Virtue Ethics

• The goal of virtue ethics is to attain eudemonia.– Eudemonia: Wholeness,

completeness, fulfillment– The goal is to become all that you can

be as a human being.– The goal is to become a virtuoso at

being human.

• Becoming a virtuoso human is like becoming a virtuoso pianist.– In both cases one must develop certain

skills and qualities, and these must be developed to an excellent degree.

– What skills and qualities one must excel at to become a virtuoso pianist are specified by the nature of piano playing.

– Similarly, what skills and qualities one must excel at to become a virtuoso human being are specified by human nature.

– “Anyone can bang away on a piano; but that is to make noise, not music, and it’s a barbaric, not humanistic, expression of freedom. At first, learning to play the piano is a matter of some drudgery as we master exercises that seem like a constraint, a burden. But, as our mastery grows, we discover a new, richer dimension of freedom: We can play the music we like, we can even create new music on our own.

– “Freedom, in other words, is a matter of gradually acquiring the capacity to choose the good and to do what we choose with perfection.”

George Weigel, “A Better Concept of Freedom”• Virtue

– Virtues are the excellences of character, specified by human nature, that one must develop in order to attain eudemonia.

– A virtuous person makes the right decisions at the right time so that he can achieve wholeness, completeness, and fulfillment.

– Golden Mean• Virtues are always a mid-point between

two extreme vices.• One of the extremes is a deficiency• The other is an excess.

• Examples of Virtues– Courage

• Willingness to risk harm to self for the right reasons, at the right time, to the right degree

• Deficiency – Cowardice• Excess – Foolhardiness

– Temperance• Seeking pleasure at the right time, for

the right reasons, in the right amount• Deficiency – Profligacy• Excess – Priggishness

– Liberality• Spending money for the right reasons,

at the right time, in the right amount.• Deficiency – Miserliness• Excess – Prodigality

– Justice•Rendering to everyone and everything his/her/its just desserts

•Deficiency – Sloth•Excess – Presumptiveness

• How to become virtuous

– “Know Thyself”

• Know your weaknesses

• If your problem is being profligate, then you might want, for a time, to avoid pleasure altogether.

• In other words, you might want to shoot past the goal of temperance, until you have broken yourself of vice and can find the virtuous mean.

– Act “as if.”• If you lack courage, place yourself in a risky

situation, and pretend that you are not afraid.

• If you do this consistently, you will find genuine courage.

• Think of the Cowardly Lion.– He did not wait until he had courage

before he did battle with the Wicked Witch of the West

– He did battle with the Wicked Witch, despite his fear, and, thereby, found his courage.

– Associate with People of Virtue.

• If you associate with people of virtue, their virtue will “rub off” on you.

• “A faithful friend is a sturdy shelter; he who finds one finds a treasure . . . . A faithful friend is a life-saving remedy, such as he who fears God finds, for he who fears God behaves accordingly, and his friend will be like himself.”

The Book of Sirach, Chapter 6

• A Man for All Seasons

– The story of Sir Thomas More

– More was Chancellor of England during the 16th Century, under King Henry VIII

– Henry wanted the Pope to annul his marriage to Katherine of Aragon because she could not give him a male heir.

– The Pope refused to grant Henry an annulment.

– At this point, Henry had an epiphany – he, not the Pope, was the head of the Church in England

– Henry, therefore, broke with Rome, annulled his marriage to Katherine, and married Anne Boelyn.

– Thomas More was totally against what Henry did; so, he resigned as Chancellor and withdrew to near poverty at his home away from London.

– Thomas never spoke out against what Henry did, but neither did he support Henry.

– Thomas believed that by remaining silent he could preserve both his integrity and his life.

– Sadly, however, Henry did not leave More alone in his silence.

– We pick up the film as Master Secretary Cromwell calls More in for questioning.

– As you watch, ask yourself: “Does More find the courageous mean between cowardice and foolhardiness?”

• Why didn’t More swear to the oath to save his skin?

– As a devout man, he believed he would go to Hell if he were foresworn.

– “Listen, Meg, when a man takes an oath, he is holding his own self in his own hands, like water – and, if he opens his fingers then, he needn’t hope to find himself again.”Sir Thomas More, A Man for All Seasons

– “Thomas More . . . became for me a man with an adamantine sense of his own self. He knew where he began and left off, what area of himself he could yield to the encroachments of his enemies, and what to the encroachments of those he loved . . . . [B]ut, at length he was asked to retreat from that final area where he located his self. And, there this supple, humorous, unassuming, and sophisticated person set like metal, was taken over by an absolutely primitive rigor, and could no more be budged than a cliff.”

Robert Bolt, Preface to A Man for All Seasons

– In the end, More would rather die than give up his integrity.

• Why did Henry VIII want More’s approval so much?– “[Cromwell:] The King’s a man of

conscience, and he wants either Sir Thomas More to bless his marriage or Sir Thomas More destroyed. [Rich:] They seem odd alternatives, Secretary. [Cromwell:] Do they? That’s because you’re not a man of conscience.

– “If the King destroys a man, that’s proof to the King that it must have been a bad man, the kind of man a man of conscience ought to destroy – and, of course, a bad man’s blessing’s not worth having. So, either will do.”

A Man for All Season

– A guilty conscience caused Henry to destroy Thomas More.

– Henry’s need either to get More’s blessing or to destroy him is really a backhanded tribute to the importance of integrity.

– Henry could no more live without integrity than More, but, while More was willing to die for integrity, Henry was willing to kill for it.

– Thus, both Thomas More and Henry VIII, in very different ways, illustrate the importance of integrity, i.e wholeness, completeness, fulfillment.