IFUGAO STATE UNIVERSITY

College of Education Ethics

Chapter 6
The Early Philosophers and their Works

Learning Outcome:

At the end of the chapter, students are able to:

1. Define Virtue Ethics;
2. Compare and contrast the perspectives of philosophers on Virtue Ethics;
3. Critique the perspectives of philosophers concerning Virtue Ethics; and
4. Apply principles of Virtue Ethics in evaluating life situations and social issues.

Lesson Proper
Introduction

What is Virtue Ethics? Virtue ethics is a broad term for theories that emphasize the
role of character and virtue in moral philosophy rather than either doing one’s duty or
acting in order to bring about good consequences. A virtue ethicist is likely to give you this
kind of moral advice: “Act as a virtuous person would act in your situation.”

Most virtue ethics theories take their inspiration from Aristotle who declared that a
virtuous person is someone who has ideal character traits. These traits derive from
natural internal tendencies, but need to be nurtured; however, once established, they will
become stable. For example,  a virtuous person is someone who is kind across many
situations over a lifetime because that is her character and not because she wants to
maximize utility or gain favors or simply do her duty.
Unlike deontological and consequentialist theories, theories of virtue ethics do not aim
primarily to identify universal principles that can be applied in any moral situation. And
virtue ethics theories deal with wider questions—“How should I live?” and “What is the
good life?” and “What are proper family and social values?”

Lesson 1: Early Philosophers

1. ARISTOTLE ON ETHICS
Aristotle arrives at the idea that “the activity of the soul in accordance with virtue” is
the best life for human beings through the “human functions” argument. If, says Aristotle,
human beings have a function or work (ergon) to perform, then we can know that
performing that function well will result in the best part of life. The work or function of an
eye is to see and to see well. Just each part of the body has a function, says Aristotle, so
too must the human being as a whole have a function. This is an argument by analogy.
The function of human being is logos or reason, and the more thoroughly one lives the life
of reason, the happier one’s life will be (Kraut, 2014).
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So, the happiest life is a practice of virtue, and this is practiced under the guidance
of reason. Example of character virtues would be courage, temperance, liberality, and
magnanimity (Roty, 1984). One must habitually practice this virtues inorder to be
courageous, temperate and so forth.

Friendship is also necessary part of the happy life. There are three types of
friendship: 1.) friendship of excellence, a mark of good friendship is that friends “live
together” that is that friends spend a substantial amount of time together, since a
substantial time apart will likely weaken the bond of friendship. 2.) friendship of
pleasure, the most changeable form of friendship since the things we find pleasurable or
useful tend to change over lifetime. 3.) friendship of utility, if the frienship is merely
one of utility, then that friendship will likely dissolve when it is no longer useful.

Aristotle also made mention of telos. A telos is derived from the Greek word for
“end”, “purpose”, or “goal”. It is an end of purpose, in a fairly constrained sense used by
philosophers such as Aristotle. It is the root of the term “teology”, roughly the study of
purposiveness, or the study of objects with the view to their aims, purposes, or intentions.

2. ST. THOMAS AQUINAS ON VIRTUE

Thomas’ broad account of virtues as excellences or perfections of the various human

powers formally echoes Aristotle, both with regard to the nature of a virtue and many
specific virtues.

The moral Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) involves a merger or at

least two apparently disparate traditions: Aristotelian eudaimonism and Christian theory.
On the one hand, Aquinas follows Aristotle in thinking that an act is good or bad
depending on whether it contributes to or deters us from our proper human end-the telos
or final goal at which all human actions aim. That telos is eudaimonia, or “happiness”, is
understood in terms of completion , perfection, or well-being. Achieving happiness,
however, requires a range of intellectual and moral virtues that enable us to understand
the nature of happiness and motivate us to seek it in a reliable and consistent way.

On the other hand, Aquinas believes that we ca never achieve complete or final
happiness in this life. For him, final happiness consists in beattitude, or supernatural
union with God.

