Virtue Ethics

1
Virtue Ethics

• The goal of virtue ethics is to attain eudemonia.
• Eudemonia Wholeness, completeness, fulfillment
• The goal is to become all that you can be as a
  human being.
• The goal is to become a virtuoso at being human.

2

• Becoming a virtuoso human is like becoming a
  virtuoso pianist.
• In both cases one must develop certain skills
  and qualities, and these must be developed to an
  excellent degree.
• What skills and qualities one must excel at to
  become a virtuoso pianist are specified by the
  nature of piano playing.
• Similarly, what skills and qualities one must
  excel at to become a virtuoso human being are
  specified by human nature.

3

• Anyone can bang away on a piano but that is to
  make noise, not music, and its a barbaric, not
  humanistic, expression of freedom. At first,
  learning to play the piano is a matter of some
  drudgery as we master exercises that seem like a
  constraint, a burden. But, as our mastery grows,
  we discover a new, richer dimension of freedom
  We can play the music we like, we can even create
  new music on our own.

4

• Freedom, in other words, is a matter of
  gradually acquiring the capacity to choose the
  good and to do what we choose with perfection.
• George Weigel, A Better Concept of Freedom
• Virtue
• Virtues are the excellences of character,
  specified by human nature, that one must develop
  in order to attain eudemonia.
• A virtuous person makes the right decisions at
  the right time so that he can achieve wholeness,
  completeness, and fulfillment.

5

• Golden Mean
• Virtues are always a mid-point between two
  extreme vices.
• One of the extremes is a deficiency
• The other is an excess.
• Examples of Virtues
• Courage
• Willingness to risk harm to self for the right
  reasons, at the right time, to the right degree
• Deficiency Cowardice
• Excess Foolhardiness

6

• Temperance
• Seeking pleasure at the right time, for the right
  reasons, in the right amount
• Deficiency Profligacy
• Excess Priggishness
• Liberality
• Spending money for the right reasons, at the
  right time, in the right amount.
• Deficiency Miserliness
• Excess Prodigality

7

• Justice
• Rendering to everyone and everything his/her/its
  just desserts
• Deficiency Sloth
• Excess Presumptiveness

8

• How to become virtuous
• Know Thyself
• Know your weaknesses
• If your problem is being profligate, then you
  might want, for a time, to avoid pleasure
  altogether.
• In other words, you might want to shoot past the
  goal of temperance, until you have broken
  yourself of vice and can find the virtuous mean.

9

• Act as if.
• If you lack courage, place yourself in a risky
  situation, and pretend that you are not afraid.
• If you do this consistently, you will find
  genuine courage.
• Think of the Cowardly Lion.
• He did not wait until he had courage before he
  did battle with the Wicked Witch of the West
• He did battle with the Wicked Witch, despite his
  fear, and, thereby, found his courage.

10

• Associate with People of Virtue.
• If you associate with people of virtue, their
  virtue will rub off on you.
• A faithful friend is a sturdy shelter he who
  finds one finds a treasure . . . . A faithful
  friend is a life-saving remedy, such as he who
  fears God finds, for he who fears God behaves
  accordingly, and his friend will be like
  himself.
• The Book of Sirach, Chapter 6

11

• A Man for All Seasons
• The story of Sir Thomas More
• More was Chancellor of England during the 16th
  Century, under King Henry VIII
• Henry wanted the Pope to annul his marriage to
  Katherine of Aragon because she could not give
  him a male heir.
• The Pope refused to grant Henry an annulment.

12

• At this point, Henry had an epiphany he, not
  the Pope, was the head of the Church in England
• Henry, therefore, broke with Rome, annulled his
  marriage to Katherine, and married Anne Boelyn.
• Thomas More was totally against what Henry did
  so, he resigned as Chancellor and withdrew to
  near poverty at his home away from London.

13

• Thomas never spoke out against what Henry did,
  but neither did he support Henry.
• Thomas believed that by remaining silent he
  could preserve both his integrity and his life.
• Sadly, however, Henry did not leave More alone
  in his silence.
• We pick up the film as Master Secretary Cromwell
  calls More in for questioning.
• As you watch, ask yourself Does More find the
  courageous mean between cowardice and
  foolhardiness?

14

• Why didnt More swear to the oath to save his
  skin?
• As a devout man, he believed he would go to Hell
  if he were foresworn.
• Listen, Meg, when a man takes an oath, he is
  holding his own self in his own hands, like water
  and, if he opens his fingers then, he neednt
  hope to find himself again.
• Sir Thomas More, A Man for All Seasons

15

• Thomas More . . . became for me a man with an
  adamantine sense of his own self. He knew where
  he began and left off, what area of himself he
  could yield to the encroachments of his enemies,
  and what to the encroachments of those he loved .
  . . . But, at length he was asked to retreat
  from that final area where he located his self.
  And, there this supple, humorous, unassuming, and
  sophisticated person set like metal, was taken
  over by an absolutely primitive rigor, and could
  no more be budged than a cliff.
• Robert Bolt, Preface to A Man for All Seasons

16

• In the end, More would rather die than give up
  his integrity.
• Why did Henry VIII want Mores approval so much?
• Cromwell The Kings a man of conscience, and
  he wants either Sir Thomas More to bless his
  marriage or Sir Thomas More destroyed. Rich
  They seem odd alternatives, Secretary.
  Cromwell Do they? Thats because youre not a
  man of conscience.

17

• If the King destroys a man, thats proof to the
  King that it must have been a bad man, the kind
  of man a man of conscience ought to destroy
  and, of course, a bad mans blessings not worth
  having. So, either will do.
• A Man for All Season
• A guilty conscience caused Henry to destroy
  Thomas More.

18

• Henrys need either to get Mores blessing or to
  destroy him is really a backhanded tribute to the
  importance of integrity.
• Henry could no more live without integrity than
  More, but, while More was willing to die for
  integrity, Henry was willing to kill for it.
• Thus, both Thomas More and Henry VIII, in very
  different ways, illustrate the importance of
  integrity, i.e wholeness, completeness,
  fulfillment.