Tag: Aristotle

A good tree bears good fruit

Imagine that your boss is treating you unfairly. Your workload has been increased, your hours changed, your workplace moved to a small corner, and your requests for time-off are constantly denied. Enough is enough, and you complain to senior management. You hear that the top bosses will assign one of the directors to review your situation. You know all the directors, and the reviewer will be either Benevolent Bert or Careless Colin. Bert has an impeccable reputation: well-informed, thoughtful, honest, wise, and fair. Colin couldn’t be more different: dishonest, reckless, unwise, uncaring, and self-centred. So, Benevolent Bert or Careless Colin? Who do you hope will review your situation? The answer is obvious. You want Benevolent Bert.

The logic behind that choice is that a good, fair, thoughtful person will make good, fair, thoughtful decisions. And that’s exactly the logic that underpins what philosophy calls virtue ethics. The idea aligns with an analogy of Jesus: ‘every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit’ (Matthew 7:17). Whether a tree or a person, whatever is at the core is what emerges as ‘fruit’ from its life.

Virtue ethics is not at all new. More than 300 years before Jesus, Greek philosophers like Plato and his pupil Aristotle wrote about virtue.[1] Aristotle said no-one was born either good or bad by nature. Virtue is not an accident of birth. Rather, according to Aristotle, virtues are choices. You use reason to know what’s right and to decide to do right, and the more you make that choice the more virtuous you become. Your inner nature – your disposition – becomes good, and in turn what you do is good.

Now, a tendency or a bias towards what’s good isn’t a guarantee of doing right every time. Joe exercises great control over his diet, unless, that is, someone brings cream doughnuts into the office, and that’s more than Joe’s discipline can resist. The Greeks had a word for that moment: akrasia. It means weak-willed – knowing what’s right but not doing it. Of course we can go wrong in several ways, such as making poor decisions because we’re too tired, or making a bad judgment because we hadn’t gathered all the facts of a situation.

But occasional carelessness or weakness of will doesn’t change the fundamental point: virtuous people tend to act virtuously. Someone whose character is good, kind, generous, thoughtful, will make decisions that fit with their character. Likewise, the person who is selfish, mean, careless, rash will make bad decisions.

So, that’s the moral theory called virtue ethics. It comes with several implications, including these three:

Virtuous actions are thoughtful, careful choices.  Good people are not simply wired to be good, or have a habit of being good. They choose to be good. But surely a habit of doing good would help? Mostly it wouldn’t, because habits are thoughtless – actions which are really reactions. Suppose Colin began investigating your work situation and made up his mind after speaking only to your manager, completely convinced by his side of the story. Nothing you said later could change his opinion. You would feel badly wronged. He hadn’t investigated the whole situation, and heard both cases. He just reacted to what he was told first, and that meant an injustice was done. Finding the virtuous answer requires care. Swift reactions are usually inappropriate.

On these sticks of rock, ‘Blackpool Rock’ writing is throughout Hazel Scott from Sheffield, UK, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Sticks of ‘Brighton Rock’ Paul Hudson from United Kingdom, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Virtue must be deeply embedded in someone’s character. That’s what makes it a consistent character trait, something deep in a person’s soul. As a child our family often vacationed at a seaside resort. As often as possible I got my parents to buy me a stick of rock. For the uninitiated, I’m not referring to a lump of stone but what is described as ‘a type of hard stick-shaped boiled sugar confectionery most usually flavoured with peppermint or spearmint’.[2] Nothing could be worse for dental health, but I enjoyed licking or biting my rock stick until it got smaller and smaller. But what never changed? Answer: the writing in the stick that had the name of the resort. The writing on one end of the stick was the same at the other end, because it ran right through its whole length. Virtue should be like that: reliable, consistent, invariable. It can’t be there only one day and not the next, or there when the situation is easy and gone when it’s tough.

Many years ago, when the Glasgow area called the Gorbals had the worst of tenement slums, I visited a young Christian worker who lived in the most troubled-area of the Gorbals. Not only were these tenements in dangerously poor condition, gangs and drugs dominated the streets. That young man’s small flat was over-run with local kids, who ate his food, watched his TV, lounged on his sofa, and sometimes stole his property. No matter how tough his life was, that Christian didn’t leave. He kept right on befriending youth, helping them and forgiving them. And because his commitment never varied, they listened to him, and some lives were changed. Real virtue is a through-and-through trait. There’s nothing superficial or temporary about it.

