A Neo-Aristotelian Against Mainstream Virtue Ethics
Friends of mine who work on Rand’s ethics often list Elizabeth Anscombe’s seminal 1958 article, “Modern Moral Philosophy” as a favorite. The paper is noteworthy for its sweeping condemnation of both consequentialist and deontological normative ethical theory and its allegation that both relied on concepts rooted in divine command morality. Anscombe’s paper is widely recognized as having paved the road for a renewed interest in Aristotle, which included a renewed appreciation of Aristotle’s ethics.
So it is with some interest that I read a recent review at NDPR of a new book by Jonathan Sanford, Before Virtue: Assessing Contemporary Virtue Ethics (Catholic University of America Press, 2015), which takes contemporary virtue ethics to task for failing to live up to Anscombe’s original rallying cry. According to Sanford, “mainstream” virtue ethics attempts to assimilate itself to either deontology or consequentialism, and in doing so fails to escape from the framework Anscombe had critiqued.
Of special interest, Sanford argues that Aristotelian ethics is “non-consequentialist” although it is teleological, a trait I think he shares with Rand. He also claims Aristotelian ethics “does not, and cannot, endorse a selfless and generic benevolence,” another point on which I’m sure Rand would agree enthusiastically. Sanford criticizes contemporary virtue ethics for abandoning these distinctively Aristotelian points.
Happily, NDPR reviewer Micha Lott notes that not all contemporary virtue theory shares these faults:
Most surprisingly, Sanford makes no mention of the work of Michael Thompson. This is odd, given that Thompson’s work is important to both Foot and Hursthouse, whom Sanford discusses often. Moreover, in Life and Action, Thompson does precisely the thing that Sanford complains is not being done — he attempts to given an account of foundational concepts in practical philosophy (life, action, practice), and he does so in a way that is broadly Aristotelian and that draws explicitly on Anscombe.
Other important omissions include: John Haldane, Richard Kraut, Mark LeBar, Anselm Müller, Roger Teichmann, and Candace Vogler. In very different ways, each of these thinkers has addressed the foundational questions about human nature and philosophical psychology that Sanford wants to see taken up by moral philosophers. To varying degrees, all of these thinkers can be classified as “Aristotelian”, and some of them draw heavily on Anscombe. All of them have things to say about virtue.
To this list, I would of course add Ayn Rand, though she did not draw on Anscombe. Atlas Shrugged came out just a year before “Modern Moral Philosophy,” and proposed a series of moral virtues based on a broadly Aristotelian view of human nature. Rand’s theory also offered to transcend the modern consequentialism vs. deontology alternative, and in a way that famously rejected “a selfless and generic benevolence.” I should say that Rand’s theory also avoids the Thomistic “natural end” teleology that Lott criticizes Sanford for assuming without much argumentation.
Readers interested in learning more should consult Volume I of the Ayn Rand Society Philosophical Studies, Metaethics, Egoism, and Virtue, edited by Allan Gotthelf and James Lennox. In particular, check out Darryl Wright’s excellent overview essay “Reason, Choice and the Ultimate End,” which includes a useful summary of the big-picture similarities and differences between Rand’s view and Aristotle’s, and also the contributions by Wright, Christine Swanton, Helen Cullyer and Tara Smith on Rand’s relationship with virtue ethics.
Also, readers should also look up the forthcoming Blackwell Companion to Ayn Rand, edited by Allan Gotthelf and Gregory Salmieri. Gotthelf’s essay “The Morality of Life” also contains new and useful differentiation between Rand’s ethics of virtue and contemporary virtue ethics. In particular they clarify why, for Rand, virtues are neither ends in themselves nor merely instrumental means to an end, a possibility that some critics of Rand have failed to appreciate in the past. A valuable footnote by Salmieri to the piece (#14) also contains a useful summary of the parallels between Rand and Anscombe.
by Ben Bayer
 |
|
The following comments on this post are preserved:
Anonymous asks: Re: Sanford's interpretation of Aristotle: What does it mean for an ethics to be teleological but not consequentialist? I've done some internet research on this but could find no clear distinction.
Greg S. replies: As Ben says, the paradigm case of a consequentialist is Mill, and the paradigm teleologist is Aristotle. Whether one thinks of these two terms as essentially the same, and, if not, just how one distinguishes them, depends on how much significance one accords to each of several similarities and differences between such ethicists and between them and such ethicists as Kant. So like all issues of classifying philosophers, this is a substantial philosophical question in its own right.
But without weighing in on which of the similarities and differences are most important, let me just list a few:
1. Mill, Moore, and other consequentialists at least tend to treat the goodness of an end as impersonal, rather than seeing it as tied to an agent. We can see this in Mill's proof of the principle of utility (which Ben discussed) and in Moore'd insistence that the idea of an agent's good is incoherent, unless it means either something good that the agent happens to have or a state of affairs they is good and consists in the agent's having something. By contrast, for Aristotle, an end or good is always the end of good of something or someone.
