The Reward of Virtue

174 Pages·2011·0.56 MB·English

The Reward of Virtue: An Essay on the
Relationship Between Character and Well-Being
A DISSERTATION
SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
BY
Ian M Stoner
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Valerie Tiberius and Michelle Mason, Advisors
July, 2011
(cid:13)c Ian M Stoner 2011
Acknowledgments
Thanks to professors Fred Schueler, Doug Lewis, Sandra Peterson, Michelle Ma-
son, and Valerie Tiberius for leading first-rate seminars that planted the seeds
that eventually became this dissertation. Thanks to the members of several writ-
ing groups along the way, including at least Marilea Bramer, Mike Rohde, Matt
Frank, Jason Swartwood, and Steve Nelson. Thanks to Devora Shapiro for dis-
cussions during the formative stages of these ideas. Thanks to Crystal Bergstrom
for years of patience followed by a frantic marathon of copy-editing.
Finally, thanks to Valerie Tiberius for embodying the virtuous advisor.
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Dedication
Formyparents, MarkandDaria, withgratitudefordecadesofunflaggingsupport.
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Abstract
Most work in neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics begins by supposing that the virtues
are the traits of character that make us good people. Secondary questions, then,
include whether, why, and in what ways the virtues are good for the people who
have them.
This essay is an argument that the neo-Aristotelian approach is upside down.
If, instead, we begin by asking what collection of character traits are good for us—
thatis, whatcollectionoftraitsaremostlikelytopromoteourownwell-being—we
find a collection of traits a lot like the traditional slate of virtues.
This suggests an egoistic theory of the virtues: the virtues just are those traits
of character that reliably promote the well-being of their possessor. In addition
to making the positive case for character egoism, I defend it from some antici-
pated objections. Most importantly, I argue that character egoism doesn’t inherit
the problems of ethical egoism. I conclude by offering self-regarding accounts of
two virtues traditionally thought to be irreducibly other-regarding: honesty and
justice.
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Contents
Acknowledgments i
Dedication ii
Abstract iii
1 Introduction: Virtue and Well-Being 1
1.1 Purpose, function, and excellence of kind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.2 The connection between virtue and well-being . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.3 Where from here? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2 Doing Well Without a Theory of Well-Being 12
2.1 Relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.2 Personal projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.3 Other candidates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.4 Projects, relationships, and theories of well-being . . . . . . . . . 27
2.5 Character egoism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3 Ethical Egoism and Character Egoism 34
3.1 Egoism as category mistake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.2 Egoism and beneficence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
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3.3 Egoism and moral schizophrenia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4 Clearing Ground for Egoistic Virtues 56
4.1 “But, Hitler!” and the threat of endorsing vices . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.2 Bad projects and the threat of circularity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
4.3 Context-sensitivity and the threat of instability . . . . . . . . . . 70
4.4 The situationist challenge to virtue ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
5 A Catalog Grounded in Well-Being 83
5.1 Getting a catalog out of the definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
5.2 A fragment of a catalog of virtues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
5.3 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
6 Egoistic Honesty: Responding to the Sensible Knave 108
6.1 Hume’s problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
6.2 Trust, friendship, and knavery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
6.3 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
7 Character Egoism and Social Justice 125
7.1 Oppressed groups and the pressure to adapt . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
7.2 Social justice as a self-regarding virtue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
8 Conclusion 157
References 160
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Chapter 1
Introduction: Virtue and
Well-Being
But where is the reward of virtue? And what recompence
has nature provided for such important sacrifices, as those
of life and fortune, which we must often make to it?
“The Stoic”
David Hume
Consider the two morally best people you know. They aren’t, presumably, clones.
They differ in superficial ways: maybe one is tall and the other short. They have
different personalities, too: one might have a sharp sense of humor while the other
is outgoing.
They also differ from one another in ways that are clearly morally relevant.
Perhaps one is kinder while the other is more steadfast. We can account for the
morally relevant differences between these people in two ways. We could insist
that every morally relevant difference between them represents an aspect of their
character in which at least one of them is morally deficient. Alternatively, we
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might suppose that these two people are comparably good in different ways.
In fact, the wide variety of human life-roles yields a ready supply of examples
in which we judge different moral characters as comparably good in different
ways. A good poet should cultivate a degree of emotional sensitivity that would
be crippling (and lamentable) for a military commander. A diplomat should
cultivate dispositions that allow her to move comfortably between cultures, while
a farmer with no interest in travel need not. The poet and the commander, the
diplomat and the farmer, are good in different ways.
While it is easiest to see different people being good in different ways when
those people have different life-roles, the differences in their characters can’t be
chalked up (at least entirely) to their different life-roles. Consider, for example,
the wide range of characters that could rightly be described as excellent (or virtu-
ous) teachers. Some excellent teachers are stern and demanding. Some excellent
teachers are nurturing and emotionally connected with their students. Some are
passionate and funny. They are good teachers, in different ways. And when
a situation with clear moral stakes arises in the classroom—say, a student says
something patently bigoted during a discussion—excellent teachers will deal with
it in different ways. They will be virtuous in different ways.
There is variety among the virtuous.
Atthesametime, thedegreeofoverlapinthecharacteristicsofvirtuouspeople
is striking. When you think of the two best people you know, it may be the case
that one is kinder than the other, but it will never be the case that either of the
best people you know is cruel. The traits of character that make a person virtuous
are broadly shared.
Neo-Aristotelian virtue theories, which ground the virtues in human nature
or excellence of kind, are well-positioned to account for the similarities between
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virtuouspeople. Humannature, afterall, issharedbetweenpoets, generals, teach-
ers, and everyone else. The slate of virtues derived from human nature will be
common to us all.
For the very same reason, though, theories in the Aristotelian tradition are less
well-positioned to account for individual variation in the characters of virtuous
people. There are many kinds of variation neo-Aristotelians can capture, but
given that human nature is shared between us all, different virtues for different
people appears to be incompatible with neo-Aristotelian theory.
We have available to us another concept that can ground an account of the
virtues: well-being. Well-being is a feature of individuals, not species, so an
account of virtue grounded in well-being will naturally accommodate variety in
the characters of the virtuous. However, it is a psychological fact that the sorts
of engagement that foster well-being are broadly shared across the kind. For
all human beings, close friendships are good; for all human beings, a sense of
achievement is good. The fact that the psychology of well-being is broadly shared
accounts for the fact that well-being derived virtues, too, are broadly shared.
I believe this is the better way to approach theorizing about the virtues. The
virtues are best understood as the traits of character that reliably promote our
own well-being; that is, the virtues are best understood egoistically. Though the
poet, the general, the farmer, the diplomat, and the teacher are all instances of
the human kind, they have reason to cultivate varying slates of virtues: their lives
will go better for them if they do.
Neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics and its thirty years of off-shoots have together
developed a framework that includes much more than a definition of virtue. Most
centrally, the various virtue theories together make a compelling case that char-
acter is (or should be) prior to action in moral evaluation; indeed, they all derive