Real virtue is costly. That’s clear from the last example, but it’s not an isolated case. Think how tough it is to stand up for a bullied fellow-student or colleague. Or how hard it is to give generously to alleviate poverty. Or how worrying to take a phone call at 3 am from someone threatening to commit suicide. Or how difficult to tell the truth when that will hurt a friend or damage your own reputation. But virtue doesn’t take the easy road. It doesn’t shy away from hard situations or challenging decisions. Virtue faces hardship head on and doesn’t blink. It keeps on doing what’s right, whatever the cost.

So, does virtue ethics – as a moral theory – have the answer to every dilemma? Can we abandon the theories mentioned in earlier blogs like deontology (strict observance of rules) or consequentialism (defining rightness by whether outcomes are good or bad)?

Unfortunately I don’t think we can. Just as those other moral theories had weaknesses, so does virtue ethics. I’ll list three.

Understandings of virtues differ across cultures    Today we regard slavery as a terrible evil. But both Plato and Aristotle (mentioned earlier) had slaves. Aristotle had no problem saying slaves were essential to a household’s economy. Was Aristotle simply being a man of his time? Yes, he was. But that means people then had different virtues from people now. And people in the future may have different virtues to ours. Even people who live at the same time but in different places have different lists of virtues. If there’s no lasting universal understanding of virtue, that must leave a theory like virtue ethics resting on a changeable foundation. And, at any particular moment, applicable only within its own culture.

Virtue responses can vary from person to person    A deontologist will tell you what the rule is that addresses the rightness of an action. No negotiation – the right thing is predetermined. A consequentialist will calculate whether the action, on balance, gives a good result – if so, it’s right and if not, it’s wrong. These theories give precise answers about right and wrong. Virtue ethics doesn’t. Sometimes all it offers is ‘do whatever is best in the circumstances’.

But what one virtuous person thinks best may be different from what another thinks best. In previous blogs I illustrated what dirty hands means by using an imagined scenario by Michael Walzer: a terrorist has planted bombs with timers; he is arrested but won’t reveal where the bombs are planted; a politician must decide whether torture can be authorised to make the terrorist talk; torture is evil and illegal, but not torturing the terrorist may mean hundreds die. So, what is the right thing to do? That’s the challenging scenario. Now let’s adapt it by imagining the decision will be made either by Politician Maureen or Politician Nancy. Both are highly virtuous people, but they’re virtuous in different ways. Maureen is strong in care towards the needy: giving generously; visiting homeless shelters; talking with people sleeping in shop doorways. Nancy has past experience of dealing with major emergencies: she has the ability to assess priorities; courage to take hard decisions; awareness of the needs of first responders; boldness in demanding government resources. If I had to choose the right person for the ‘torture or no torture of the terrorist’, I would prefer Nancy, because she has experience of extreme situations. But I can believe others would choose Maureen because her sensitivity might win over the terrorist. And they might be right about that. But my point is this: there’s a problem when the decision made depends on the strength of the particular virtues someone has. A sensitive Maureen will choose a different action from a decisive Nancy. The dominant virtues in one are soft and caring, and the dominant virtues in the other are boldness and certainty, and their particular character traits may be yielding opposite solutions when faced with exactly the same circumstances. How can that be right or good? Are we simply to hope that the politician who shows up is strong in exactly the virtues necessary for a particular situation?

Virtue ethics doesn’t specify right actions    This follows on from my previous point. Many criticise virtue ethics because the theory may point you in a good direction but it never tells you exactly what to do. To be fair, you can’t be deemed a failure for not doing what you never claimed you could do. And this theory only claims that a virtuous person will act virtuously, but, because circumstances vary, it doesn’t spell out what exactly that would mean. But is that a flaw?

I don’t think it is for two reasons.

First, we must be reasonable. No-one is unfailingly right, and therefore the virtues of even the best person will not be unfailingly correct. Nor, of course, will rule-followers always apply their rules perfectly, or consequentialists identify the right outcome perfectly. There are problems defining exactly what is right with those systems too, so why blame virtue ethics when it can’t specify what’s provably right?