The two-fold distinction of happiness:

1. Natural Virtues - pertains to the happiness of this life that is “proportionate” to human
nature. And it is divided into:
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A. Moral virtues - are the habits that perfect the various powers concerned
with human appetites, including rational appetite, conferring upon them an aptness
for the right use of those appetites (Hankley, 1987).

B. Intellectual Virtues - perfect the intellect and confer an aptness for the
good work of the intellect which is the apprehension of truth.

The cardinal natural virtues are Prudence - is an intellectual virtue since it bears upon the
goal of truth in the good ordering of action. Justice - it is a virtue of the rational appetite or
will, Courage - in addition, because there are two specific powers of the generic sensitive
appetite, the concupiscent and the irascible, and courage pertains to irascible and
Temperance - pertains to concupiscent.

2. Theological Virtues - pertains to the beatitudo that is not appropriate to human

nature, the supernatural life with God. This also pertains to Faith, Hope, and Love.
They bear upon eternal beattitude and are simply infused by God’s gift or grace.
They ca not be acquired by human effort.

In addition, the infused natural virtues spring from Charity as its effects, and thus
bear upon its object, which is the love of God and the love of neighbor in God. A primary
example for Thomas is Misericordia which is the virtue that pertains to sufferring with
others and acting to alleviate their suferring. Thomas explicitly but unconvincingly claims
that Aristotle recognized it.

3. THALES – He proposed that everything could be explained in terms of “WATER”. That in

every change there is always the component of ‘WATER” in it (a universal solvent)

4. ANAXIMANDER – He proposed the “APEIRON” or the UNLIMITED or INDETERMINATE.

This is in disagreement with Thales because he observed that in the case of things that
are dry water could not be the ultimate cause. It is this INDETERMINATE that
encompasses everything which cannot be experienced by itself. What is distinct here is
that Anaximander moves beyond sense of perception.

5. ANAXIMENES – He rejects the “unlimited” of Anaximander with the reason that we

cannot say any definite thing about such a principle even if it is the principle of sensible
reality. He then proposed ‘AIR’ because like water, it has the capacity to take different
forms of material expression. But more importantly, AIR gives life to living beings and is
the formative force breathes existence to inanimate beings. Anaximenes explains that
individual things are distinguishable through the process of condensation or rarefaction of
air. Very fine air is fire; very condensed air is stone; wind, clouds, water and earth (this
order gives the stages that indicate increasing condensation)

6. HERACLITUS – believed that to see the world in terms of its constant patterns of change
is central.
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7. DEMOCRITUS – suggested that the world is composed of ATOMS.

8. PYTHAGORAS – claimed that everything is ultimately mathematical, orderly and

harmonic (INCLUDING THE SOUL) .

9. PARMINEDES and his student ZENO – argued that only that which is UNCHANGING is
really real, so that changing sensible world is unreal.

*** What is very important to note is the development from Thales to Anaximenes (and the
other thinkers). Thales focuses on the natural rather than the supernatural explanation
and he suggests that reality is different from appearance. Anaximander moves beyond
Thales for he describes ultimate reality is an abstract manner, in terms not tied to our
sensible experience. Anaximenes, on the otherhand has two significant advances. First
his doctrine of condensation and rarefaction makes things quantifiable and provide a
mathematical basis of talking about nature. Second,
living beings are distinguished from inanimate beings by virtue of rarefaction of air that
defines them, not some supernatural soul or mystical force; and the condensation and
rarefaction of air is what explain their activity……. All these thinkers gave a RATIONAL
rather than a mythical explanation of reality and this makes them philosophers.

10. KANT - Imanuel Kant (1724 - 1804) examined the idea of human rights within politics
in such a way that it “is only a legitimate government that guarantees our natural right to
freedom, and from this freedom we derive other rights”.

