Re: Virtue Ethics, Deontological Ethics, and Biotechnology

On Saturday, May 13, 2006, David Opderbeck asked:

>>>Interesting -- why is this? Is this much different than the American founders' idea that democracy requires an educated and virtuous public?<<<

In response to my comment:

>>>Aristotle's ethics (and virtue ethics generally) is an elitist ethics; it is profoundly undemocratic and assumes inequality among persons.<<<

Aristotle has an essentialist and teleological understanding of human nature. This means that the resources for becoming an ethical person are acquired over a period of time, and those resources need to be continually directed toward the actualization of our essential humanity. This takes time and leisure. No one is born with these resources, and not everyone can acquire them. For Aristotle, becoming an ethical person is like becoming a world-class athlete -- both require a focused discipline over a considerable space of a lifetime. Those who must necessarily devote their energies to daily labor, raising a family, and other mundane tasks, will not be able to fully realize their humanity as ethical citizens. That's what I mean by an "elitist" ethics.

You can see this in Aristotle's *Politics*, where he claims that slaves and women must be ruled, rather than be rulers; they are incapable of acquiring the full range of virtues necessary to rule with justice, so they cannot be completely actualized as ethical beings. Elitist, no? But the most obvious place to glimpse Aristotle's elitism is in Book X of the *Ethics*, where he appears to identify the final stage of happiness (which is the ultimate goal of a moral life) with "contemplation." Becoming an ethical person culminates with a state of interior rumination on the Good, the True and the Beautiful (what Aquinas will later reify into the Beatific Vision). But only a few ever reach this state, not least because it requires a good deal of idle time in which to reflect on these verities.

As for the American founders, my guess is that they are more Lockean than Aristotelian, and their notion of virtue is practical political virtue, concluding in a kind of civic wisdom rather than in a life of idle contemplation.

>>>As I'm starting to think this through, this is one of my main questions -- how virtue ethics relate to a Christian concept of original sin. But Acquinas seems to have done it ok.<<<

I think I'd disgaree here. Aquinas is not a virtue ethicist; his moral philosophy is grounded in a revitalized rendition of the ancient worldview of natural law. He discusses both moral and theological virtues, but these virtues are not acquired through a lifetime of habitual public discipline, but are infused into us by grace and actualized through obedience to the divine precepts of the natural law. I'm not sure how any traditional or modern version of virtue ethics can be reconciled with the doctrine of original sin, but it would be interesting to see someone try.

Tom Pearson

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Thomas D. Pearson
Department of History & Philosophy
The University of Texas-Pan American
Edinburg, Texas
e-mail: pearson@utpa.edu

 
Received on Mon May 15 13:58:25 2006