Virtue and nature

Social Philosophy and Policy

Volumn 25, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 28-55

  Gowans, Christopher W ^a  

^a FORDHAM UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 37349130380     PISSN: 02650525     EISSN: 14716437     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0265052508080023     Document Type: Review

References (58)

1. The main sources are Philippa Foot, Natural Goodness (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001),
2. and Rosalind Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), esp. part III.
3. Foot and Hursthouse both appeal to a crucial idea in Michael Thompson, "The Representation of Life," in Rosalind Hursthouse, Gavin Lawrence, and Warren Quinn, eds., Virtues and Reasons (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 247-96.
4. For a similar position, see Alasdair MacIntyre, Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues (Chicago: Open Court, 1999), esp. 78.
5. Foot, Natural Goodness, 24.
6. Ibid., 5.
7. See ibid., 29.
8. Foot and Hursthouse both put forward their accounts in a rather tentative spirit, and Hursthouse says that justice is a gap in her theory. Nonetheless, I believe NAEN does not have the resources to deal with the issues I raise.
9. Hursthouse's understanding of Foot is based, not on Natural Goodness (which had not yet been published), but primarily on two earlier essays, "Rationality and Virtue" (1994), and "Does Moral Subjectivism Rest on a Mistake?" (1995), both reprinted in Philippa Foot, Moral Dilemmas and Other Topics in Moral Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002), 159-74, 189-208.
10. Hursthouse's own position is also expressed in a more recent paper, "On the Grounding of the Virtues in Human Nature," in Jan Szaif, ed., Was ist das für den Menschen Gute? Menschliche Natur und Güterlehre (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2004), 263-75.
11. She takes this point from P. T. Geach, "Good and Evil," Analysis 17 (1956): 33-42.
12. Foot, Natural Goodness, 31.
13. Ibid., 36-37.
14. Ibid., 38.
15. Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics, 202. I have added the title.
16. Ibid., 200.
17. See ibid., 201-2.
18. Foot, Natural Goodness, 32 n. 10.
19. See also ibid., 40 n. 1.
20. Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics, 257.
21. For example, see Philip Kitcher, "Biology and Ethics," in David Copp, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Ethical Theory (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 164-65.
22. See Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics, 202, 229.
23. See Foot, Natural Goodness, 92.
24. For examples of these debates, see Colin Allen, Marc Bekoff, and George Lauder, eds., Nature's Purposes: Analyses of Function and Design in Biology (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1998).
25. Hursthouse enters these discussions a bit more than Foot; she expresses doubts about whether Darwinian standards could replace Aristotelian ones (see Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics, 258).
26. See Foot, Natural Goodness, 50.
27. Ibid., 5.
28. Ibid., 51.
29. Ibid., 43.
30. Ibid., 35. Cf. ibid., 44.
31. Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics, 209.
32. Foot, Natural Goodness, 51.
33. Ibid., 14.
34. Ibid., 51. I take this to mean that, for Foot, the fact that breaking a promise brings about no harm does not by itself annul the obligation to keep the promise.
35. Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics, 222. Cf. ibid., 228.
36. Ibid., 224. The four ends are individual survival, continuation of the species, characteristic freedom from pain and characteristic enjoyment, and the good functioning of the social group.
37. Ibid., 226.
38. Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics, 165.
39. She cites John McDowell, "Two Sorts of Naturalism," in Hursthouse et al., eds., Virtues and Reasons, 149-79. McDowell's view is part of a broader philosophical project expressed in several places in his work. It is unclear to what extent Hursthouse endorses this project, and I interpret her here on the basis of what she (rather than McDowell) says.
40. Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics, 165. In light of this, David Copp and David Sobel appear mistaken in supposing that Hursthouse is relying on a "morally neutral investigation of animal nature."
41. See their essay "Morality and Virtue: An Assessment of Some Recent Work in Virtue Ethics," Ethics 114 (2004): 537. However, as I note below, they do raise a legitimate question.
42. Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics, 193. It has been argued that this aspect of Hursthouse's position disqualifies it from being a significant form of ethical naturalism.
43. See William Rehg and Darin Davis, "Conceptual Gerrymandering? The Alignment of Hursthouse's Naturalistic Virtue Ethics with Neo-Kantian Non-Naturalism," The Southern Journal of Philosophy 41 (2003): 583-600.
44. Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics, 193. She adds that the procedure "is not intended to produce motivating reasons" (194).
45. Ibid., 165.
46. This is the question stressed by Copp and Sobel, "Morality and Virtue," 534-37.
47. Much of the discussion of Foot, and especially Hursthouse, is devoted to arguing that a virtuous agent would tend to live a life of genuine happiness (eudaimonia). I am not concerned with this aspect of their position.
48. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in United Nations Department of Public Information, ed., The United Nations and Human Rights, 1945-1995 (New York: United Nations Reproduction Section, 1995), 153, first paragraph.
49. Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 428, 435 (standard Prussian Academy pagination).
50. John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, ed. Oskar Piest (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1957), 76 (chap. 5, par. 36).
51. Galatians 3:28. The story of the Samaritan is in Luke 10:25-37.
52. Tenzin Gyatso, The Fourteenth Dalai Lama, "Hope for the Future," in Fred Eppsteiner, ed., The Path of Compassion: Writings on Socially Engaged Buddhism (Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 1988), 3.
53. See A. A. Long and D. N. Sedley, eds., The Hellenistic Philosophers: Translations of the Principal Sources with Philosophical Commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 349.
54. John Cottingham agrees that Moral Universalism does not naturally arise out of the perspective of Aristotelian virtue ethics. See his "Partiality and the Virtues," in Roger Crisp, ed., How Should One Live? Essays on the Virtues (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 68-70, 75-76.
55. In a discussion of applied ethics, Hursthouse says we should not think about the "moral status" of a fetus in reflecting on the morality of abortion, or of animals in deliberating about the morality of eating animals. See Rosalind Hursthouse, "Applying Virtue Ethics to Our Treatment of the Other Animals," in Jennifer Welchman, ed., The Practice of Virtue: Classic and Contemporary Readings in Virtue Ethics (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 2006), 136-55. I am not claiming that Hursthouse or Foot would explicitly endorse Moral Universalism, but the remarks I cite in this paragraph are sufficient to show that their virtuous agent acts in accordance with this position. My argument is that the virtues, as understood in these remarks, cannot be warranted by the Teleological Criterion. In this respect, my argument could be made without bringing Moral Universalism into the picture, though I think it is important to keep it in.
56. Foot, Natural Goodness, 103. Cf. ibid., 114.
57. See Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics, 6, 36.
58. Ibid., 118.