To act out of a “good will” for KAnt means to act out of sense of a moral obligation o
“duty”. In other words, the moral agent does a particular action not because of what it
produces (its consequences) in terms of human experience, but because he or she
recognizes by reasoning that it is morally the right thing to do and thus regards him or
herself as having a moral duty or obligation to do that action.

The book Metaphysics of Morals has two distinct parts: “ Doctrine of Right” and the
“Doctrine of VIrtue”. Kant sought to separate politica; rights and duties from what we
might call morals in the nerrow sense. He limits right by stating three conditions that have
to be met for something to be enforceable as a right (Byrd, 2010):

1. Right concerns only actions that have influence on other person, directly or indirectly,
meaning duties to the self are included;

2. The right does not concern the wish but only the choice of others, meaning that not
mere desires but only decisions which bring about actions are at stake; and

3. Right does not concern the matter of other’s act but only the form, meaning no
particular desires or end are assumed on the part of the agents. As an example of the
latter he considers trade, which for right must have the form of beein freely agreed by
both parties but can have any matter or purpose the agents want.

A right is described as an entitlement or justified claim to a certain kind of positive

and negative treatment from others, to support from others or non-interference from
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others. In other words, right is something to which every individual in the community is
morally permitted, and for which that community is entitled to disrespect or compulsorily
remove anything that stands in the way of even a single individual getting it.

Nature of Right

Laski’s (1935) concepts on the nature of rights are enumerated as follows:

1. Rights are the basic social conditions offered to the individual who is an indispensable
member of the society;

2. Right enable man to fully enhance his personality; to achieve his best self, in the words
of Laski they are ‘those social conditions without which no man can seek to be his best
self’;

3. Right are inherently social because they are never againts social welfare; the rights did
not exist before the emergence of the society; they are those fundamentsl necessities that
which are very much social;

4. The state plays the role of recognizing and protecting the rights by providing for the full
maintenance and observance of the rights;

5. Right are never absolute, the nature and extent for the fulfillment of the rights are
relative; as long men endeavor for the upliftment and betterment of the conditions of life,
rights continue to serve as means for the satisfaction and gratification of individual’s
needs; so there can be no rights which are absolute in nature bacause absolute rights are
a contradiction in terms;

6. Right are dynamic in nature because the essense and contents of rights vary according
to change in place, tie and conditions.

Kinds of Right

1. Natuural right - Jonh Locke (1632 - 1704), the most influential political philosophers
of the modern period, argued that people have rights, such as the right to life, liberty, and
property that have a foundation independent of the laws of any particular society. He also
claimed that men are naturally free and equal as part of the justification for
understanding legitimate poliical government as athe result of a social contract where
people in the state of natre conditionally transfer some of their right to the government in
order to better ensure the stable, comfortable enjoyment of their lives, liberty, and
property.
2. Moral rights - moral right are based on human consciousness. They are supported by
moral force of human mind. They are based I human sense of goodness and justice. These
are not assisted by the force of law. Sense of goodness and public opinion are the
sanctions behind moral rights.
3. Legal rights - Legal rights are those rights which are accepted and enforced by the
state. Nay defilement of any legal rights is punished by law. Law courts of the state
enforce legal rights. These rights can be enforced againts individuals and also againts the
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government. In this way, legal rights are different from moral rights. Legal rights are
equally available to all the citizens. All citizens follow legal rights without any
dicrimination. They can go to the courts for getting their legal rights enforced.

Distinction between Moral Rights and Legal Rights

Moral Rights Legal Rights

Natural: Moral rights are discovered, not Created: our legal rights are created by
created. (This is a form of Moral Realism) legislation.
Equal: Moral rights are equal rights; thereCan be unequal: there are may situations
is no injustice in how they are distributed.
in which the distribution of legal rights is
unjust.
Inalienable: Moral rights can not be taken Alienable: Your legal rights can be taken
away from you without consent (although from you against your will.
you can voluntarily surrender them)
Universal: your moral rights are the same Local: Your legal rights change when you
no matter where you are. move from one jurisdiction to another.

