Re: Virtue Ethics, Deontological Ethics, and Biotechnology

John Howard Yoder, is another name that comes to mind. "The politics of Jesus."
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: David Opderbeck
  To: D. F. Siemens, Jr.
  Cc: asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Saturday, May 13, 2006 9:06 AM
  Subject: Re: Virtue Ethics, Deontological Ethics, and Biotechnology

  Dave -- Virtue Ethics is a third option besides deontology and consequentialism (a form of teleological ethics). Virtue Ethics go back to Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics and are prominent in thought of Thomas Acquinas. See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_ethics One of the leading modern works on Virtue Ethics is Alisdair MacIntyre's "After Virtue." I'm finding the notion of virtue ethics attractive because it seems to give a proper place to both deontology and consequentialism: the development of virtues or character in people and communities. This seems consistent with a wholistic view of Biblical ethics, which aren't sets of rules for their own sake, but are part of God's plan to bring us and all of creation into shalom -- everything right, good, as it should be.

   
  On 5/13/06, D. F. Siemens, Jr. <dfsiemensjr@juno.com> wrote:
    David,
    I've studied ethics. I've taught ethics. I've checked the /Encyclopedia of Philosophy/ and a couple dictionaries of philosophy. I've not found any reference to virtue ethics. The standard pair among philosophers is deontological ethics (duty centered) and teleological or axiological ethics (value centered). There are also such irrational variants as emotive ethics, which taught that the intensity of feeling is the sole determinant of the ethical status of an action or attitude.

    There are variations on both broad categories. There are naive deontological ethics, such as the claim that our duty is given in the Ten Commandments. This is futile, for they do not cover all eventualities. More sophisticate members give a rule for determining duty, as Kant did. Teleological ethics will specify the value or hierarchy of values that determine the morality of an action.

    One of the matters I found interesting is that most of the ethical systems produce the same evaluation of behavior. There are aberrations, of course. The guy now at Princeton who favors infanticide on utilitarian grounds. PETA which favors the non-human above the human.
    Dave

    On Fri, 12 May 2006 22:39:20 -0400 "David Opderbeck" <dopderbeck@gmail.com> writes:
    I'm starting work on a paper that will examine a virtue ethics approach to biotechnology patent law. I'm getting reasonably well-versed in virtue ethics from secular and Catholic social theory perspectives, but I'm also trying to dig up evangelical perspectives. It seems there is some tension between deontological and virtue approaches within evangelicalism -- or maybe that's just my misperception based on early stage research. Anyway, I'd be grateful if anyone here is aware of any good sources from an evangelical / protestant perspective. (I'm aware of Hauerwas and the anabaptist tradition).

    Thanks.
Received on Sat May 13 18:17:04 2006