Agent-based virtue ethics and the problem of action guidance

Journal of Moral Philosophy

Volumn 6, Issue 1, 2009, Pages 50-69

  Van Zyl, Liezl ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WAIKATO   (New Zealand)

Author keywords

Action guidance; Agent based virtue ethics; Hypothetical agent based virtue ethics; Right action; Virtuous motive

Indexed keywords

EID: 74249091491     PISSN: 17404681     EISSN: 17455243     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/174552409X365928     Document Type: Review

References (23)

1. Ramon Das uses this case in his critique of agent-based virtue ethics. See Das, 'Virtue Ethics and Right Action', Australasian Journal of Philosophy 81.3 (2003), pp. 330-34
2. For further discussion see Steven Sverdlik, 'Motive and Rightness', Ethics 106.2 (1996), pp. 327-49
3. Rosalind Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999)
4. Christine Swanton, 'A Virtue Ethical Account of Right Action', Ethics 112.1 (2001), p. 36
5. See Michael Slote, 'Agent-Based Virtue Ethics', in P.A. French, T.E. Uehling Jr. and H.K. Wettstein (eds.), Moral Concepts (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1996), pp. 83-101
6. Also see his Morals from Motives (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001)
7. See Slote, 'Agent-Based Virtue Ethics', pp. 83-101 and Morals from Motives , p. 38. For the sake of clarity and simplicity I have made subtle changes to the formulations provided by Slote. Most notably, I've included 'because' in brackets to make it clear that Slote thinks that virtuous motive is what makes an act right
8. Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics , ed. and trans. D. Ross (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1925), II.4
9. Slote, Morals from Motives, p. 5
10. Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics, p. 18
11. According to Hursthouse, 'A virtue is a character trait a human being needs for eudaimonia, to flourish or live well', On Virtue Ethics, p. 29
12. For a discussion of this problem see Das, 'Virtue Ethics and Right Action', pp. 330-34
13. W.D. Ross, The Right and the Good (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1930), p. 2
14. Swanton, 'A Virtue Ethical Account of Right Action', p. 36
15. For example, see Michael Brady, 'Against Agent-Based Virtue Ethics', Philosophical Papers 33.1 (2004), pp. 1-10
16. Scott Gelfand, 'Hypothetical Agent-Based Virtue Ethics', Southwest Philosophy Review 17.1 (2000), pp. 87-89
17. Dan Jacobson, 'An Unsolved Problem for Slote's Agent-Based Virtue Ethics', Philosophical Studies 111.1 (2002), pp. 54-55
18. Das, 'Virtue Ethics and Right Action', pp. 324-30
19. According to the autism objection an account that ties rightness to actual motive seems committed to the view that it doesn't really matter what a person does, as long as his motives are good. Slote responds to this by saying that 'a benevolent person is typically capable of choosing many actions that fail to express or exhibit her (inner state of ) benevolence'. Likewise, he argues that a thoroughly malevolent person may still have it within his power to refrain from hurting someone, 'even if we can be sure that he won't in fact exercise that power'. Morals from Motives , pp. 16-17
20. For example, in defending consequentialism against Bernard Williams's (B. Williams and J.J.C. Smart, Utilitarianism : For and Against (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1973), pp. 97-116)
21. 'alienation objection', Peter Railton distinguishes between subjective and objective consequentialism. The first prescribes following a particular mode of deliberation in action, that is, it says that whenever one faces a choice of actions, one should attempt to determine which act of those available would most promote the good, and then act accordingly. By contrast, objective consequentialism is the view that the criterion of right action is whether it in fact would most promote the good of those acts available to the agent, with the result that he would not always use a cost-benefit analysis to decide what to do in particular situations. See Railton, 'Alienation, Consequentialism, and the Demands of Morality', Philosophy and Public Affairs 13 (1984), pp. 152-53
22. See Morals from Motives, p. 39, where Slote argues that 'motive is at least relevant to the moral character of any action' (his italics)
23. On p. 332 of 'Virtue Ethics and Right Action', Das notes that one way to avoid the circularity objection is 'to give an account of acting well grounded entirely in inner states of the agent', and indeed, this is exactly what an agent-based account does