Second, all moral theories need a healthy dose of humility. If a parent thinks their child isn’t applying himself to his schoolwork, does he punish or encourage? Or a neighbour is struggling with debt, so do you give them money or let them learn their lesson the hard way? Many times we just don’t know what is right, and even afterwards we may not be certain. In the end, we do what we think best. And that’s exactly what virtue ethics does too – what’s reasonable, what seems helpful, what looks correct. After all, the outcome from someone truly trying to do the virtuous thing can’t be too bad.

Personally, in whatever the situation (the dirty hands kind or any other moral dilemma), I would want virtuous people to be the leaders and deciders. Could virtue be the sole-guide? I don’t think so. Virtue ethics should be influential, but I think rules are also an important guide, and consequences always have to be considered.

If you’ve found this blog on virtue ethics confusing, I apologise. My mind goes back to my early journalism years when I would call a professor or top scientist for details of their new breakthrough. They’d talk without pause for five minutes, and I understood nothing at all they said. When they drew breath, I’d ask them to put it more simply. Another three minutes of rapid talk would follow. I still had no idea what they were on about. I might try one more time, still get nowhere, thank them for their time and write for the paper the two sentences I’d actually grasped from their explanations. People who have been absorbed in a subject are rarely able to explain it clearly and concisely to others. I am sorry if I am one of those.

I’ll do better next time… I hope.

[1] Plato lived from around 428 to 348 BC, and Aristotle from 384 to 322 BC.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_(confectionery)#:~:text=Traditional%20seaside%20rock%20is%20made,to%20one%20part%20glucose%20syrup.

Virtue

The year is 1346, the location is Crécy, and the Hundred Years’ War between France and England has begun. The French and English armies face each other. Between them lies an estuary of salty marshes; not a good place to fight.

This is the age of chivalry, and a French knight rides out. He halts his horse, and shouts a challenge. Would any English knight dare to joust three times with him? There is silence. No-one moves. Then a voice – an English voice – roars that he accepts the challenge. The two knights take their places. Each army cheers for their hero. The knights charge. Their lances glance off shields, but no-one falls. They pick fresh lances, and again they charge. Lances strike shields, and the English knight’s shield shatters. He picks his third lance, but now has no shield. To fight on is to die. Yet he will. His code says he must. But another code saves his life. The French knight dismounts. His sense of chivalry will not let him take advantage. He will not attack a defenceless opponent. The knight walks to his foe and announces the fight over. The Frenchman is a warrior with a deep sense of fairness, a man of virtue.[1]

Virtue feels like it’s in short supply these days. Politicians seem willing to take advantage whenever they can. Top executives are applauded for ruthlessness.  Cheating happens in many sports. Footballers ‘dive’ in the penalty area, countless dark arts are practised in rugby scrums, Lance Armstrong was never the only cycle racer using drugs, cricketers have been guilty of roughing the ball with an abrasive. Golf is, to some extent, the exception. It has had cheats, but most judge it one of the fairest sports because players will penalise themselves for actions no-one else could have seen. I’m glad to play a virtuous sport.

(The next paragraph gives some ‘ancient’ background about virtue – skip ahead if you wish.)

More than 2000 years ago, Greek philosophers had much to say and to debate about virtue. Virtue, they argued, was essential for a life of well-being. Plato (writing around 380 BC) believed there were four virtues: wisdom, courage, self-discipline and justice (justice for Plato meant acting in ways that produce well-being). Plato’s pupil, Aristotle, thought a life of virtue was crucial for what he called eudaimonia, happiness in the sense of living well. Writing in 325 BC, Aristotle said that ethical virtue is not ours by nature but acquired and developed by practised habit. Virtues are choices which create the kind of disposition, or inclination, that makes a human being good. In other words, the virtuous person will make good moral decisions.

Personally I like Aristotle’s emphasis on virtue as a choice and a practised habit. But the hard reality is that we live in a world where many neither make that choice nor discipline their lives to be virtuous.

I can’t solve that. There’s no pill and no process that produces virtuous people. But, in what follows, I want to make a case for why virtue matters. It might inspire us to choose virtue as our default ‘disposition’.

