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The Jonathan Dolhenty Archive |
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A Brief Introduction to Ethics by Jonathan Dolhenty, Ph.D. PART THREE
The Many Goods of Life There are some goods in life which we will call "goods of fortune." Most of these goods we use as means for some end or goal we have in mind. Food, clothing, shelter, and money are included in this category. All of us seem to need a certain amount of these goods of fortune in order to live a happy life. Some people have mistakenly taken one or more of these goods of fortune to be their ultimate good in life. As we have already seen, happiness cannot be equated with any one or more of these goods and happiness is the ultimate good for all of us. While physical possessions are important to us in living well, they do not constitute the entire definition of living well. We've all heard about very wealthy people whose lives have been anything but "happy." While none of us is in a position to adequately judge the life of another human being, it would seem, on the surface at least and from what we know, that billionaire Howard Hughes may not have "lived well" in the sense we are using it here. There are some goods in life which we can call the "goods of the body." Health, for instance, is important to us. We all desire good health and most of us take measures to keep ourselves healthy through a proper diet, exercise, and medical treatment. Sensual pleasures are another good of the body; what would life be like without some enjoyment of the senses? Another good of the body you may not think of readily is leisure. Most of us enjoy some time to read a good book, see a movie, play a round of golf, or just "goof off." I'm sure you can think of other goods which fall into this category. There are some goods in life which we can call "social goods." Included here are such things as friendship, social status, political honor, fame, the family, the political state, and so forth. These goods, like the goods of fortune, can be abused and sometimes are mistakenly identified with the ultimate good of happiness. Some misguided people have, for instance, taken the political state to be the ultimate good. We've seen what's happened in our century when this occurs. This was the terrible error made by Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, and other dictators of the totalitarian state. There are also some goods in life which we will call "the virtues." These are the goods by which we, as human beings, perfect ourselves. Continued growth in the virtues takes us a good part of the way toward fulfilling our destiny of having lived a happy life. We will now turn to a discussion of virtue and its importance in our quest for the art of living well. Virtue in General Human happiness, as we have seen, consists primarily in a life of reason according to virtue. We now need to investigate what we mean by virtue and what part it plays in helping us to live well. The first thing I'm going to ask you to do is get rid of any ideas you may already have about what is meant by virtue. Unfortunately the word "virtue" today has a much more restricted meaning than it had in the past. As a matter of fact, the term has become somewhat derisive and has become associated with matters of sexual behavior, such as in the phrase "she is a woman of virtue." Modern usage has implied that there is even something effeminate about the word. During the time of the Roman empire, virtue signified actions that were manly and heroic. It was a compliment to a Roman to be considered a virtuous person. In ancient Greece, virtue had even a wider application and referred to all kinds of excellence. A person living during the time of the Renaissance used the word virtue to refer to qualities of strength and vigor. A virtuous person was considered one that had "strength of character." We are going to return to the traditional meaning of the word virtue. We are going to bring its real meaning back into our language because it is an important word for our purposes and no other English word quite captures its true meaning. Generally speaking, virtue is the disposition to act well in a regular manner. It is concerned with rational activity and includes both the operation of our reasoning itself and also our actions which are based on our sensuous desires. We will, therefore, differentiate between two main kinds of virtue: intellectual virtue, which deals with the perfection of the power of reason itself, and moral virtue, which is the development of our sensuous desires which should be under the control of our reasoning faculties. It is with moral virtue that most of us have difficulty and with which we are most concerned. The purpose of virtue is to dispose us to act more perfectly and in a manner consistent with how we should act as human beings. Intellectual virtue is generated and increased by instruction. Its main concern is with knowledge. Moral virtue, on the hand, is concerned primarily with regular, good action associated with our sensuous desires, including those involving our emotions. It may come as a surprise to you, but moral virtues are acquired by practice and not, strictly speaking, by instruction or education. Moral virtue is a matter of action and not a matter of knowledge and, therefore, cannot really be taught. Moral virtue is located in our sensuous desires which are our inclinations or drives toward those things which are desirable. Moral virtue must be acquired through the repeated performance of individual actions. It takes practice. We are not born with moral virtue. This is why we can say that no one is born good in the sense of being morally virtuous. No one is born bad either in the sense of having bad moral qualities when he comes into this world. We acquire virtues by first performing the acts which lead to their formation and once they are acquired, we maintain them by practice and exercise.