Lesson 2: The Categorial Imperatives and Utilitarianism

Introduction

Categorical imperative, in the ethics of the 18 th - century German philosopher

Immanuel Kant, founder of critical philosophy, a moral law that is unconditional or
absolute for all agents, the validity or claim of which does not depend on any ulterior
motive or end. “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will
that it should become a universal law” is a purely formal or logical statement and
expresses the condition of the rationality of conduct rather than that of its morality, which
is expressed in another Kantian formula: “So act as to treat humanity, whether in your
own person or in another, always as an end, and never as only a means.”

Lesson 2.1: Categorical Imperative

The Categorical Imperative was devised by Immanuel Kant to provide a set of

requirements a maxim (or motivation) must pass in order for the action to be considered a
moral obligation. When a Categorical Imperative is esablished it become one’s moral duty
to carry out the action under any circumstances. When crrying out this action, the
individual’s primary motive should always be duty according to Kant; this is because we
can decipher what our duty is using our reason. Human’s ability to reason is what
deciphers us from animals and so, logically, must be part of being a moral agent. Reason
is objective and universa for humanity and so is a reliable and reasonable basis for a
moral theory.

The Categorical Imperative is determined by reffering to three (3) formulations namely:

1. Formula of the Law of Nature insists taht we should act ‘only according to that
maxim’which could be universalized. This means that we must be able to universalize a
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principle without contradiction. If tis is not posible, we can logically assume that the act is
immoral as it is counter to reason. If a rule is not universalizable then others will not be
free to act from the same moral principles, and Kant strongly believed that autonomy and
freedom were essential to being a moral agent.

2. The Formula of End Itself ensures that you never treat others or oneself ‘merely as a
means but always as an end’. To use someone merely as a means to some other end is to
exploit their rationality, and we should value everyone as rational beings.

3. Formula of a Kingdom of Ends asks for us to ‘act as if a legislating member in the

universal Kingdom of Ends’. The Kingdom of Ends is a world in which everyone acts from
categorical imperatives, and although we may not live in this world, we must act as if we
are. According to this formula we must act on the assumption that everyone will follow the
rules you make through your actions.

Lesson 2.2: Utilitarian Philosophy

Utilitarianism is a philosophical view or theory about how we should evaluate a wide

range of things that involve choice that people face. Among the things that can be
evaluated are actions, laws, policies, character traits, and moral codes. Utilitarianism is a
form of consequentialism bacause ir rests on the idea that is the consequences or result of
actions, laws, policies, etc. that determine wether they are good or bad, right or wrong. In
general, what ever is being evaluated, we ought to choose the one that will produce the
best overall result. In the language of utilitarians, we should choose the options that
“maximizes utility,” that action or policy that produces the largest amount of good.

Utilitarianism is generally held to be the view that the morally right action is the
action that produces the best. It is also an idea that the moral worth of an action is solely
dertermined by its contribution to overall utility in the maximizing happiness or pleasure
assumed among all people. It is, then, the total utility of an individuals which is important
here, the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people.

Utilitarianism starts from the basis that pleasure and happiness are intrinsically
valuable, that pain and suffering are intrinsically dis-valuable, and that anything else has
value only in its causing happiness or preventing suffering or as means to an end.

Utilitarians support equality by the equal consideration of interests, and they reject
any arbitrary distinctions as to who is worthy of concern and who is not, and any
discrimination between individuals. They also belive that the purpose of morality is to
make life better by increasing the amount of good things (such as pleasure and happiness)
in the world and decreasing the amount of bad things (such as pain and unhappiness).

Assessment:

Utilitarians focus their attention on happiness or pleasure as the ultimate end of moral
decisions. What dos this mean? Cite examples of pleasure that makes human happy.