15860-6_10
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