Moral cacophony: When continence is a virtue

Journal of Ethics

Volumn 7, Issue 4, 2003, Pages 339-363

  Stohr, Karen E ^a  

^a GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Aristotle; Continence; John McDowell; Philippa Foot; Temperance; Virtue; Virtue ethics

Indexed keywords

EID: 60949172642     PISSN: 13824554     EISSN: 15728609     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1023/A:1026111711649     Document Type: Article

References (58)

1. Julia Annas, The Morality of Happiness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 53-54.
2. There is a large philosophical literature on the problem of incontinence (akrasia), also known as weakness of will. The problem is formulated in various ways, but is more or less a problem of explaining whether and how an agent can do X when her reflective, all things considered judgment is that Y is the better course of action. Famously, Socrates thought that there could be no such thing as akrasia and Aristotle just as famously disagreed, at least with respect to the bodily appetites. My concern in this paper is not with how virtue ethicists should handle incontinence, though this is obviously an important matter.
3. McDowell's account of virtuous agency is spread over several papers. See, especially, John McDowell, "Are Moral Requirements Hypothetical Imperatives?" Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 52 (Suppl.) (1978), pp. 13-29
4. and "Virtue and Reason," The Monist 62 (1979), pp. 331-350.
5. Also, see Gregory Trianosky, "Rightly Ordered Appetites: How to Live Morally and Live Well," American Philosophical Quarterly 25 (1988), pp. 1-12. Philippa Foot makes an important modification to the harmony thesis, which I will discuss below, but she accepts it on the whole;
6. Philippa Foot, "Virtues and Vices," in Virtues and Vices and Other Essays in Moral Philosophy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), pp. 1-18;
7. Rosalind Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
8. Trianosky, "Rightly Ordered Appetites," p. 1.
9. McDowell, "Virtue and Reason," p. 334.
10. Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics, pp. 92-93.
11. Her goal in the chapter from which the quote is taken is to argue that Immanuel Kant and Aristotle are more similar on the continence/virtue distinction than is generally thought. The discussion makes clear that she is assuming the correctness of the Aristotelian version.
12. See Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics, p. 92, fn. 1.
13. I am grateful to Kirk Davidson for help with this example.
14. It could, of course, be contested that this is the right thing to do, but I will simply take it for granted.
15. Hursthouse has pointed out that the fact that an agent dislikes performing an action or takes no pleasure in it does not necessarily count against the ascription of virtue to her. She argues that though an honest person will return a full purse to a profligate and wasteful person, she sees "no reason why any Aristotelian should deny to the fully honest the thought that it is a damned shame that this had to be done" (Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics, p. 97). This is true, but the case at hand demonstrates a further point. In some situations, the virtuous person not only may, but should find the action painful and difficult.
16. I leave open the possibility that there are people in whom a certain degree of coldness in such situations might not be a failing. I have in mind police officers, physicians, and military officers during wartime - all of whom are required to deliver terrible news on a regular basis. These cases pose interesting challenges for virtue ethics, because they imply that what counts as a virtue in a person is partially dependent on contingent features of that person's circumstances.
17. I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for The Journal of Ethics for bringing this objection to my attention.
18. One might say that the very fact that the continent person finds it difficult to act rightly is evidence that he is not in fact committed to doing what is right. I do not think that this is the case. Consider, for instance, a vegetarian who eschews meat on moral grounds. It is certainly easier for the vegetarian who is disgusted by the sight or smell of meat to bypass the barbecue on the table than it is for the one whose mouth still waters at the smell. That need not, however, imply that the latter agent is any less committed to being a vegetarian.
19. Foot, "Virtues and Vices," p. 11.
20. Foot, "Virtues and Vices," p. 11.
21. Foot, "Virtues and Vices," p. 12.
22. This is, of course, a very complex issue. Aristotle thought that the incontinent person has both knowledge and ignorance. So there is probably some sense in which the incontinent person does not judge correctly. But the point here is just that the incontinent person, unlike the intemperate person, really believes that he is acting badly.
23. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Terence Irwin (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1985), 1148a30-b7. The addition in brackets is Irwin's.
24. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1149a24-35.
25. Though Aristotle does not explain what the qualification is, the distinction itself is clear when he says, "It is clear, then, ... that continence and incontinence are about bodily appetites and pleasures" (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1149b24-26).
26. Aristotle does not exactly write this, but if the man is supposed to be incontinent, he must fail to perform the right action.
27. I am grateful to Howard Curzer for help with this example.
28. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1151b35-1152a4.
29. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1149a20.
30. For Aristotle, the concept of to kalon applies to people (those who are kalos k'agathos), as well as actions and goods of various sorts. To be kalon is a feature of a thing, and it seems that it is in virtue of a thing's being kalon that it is choiceworthy. Moreover, a virtuous person not only chooses things that are kalon - she also chooses them because they are kalon.
31. See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1149b28-30.
32. See, for example, Foot, "Virtues and Vices," p. 10.
33. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1099a16-20. See also 1120a26-27.
34. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1117b8-16.
35. I am indebted to an anonymous reviewer for The Journal of Ethics for pointing out to me the relevance of this distinction here.
36. The original distinction is from Fred Feldman, "Two Questions about Pleasure," in David Austin (ed.), Philosophical Analysis (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1988), pp. 59-81.
37. Something of this sort seems to be suggested in Sarah Broadie, Ethics with Aristotle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 90-95. Broadie interprets Aristotle as meaning that virtuous people take a kind of satisfaction in virtuous action, which would be compatible with experiencing painful emotions or physical pain.
38. The idea that the virtuous agent should be understood as taking propositional pleasure in virtuous action is also defended in Erik Wielenberg, "Pleasure as a Sign of Moral Virtue in the Nicomachean Ethics" Journal of Value Inquiry 34 (2000), pp. 439-449. Wielenberg takes himself to be disagreeing with Broadie, but I do not see a significant difference between their views. As Broadie interprets satisfaction, it would be a kind of propositional pleasure.
39. There is a danger here that an agent who takes even propositional pleasure in having done what is right will turn out to be smug or self-congratulatory - neither of which seems like a virtue. I am grateful to Bill Lycan for bringing this point to my attention.
40. I assume that if a person does what is right because he is coerced into doing so, he does not count as continent.
41. See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1152al -5.
42. For an interesting account of modes of valuing in the context of virtue ethics, see Christine Swanton, "Profiles of the Virtues," Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 76 (1995), pp. 47-72.
43. Ethics with Aristotle, pp. 270-271.
44. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1110a5-35.
45. I am grateful to Rosalind Hursthouse for reminding me of this discussion.
46. It is important to recognize that having good judgment in this respect is not simply being able to distinguish things with intrinsic value from those with merely instrumental value, though that is no doubt part of it.
47. McDowell, "Are Moral Requirements Hypothetical Imperatives?," p. 26.
48. McDowell, "Virtue and Reason," p. 335.
49. McDowell, "Are Moral Requirements Hypothetical Imperatives?," p. 27.
50. McDowell, "Are Moral Requirements Hypothetical Imperatives?," p. 28.
51. McDowell, "Are Moral Requirements Hypothetical Imperatives?," p. 27.
52. McDowell, "Are Moral Requirements Hypothetical Imperatives?," p. 27.
53. McDowell, "Are Moral Requirements Hypothetical Imperatives?," pp. 27-28.
54. A Kantian can and should hold that fulfilling a perfect duty at the expense of fulfilling an imperfect duty may be a cause of pain or regret. Likewise, if the utilitarian calculus dictates that I leave my family to do good works, there is no reason to suppose that I ought to find this easy, just because it is the right thing to do.
55. Susan Stark, "Virtue and Emotion," Nous 33 (2001), pp. 440-455.
56. Stark, "Virtue and Emotion," p. 452.
57. Stark, "Virtue and Emotion," p. 446.
58. Hursthouse has been a particular proponent of this point.