Virtue matters because where would we be without it?

I was playing in an important golf match. Joe was my fellow player, and we were marking each other’s scorecards. I drove my ball right and it rolled just off the edge of the fairway. Joe had gone left and was far away from me. I looked at my ball, and saw a small twig lying beside it. The twig wasn’t touching the ball, so I moved it out of my way. But immediately my ball then rolled about an inch (2.5 cm). A small leaf of the twig must have been underneath the ball, hence it moved when I took the twig away. I put the ball back, played out the hole, and told Joe I had scored five.

Joe looked at me quizzically. ‘Surely you had four?’

I explained, ‘I picked up a twig and my ball moved. I replaced the ball before playing but I have to add one penalty shot’.

But Joe said, ‘Alistair, you don’t need to do that.’ He meant I shouldn’t bother about it.

I insisted. ‘I have to do it. I couldn’t be at peace putting in a score that I knew was wrong.’

‘Well’, Joe said, ‘you might be the only golfer here today who’d do that.’

Really? Sadly, yes. The vast majority of golfers wouldn’t breach any major rules, but Joe was right that many would ignore small infringements, especially if they hadn’t gained any advantage.

I’m not wired that way. I want everyone to play to the same rules because, if they don’t, the outcome can’t be fair. And if people breach minor rules, perhaps they also breach major rules. Then the person who wins is simply the best cheat. And that can’t be right.

That was exactly the point of the German philosopher, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), when he defined right actions on the basis of a categorical imperative. Here’s Kant’s formula for deciding right or wrong actions: ‘I ought never to conduct myself except so that I could also will that my maxim become a universal law’.

His meaning is actually very straightforward. He’s saying: My action is right if I could want everyone to do it. Therefore, lying must be wrong because, if everyone lied, all normal human interactions would be impossible.

And Kant would say cheating at golf must be wrong because you could never want everyone to cheat. Competitions would be ruined if everyone cheated.

Kant’s principle is relevant in countless situations. If everyone broke speed limits, there would be carnage on the roads. If everyone stole from their neighbours, communities would be destroyed. If shops faked their weighing scales or checkout scanners so that you were under-supplied but over-priced, customers would flee. Hence – by asking if we’d want everyone to do something – we know whether it’s right or wrong.

We need virtue. We must believe most people are telling the truth, charging us fairly, and keeping to common-sense rules. Without virtue ordinary human relationships would be impossible.

Virtue creates better leadership

Harry fitted perfectly the profile of a results-driven leader, a man who (metaphorically speaking) would kick down a door rather than waste time finding a key. He demanded his staff do whatever was necessary to achieve goals, even if that meant cancelling vacations and working all hours. He shouted cruel insults at under-performers, and forced his staff to ignore inconvenient procedures and regulations. Staff trembled when Harry came into their office. He was feared, disliked, and lacked any respect from his team. Here’s the odd thing. Harry didn’t achieve great results. In fact his department’s performance was below average. Why? Several reasons. First, the most talented staff were also those able to get another job, so they left. Second, his team strove to have work done by Harry’s deadlines, but could never do their best work under that pressure. Third, some were so offended by the person they called hellish Harry, they refused to sacrifice themselves just so he could look good. Harry had a serious virtue-deficit, and after three years he also had an employment deficit.

Contrast Harry with any manager or executive you’ve known who was known for her virtues. Perhaps she took time to know her team, cared about their well-being, ensured they had a healthy work-life balance. Perhaps she made sure the work-flow was evenly distributed. Perhaps she praised people for great work, and was gentle with corrections. Perhaps she got everyone together for a snacks and celebrations event whenever a project was successful. Perhaps she defended her staff when top management were critical. Perhaps she knew the names of her team’s partners, spouses and children. Is it any wonder that leader’s team performed well above average. They enjoyed their work, respected their leader, and gave their very best every day.

It’s obvious which of these leaders radiated virtue. It’s not surprising which was the better leader.