There is a need to perform good acts as early as possible in life. Parents and educators need to provide sound moral training and guidance when human beings are young and see that the young consistently practice moral virtue. What Makes a Moral Action "Good"? We are human beings and as such we have a rational nature. We possess those two characteristics which distinguish us from any other form of life on this earth: a mind which enables us to reason and a will which enables us to choose freely. It would seem then that we should act according to "right reason." We have a rational nature so we should act rationally. Acting rationally is a vital part of living well. It is important for us to determine what is meant by a "good" action as far as moral things are concerned. We know from experience that almost anything is weakened or destroyed by too much or too little of something. Consider our bodily health, for example. Too much food can destroy our health; too little food can weaken or destroy our health. Somewhere in between is just the right amount of food needed for proper health. Too much sleep over a long period of time can actually harm the body; too little sleep over a long period of time can do likewise. There is a right amount of sleep necessary for good health, although the range may be rather wide and, of course, depends on the specific individual. It's similar with moral virtue. Let's take courage, for example, which is the virtue concerned with exercising our control over fear. A person who fears everything, we call cowardly, and a person who doesn't fear anything, we call rash or foolhardy. The coward has too much fear and has destroyed or has never acquired the virtue of courage. The rash or foolhardy person has too little fear and has destroyed or has never acquired the virtue of courage. The courageous person is not the one fears nothing but the person who moderates his fear appropriate to the specific situation in which he finds himself. We can say that what determines whether an action is "good" is that which is neither too much or too little. What is neither too much or too little we call the "mean," which is the measure of the goodness of a virtuous action. When we confront a fear-producing object or situation, for instance, it is courage we need to help us regulate our response so that we react with neither too little fear nor too much fear but just the right amount. This right amount is the "mean." Now that we know the mean lies somewhere between too much and too little of some action, we'll give new names to these extremes and we will refer to these extremes as vices. On one side will be a vice of excess and on the other will be a vice of defect and, of course, the mean will be somewhere in the middle.
We'll now use the above example dealing with courage to help us understand this important point. The virtue of courage helps us regulate our response when we face a fearful object or situation. The mean is just the right amount of action necessary to deal effectively with the object or situation. Too much fear and we have cowardice, a vice of defect. We are defective, in other words, in dealing appropriately with the object or situation. Too little fear and we have rashness or foolhardiness, a vice of excess. We are excessive, in other words, in dealing appropriately with the object or situation.
This is all well and good but how do we know what is the right amount or mean in any specific situation? We need to realize that the mean, or right amount, of action toward an object or in a situation is not fixed or rigid. The mean of virtue that is appropriate in any specific situation will vary because we need to take into consideration the circumstances of the situation. This is why we can refer to a "relative" mean, that is, the mean is never absolute but always relative to the particular individual involved and the circumstances of the situation. The rule of reason cannot be applied without considering the circumstances surrounding the action. What may constitute a courageous act at home may not be a courageous act on the battlefield. The mean also depends upon individual differences among persons. Some of us have temperamental traits which incline us toward the mean in one way. Others will be inclined toward the mean in a different way. Even the social and economic environment influences the mean of virtue in some situations. So the mean is variable to some extent and it lies somewhere in the middle between excess and defect but not too close to either one. Virtue is also associated with pleasure and pain. We obtain some good we desire and pleasure follows. We avoid some evil and pleasure follows. We are confronted with some evil we want to avoid and pain follows. We fail to obtain some good we want and pain follows. Our actions and emotions always have some association with pleasure and pain and, since virtue is associated with actions and emotions, virtues are necessarily concerned with pleasure and pain. On Being a Virtuous Person Being a virtuous person does not mean we throw aside our emotions and give up all pleasures. Our emotions are part of our nature and are good in themselves. We naturally tend toward activities in which we find pleasure and avoid those which are painful and that is also part of our nature. Pleasure and pain are associated with virtue because it is virtue which regulates pleasure and pain in our ordinary experiences. It is through virtue that we manage our emotions so they serve us rather than our being a slave to them. We could become a bad person by pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain. We do so not by the pursuit, however, but by doing it in the wrong way. So virtue doesn't involve giving up pleasure or subverting our emotions. Pleasure and emotion must be under the control of our reason and it is the virtues which guide our actions here. We have already defined virtue in a general way as a disposition to act well in a regular manner. We are now ready to expand this meaning and make it more complete. We will now say that virtue is a good quality or habit of the rational powers which renders them capable of acting rightly, inclining us to choose the relative mean between extremes of excess and defect. Let's break this definition down so we can easily understand it.
Let's finish this brief introduction to ethics by considering the special need we as human beings have for the virtues.
There are four main categories of virtue which have traditionally been recognized. Because other secondary virtues "hinge" on an understanding of and application of these four main virtues, these are considered to be the cardinal virtues and have customarily been referred to as such. The four cardinal virtues are: temperance, fortitude, prudence, and justice. The first three are "individual" virtues in the sense that they involve only personal human actions as they involve the individual performing the action. The fourth cardinal virtue, justice, is considered a "social" virtue because it involves human actions relative to other persons.
Now, let's take a brief look at each of the four cardinal virtues.
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