2. Relatedly, consequentialists (almost always) view goods as effects or actions that are fully distinct from the actions themselves and valuable in isolation from them, whereAd for Aristotelians actions can be wholly or partially constitutive of their ends. Indeed Aristotle thinks that the ultimate end has to be an activity that is worth engaging in for its own sake.
3. Consequentialists generally conceive of the good as something that in principle can be increased without limit--for example the amount of pleasure in the world--whereas teleologists think of it more as an ideal to be realized or approximated.
Summing these up, I think that teleologists think of goodness in terms of goals achievable by agents in action which give a point to those actions. Consequentialists think of goodness simply as a property of certain states of affairs, and they don't see this as essentially depending on any connection to actions and agents (though, of course, they think it has implications for what actions agents should take).
But again, how important one thinks these differences are and just how they're related will depend on where one comes down on various other issues.
Ben B. replies: That's a good and important question, I think. Consequentialism and teleology are often run together, and this is understandable. Both, after all, see goals or ends as essential to value. Consequentialists say morality consists of achieving some goal, usually maximizing some quantity, like the greatest happiness for the greatest number.
But consider Aristotle, for instance. He is clearly a teleologist because he thinks virtue aims at an end, at eudaemonia or the fine. But Aristotle is not a consequentialist. There are several ways to see this even from the perspective of conventional interpretations of consequentialism. For Aristotle, to be virtuous you must do the right thing for the right reason, with the right motive, etc. None of these considerations really matter for consequentialists in the end. Mill, for instance, says that the morally right act may result from any number of possible motives. For him, all that matters is the effects of an action, not where it comes from. For Aristotle, the effects matter, but only insofar as they are the effects an agent aims at.
Note this also distinguishes Aristotle from Kant, who thinks goals and ends don't matter at all. Consequentialists characteristically focus on consequences to the exclusion of motive, whereas deontologists focus on motive to the exclusion of consequences. Clearly there is room for a third theory that sees each of these factors as inseparable: a teleological theory.
But you might think that while Aristotle's teleology is distinct from utilitarianism, that doesn't mean it's not a form of consequentialism. I disagree. It is important that for consequentialists, the goal to be achieved here is an impersonal goal. For Mill, for instance, your action is right just in case it maximizes the general happiness, even though it might involve your own sacrifice. What I think Rand's metaethics helps to make clear is that a goal that is held distinct from or in opposition to your own needs and interests cannot be of value. It cannot even really be a goal.
Consequentialism holds certain "goals" as intrinsic values, certain states of affairs that are valuable in and of themselves. That means they are not valuable to anyone in particular. That has to be true of utilitarianism, for instance, because there is no entity to whom the sum of society's happiness is actually of value, and it is not valuable for anything. Rand's metaethics clarifies how the concept of "value" derives from the concept of "life": if there were no living things, nothing would be of value to anything or for anything. But to hold the maximization of some impersonal quantity as a value as utilitarians do is therefore to steal the concept of "value." It's even to steal the concept of "goal." People who believe in utilitarianism can treat it as a "goal," but because it doesn't relate to the actual needs of their life, it's a "goal" only in a derivative and corrupted sense.
What that amounts to is that a view like consequentialism that holds as a "goal" the maximization of an impersonal quantity unrelated to the needs of living organisms is not even treating the achievement of real goals as necessary for moral value. So it is not really even teleological. So teleological views like Aristotle's and Rand's are in a distinct category from consequentialism, even if consequentialists sometimes speak as if their theory is teleological. I suspect that if you push the deontologists, you'll find that they have similar problems with claiming that moral rightness is all about the motive. Can something really be a motive if it's not related to a goal?
By the way, there's important material on the distinction between Rand's views and consequentialism in the forthcoming Blackwell Companion to Ayn Rand. Get your hands on a copy if you can!
Greg S. wonders: I wonder what Stanford means by "selfless and generic benevolence," and what texts from Aristotle he’s drawing on. In particular I wonder what the connection is supposed to be between the selflessness and genericness of benevolence according to the view Stanford is criticizing, and is he saying that Aristotelian ethics rejects the conjunction or that it rejects both conjuncts? Rand, as I understand her, rejects the idea that benevolence can be selfless, since she thinks that selflessness breeds resentment, and that genuine benevolence can only flow from egoism. But she does endorse a “generic” benevolence, if this means a benevolence that’s directed towards humanity in general, in view of general human potentialities, rather than towards specific people or groups in view of their specific realizations of these potentialities.
Harry B. replies: I would assume that "generic" benevolence is a state of indifference to the personal qualities of the recipient. As you point out, one can read it as regard for the general human potential. But if that's what Stanford meant, wouldn't he have written "generalized benevolence"? Additionally, I don't see anything in *that* that would be rejected by Aristotle. It seems orthogonal to Aristotle's concerns.
So if he's concerned to make a point about virtue ethicists drifting away from Aristotle, mustn't it be that he's deploring the attempt to assimilate Aristotle to more Christian/Kantian approaches?