Diacritica 25-2_Filosofia.indb - cehum - Universidade do Minho

ELITISM AND THE ETHICS OF VIRTUE
So far more or less in agreement, the supporters of VE disagree, however,
about how virtue guides the less insightful to do well. Th is disagreement
does, however, not prevent me from treating virtue ethicists as one
group in this paper. For regardless of whether a virtue ethicist takes deliberating
upon which action available to the one would most optimally hit the
targets of virtue (perceived by practical wisdom) – as Swanton may be read
to suggest [4] – or considering which action a person acting from virtue (i.e.
the practically wise) might characteristically perform in the one’s situation
– as e.g. Rosalind Hursthouse proposes [5] – to guide one to act virtuously,
the proponents of VE agree that ethical virtue is the source of ethical value
in any case.
Th e reliance of VE on virtue as the source of value is the decisive difference
between VE and the principled theories of normative ethics, such
as consequentialism, the foremost adversary of VE, according to which one
needs to appeal to the consequences of the actions available to her so as to
reach the good choice of action. [6] A consequentialist could say that one must
always begin her deliberation from the principle that ‘the good’ – whatever
it may be – is to be promoted, ponder upon which available action would
best implement that principle, and then form a conditional imperative (i.e.
φ!, since φ:ing would optimally promote the good) about what she ought
to do. In contrast to the consequentialist’s strict procedure, a virtue ethicist
would argue that ethical deliberation, to quote John McDowell, “cannot be
captured in a deductively applicable blueprint” (McDowell, 2009: 46). She
could point out that that capturing is impossible, because diff erent ethical
contexts exhibit such a variety of ethical demands that no principle (or no
manageable set of them) could capture the appropriate way(s) of responding
them all. Rather, according to the virtue ethicist, one ought to do what virtue
would demand (or, in case he is practically wise, simply get) him to do.
Th e general picture is thus as follows. Th e practically wise have the
most accurate ethical insight: they are the best to see what would be
4 For Swanton’s defi nition of virtue, see Swanton 2003, pp. 233-248. She also argues that actions
from virtue express practical wisdom (p. 99 & 293) that, in turn, ”involves the right ways of seeing
the world aff ectively and motivationally” (p. 179). Cf. Russell 2009, pp. 107-8. Notice that
Swanton diff erentiates ethical - or, ’quotidian’, as she prefers to call them - virtues from the ones
she calls ’heroic ’and that do not require practical wisdom (pp. 27, 82-84, 135 & 171) In this
paper, I deal, however, with only the former.
5 See Hursthouse 1997 and 2001, esp. p. 28. For similar view see e.g. Zagzebski 1996, pp. 211-254,
McDowell 2009, and Russell 2009, Ch. 4.
6 Virtue ethicists have regarded consequentialism as their foremost adversary ever since G. E. M
Anscombe published her seminal paper Modern Moral Philosophy (Anscombe 1981).
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