The virtuous person is trusted

Once I could afford better than ‘hardly-fit-for-the-road’ cars, I’ve dealt with car salesmen. (Why do so few women sell cars?) Almost all these sales people were perfectly groomed with sales pitches perfectly presented. Whichever car I looked at was the perfect car for me. Everything was utterly wonderful about it. And there were amazing finance deals on that car. Nothing would be a barrier to me buying there and then. One younger salesman in America told me we would definitely agree on a price for one of their brand new cars before I left the showroom. I offered $1000. He didn’t agree. I left the showroom.

Over-hyped sales presentations turn me off. But when I dealt with Jim and (some years later) with Mark, I met salesmen who’d clearly never been to sell-them-quick school. They were almost reserved and totally devoid of hype. They listened when we told them what kind of car we wanted, what our price goals were, what car we’d be trading in. When we looked over cars and took them out for a test-drive, they gave honest answers to questions about a car’s reliability, fuel consumption, servicing needs. If I criticised something they addressed the issue but they didn’t deny any problem existed. Above all, each of these two gave us time, and not once did they try to pressurise us into a decision. Guess what? We bought cars after dealing with Jim and Mark. In fact, because Mark had looked after us so well, I asked to speak to his manager, and told him that Mark was exactly the kind of salesman we found helpful, and that his approach had seriously influenced us in buying our new car. I hope Mark got a bonus.

Because of the qualities they showed, we trusted Jim and Mark. How can anyone buy from a person or business they don’t trust? Whether it’s a salesperson or a company, a good reputation is crucial to make sales or win contracts.

In short, the virtuous person is trusted. And trust is the essential basis of a relationship for business, for friendship, and for marriage.

The virtuous person will tend to make good decisions

That’s exactly the logic behind what’s called ‘Virtue Ethics’. If we follow Aristotle’s view: a) that virtue is a choice, and b) it must be developed by practised habit, then we have the following:

  • A person who wants to be virtuous
  • A person constantly developing a virtuous attitude
  • Consequently we have a person who will make good, virtuous decisions.

They won’t be infallible. No-one is perfectly virtuous, so no-one’s decisions will always be good. But the virtuous person’s decisions will more often be right than the decisions of people with no concern for virtue.

For many years after I made my Christian commitment (which was at the age of 18), I wondered how to make right choices. Late teens and early twenties are a time of many major decisions – some related to work, then about going to university, which courses to take, where to live, how to spend money, about girlfriends, and eventually about getting married. But how could I know the right decisions? As well as obvious things to do – including prayer and asking friends – I finally settled on a good thought: I’ll almost never have one hundred per cent certainty, but if I sincerely want to do right and to honour God and then make choices that fit with that ambition, then I will never go too far wrong. I could put that in fewer words: if I always seek to act virtuously, my decisions will never be far off the mark.

I believe that how your life is centred determines your choices. There’s an old saying which goes something like: ‘Samantha’s life was bounded on all sides by Samantha’. In other words, Samantha was utterly self-focused. Everything had to be done for her pleasure, to suit her desires, to prosper her ambitions. Every decision reflected where Samantha’s life was centred.

But what if Samantha’s life was centred on virtue? Then Samantha’s choices would be very different. Instead of being selfish, they’d be selfless. Instead of being indulgent, they’d often be sacrificial. Instead of using others, she’d often serve others. And so on.

Good decisions flow from a life centred on virtue.

To sum up, I believe it’s time for virtue to be revived. We may not adopt medieval chivalric norms, but we can choose lives of integrity and worth. Virtue is so needed today: for relationships with neighbours, colleagues, business partners, fellow students, communities. We also need virtue in wider society, for civility in discourse, for honesty in government, for fairness in business. And we need virtue in world affairs, to be able to trust what world leaders say and respect what they do, for trade to be conducted fairly, for action to be taken so that especially the world’s poor are benefitted.

I looked up virtue in dictionaries. The eighth meaning for virtue listed in one dictionary was ‘valour’, and valour comes from the Latin valēre, to be strong. I like that. To think and act with virtue/valour shows strength. Why? Because the self-discipline and courage required for virtue comes at a price which only the strong will pay. May God help us.

[1] The account of the two knights is borrowed from The French Knight’s Guide to Corporate Culture, Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford, https://timharford.com/2022/06/cautionary-tales-the-french-knights-guide-to-corporate-culture/ Apparently the two knights became lifelong friends.