Virtues and VicesPhilippa Foot (2002)

Chapter 7.1 ETCI • Barbara MacKinnonEthics and Contemporary Issues

Professor Douglas Olena

Thesis One113 “…[I]t seems that virtues are, in some general way, beneficial.”“Human beings do not get on well without them.”“Nobody can get on well if he lacks courage, and does not have some measure of temperance and wisdom.”

Thesis One: example

113 “Communities where justice and charity are lacking are likely to be wretched places to live, as Russia under the Stalinist terror or Sicily under the Mafia.”

The Benefit Goes to:

113 Does the benefit of the virtue go to the person with the virtue or to the people who are affected by that person?

The Benefit Goes to:

113 “In the case of some of the virtues the answer seems clear.”“Courage, temperance and wisdom benefit both the man who has these dispositions and the other people as well.”

The Benefit Goes to:

113 In the cases of justice and charity, the answer is not so clear.It seems as if the charitable person benefits the other more than himself.It may even be that the charitable person loses in the performance of the virtue.

The Benefit Goes to:

113, 114 “Virtues are in general beneficial characteristics, and indeed ones that a human being needs to have, for his own sake and that of his fellows.”

Virtue is in the Will

114 Foot explains that excellences of the mind and body are not what we call virtuous.“It is the will that is good in a man of virtue.”What does this mean?

Virtue is in the Will

114 “It is primarily by his intentions that a man’s moral dispositions are judged.”In many cases, however, it is not merely intention but performance that is judged.Virtue may require not only performance but attitude.

Wisdom: the Virtue

114 “Wisdom, as I see it, has two parts.”“In the first place the wise man knows the means to certain good ends; and secondly he knows how much particular ends are worth.”

Wisdom

115 Wisdom is not cleverness, but rather “is related only to good ends and to human life in general.”Wisdom is available to any person, not just those with special training or innate cleverness.

Wisdom

115 For the first part of wisdom, “the man who is wise does not merely know how to do good things… but must also want to do them.”The second part of wisdom, having to do with values, is much harder to describe.

Wisdom

115 “What we can see is that one of the things a wise man knows and a foolish man does not is that such things as social position, and wealth, and the good opinion of the world, are too dearly bought at the cost of health or friendship or family ties.”

Wisdom

115 “So we may say that a man who lacks wisdom ‘has false values,’ and that vices such as vanity and worldliness and avarice are contrary to wisdom in a special way.”

Wisdom

115 “Wisdom in this second part is, therefore, partly to be described in terms of apprehension, and even judgment, but since it has to do with a man’s attachments it also characterizes his will.”

Virtue

116 “Virtue is not, like a skill or an art, a mere capacity: it must actually engage the will.

II. Virtues as Correctives

116 Virtues “are corrective, each one standing at a point at which there is some temptation to be resisted or deficiency of motivation to be made good.”“It is only because fear and the desire for pleasure often operate as temptations that courage and temperance exist as virtues at all.

II. Virtues as Correctives

116 “If human nature had been different there would have been no need for a corrective disposition in either place, as fear and pleasure would have been good guides to conduct throughout life.”

II. Virtues as Correctives

116 Virtues are categorized as correctives to associated vices by Aquinas.industriousness as against idlenesshumility as against the temptation of pridehope because despair is a temptation

II. Virtues as Correctives

117 Justice and charity are set over against a deficiency in human character.If we would love others as ourselves, we would need no virtue of beneficence.If we would treat our neighbors fairly, we would need no virtue of justice.

II. Virtues as Correctives

117 “On this view of the virtues and vices everything is seen to depend on what human nature is like.”“The virtues can be seen as correctives in relation to human nature in general but not that each virtue must present a difficulty to each and every man.”

II. Virtues as Correctives

It is at this point that we can see how the concept of natural law and natural rights plays into our discussion of virtue.

II. Virtues as Correctives118 There is a question posed by Foot. Does the difficulty in carrying out the virtuous act ad moral worth to the act itself?She responds by citing Kant’s philanthropist who though distracted from the purpose of doing charity, nonetheless does it out of duty. This to Foot increases the moral worth of the act.

III. Virtues and Vice

119 Can virtue serve the cause of villainy?Aquinas says no. “Virtues can produce only good actions, and that they are dispositions ‘of which no one can make bad use.’”

III. Virtues and Vice

119 Can virtue serve the cause of villainy?The current opinion is mostly affirmative.Outside the unpalatable villain who is courageous in crime, the question of doing an injustice for a friend remains.

III. Virtues and Vice

120 It does not follow that if one were courageous in a criminal act that the act itself is courageous.“We are inclined to say that it ‘took courage,’ and yet it seems wrong to think of courage as equally connected with good action and bad.”

III. Virtues and Vice

120 “One way out of this difficulty might be to say that the man who is ready to pursue bad ends does indeed have courage, and shows courage in his action, but that in him courage is not a virtue.”

III. Virtues and Vice

120 The same can be said of someone who is over-industrious or too ready to refuse pleasure.In him industriousness and moderation are not virtues.

III. Virtues and Vice121 “For while wisdom always operates as a virtue, its close relation prudence does not, and it is prudence that inspires many a careful life.”It is this that Kant warned about when he said that “these gifts of nature may also become extremely bad and mischievous if the will that is to make use of them… is not good.” (76)