Intelligent Virtue 2

In chapter 2 of Intelligent Virtue, Julia Annas explains two things.  One is that virtue is a reliable disposition of a person to perform virtuous actions.  This disposition must be cultivated.  A person is encouraged toward virtuous actions by her parents and her friends and associates.  She may consciously cultivate virtue in herself.  It is by doing virtuous things that one develops a virtuous character.  To acquire a virtue is to become a certain kind of person, which is to say, a person who tends to do virtuous things. 

Virtue does not arise abstractly, as if we decide in advance which actions are virtuous and then attempt to motivate people to do such actions.  Rather, virtue is developed by working on and with existing motivations, encouraging and shaping the ones that tend toward virtue and discouraging those that do not. 

She confronts a certain chicken and egg problem here.  If virtuous actions and virtues seem to produce one another, is one nonetheless primary over the other?  You might suspect that we value a virtuous character only for the sake of virtuous actions, and so the latter are primary.  Annas objects.  To employ a famous analogy which she does not employ, it like the saying that if you give someone a fish he eats for a day but if you teach him to fish he eats for life.  Just as knowing how to fish is more valuable than any single fish, a virtuous person is more valuable than any single virtuous action. 

I would add a couple of reflections at this point.  One concerns the classical view of beauty.  The beautiful makes it possible to appreciate virtue apart from the outcome of virtuous actions.  If we value virtue only for the sake of virtuous actions, and virtuous actions for the sake of the good things that they make possible, then we would value virtue only when it is successful.  Yet it is quite possible, perhaps unavoidable, to admire virtue when it cannot succeed.  We admire the three hundred Spartans even though they perished and their bravery had no significant strategic value.  That is because it was beautiful. 

A second reflection concerns the biological roots of virtue.  Annas acknowledges the existence or at least the possible existence of natural virtues.  We may be born with at least some tendency toward virtue.  Though he doesn’t use the same terms, Michael Tomasello’s excellent book Why We Cooperate? is addressed precisely to this question.  Here is a quote from a post at my old blog South Dakota Politics:

Chimpanzees are capable of cooperating but they lack any understanding of cooperation.  Two chimps can each learn to pull a bar in sequence, so that food is delivered.  But all each chimp knows is that if I pull the bar, I get the food.  Neither chimp understands that the other has to do his part, nor does either expect, let alone demand, that the other cooperates.  

Human children, from an early age, have a sense of “we-ness”.  Helping behavior, unlearned and not signaled, develops spontaneously.  When a child (about 3 years old) sees an adult in need of assistance (say, opening a cabinet door), the child is moved to provide it.  In one fascinating experiment, an adult plays a simple game with a child.  The child puts a block in one of two inclined tubes.  It slides down the tube and the adult catches it in a tin can.  It makes a pleasant ring and the adult shouts in satisfaction.  The game is obviously fun, so when the adult walks away the child will try to bring him back to the game.  The child understands that the adult is a partner whom he needs to keep playing, that the game is something that “we” are doing.  This is something that chimpanzees cannot grasp.  

I submit that this is evidence for natural virtue.  Young children spontaneously develop a sense of mutual obligations.  That is what we work on when we attempt to cultivate virtue in our children and in ourselves.  

The second thing that Annas explains in this chapter is virtue is not about routines.  A routine is something we develop so we can perform some task without devoting much thought to it.  Annas uses the example of driving every day to a certain location.  It becomes a routine when we always use the same route and do it so unreflectively that we often are barely aware of getting there.  

Virtuous action may indeed be quicker than thought.  Annas uses the analogy of the master piano player, who can translate his understanding of a piece of music into the work of his fingers very fast.  Unlike a routine, however, this work is essentially intelligent.  He has a conception of the work, what it means and how it ought to be played.  He is intensely aware of what he is doing.  He can do it well because he has cultivated his genius over a long period of time.  Like the ace tennis player, he responds creatively to every moment.  

Annas employs an important point made by Aristotle.  Courage is most evident in those who respond to unexpected situations.  Those who rely on routines are at a loss when a sudden alarm or something else unforeseen calls for a creative response.  Someone with the virtue of courage can respond more effectively to such surprises precisely because her virtue was developed in a long series of creative responses (dare I say, adapting) to circumstances as they arise. 

The Evolution of Virtue 2

Modern philosophical ethics has been dominated by two general positions: utilitarianism and deontology (Kantian ethics).  According to the first, the just or right thing to do is the thing that is most useful to the most people.  So it is right to tell the truth most of the time because general honesty has good social consequences.  However, it might be right to lie in special circumstances.  If a suicidal young man asks where his gun is, telling him the truth might be the morally worst thing to do. 

According to deontology or duty based ethics, an act is moral only if you do it because it is the right thing to do.  Telling a lie is wrong because it manipulates another human being, thus treating him as subhuman or as a mere means to an end.  Deontologists will generally say that you must do the right thing regardless of the consequences to yourself or others.  Kant narrowed down the meaning of “the right thing to do” with his two categorical (unbending) imperatives: act so that the principle of your action can be universalized and act always to treat other human beings as person to be served and never as means to be exploited. 

Utilitarianism and deontology are usually present as mutually exclusive.  Oddly, most people switch (if unconsciously) between the two positions in different situations.  The best example of this is the infamous trolley problem.  The trolley problem comes in two versions. 

Version 1 

A trolley is headed toward a switch.  As the switch is set, the trolley will go left and as a result will kill five people who are working (or tied to) the track.  You can leave the switch as is or switch it to the right track.  In that case it will kill a single person on the track. 

Version 2

You are standing on a bridge next to an obese person, watch the train approach.  If it passes under the bridge it will kill five people on the track.  You can save them only by pushing the large guy onto the track, thus resulting in his death. 

Most people (and almost all of my students) who are presented with the first version choose to throw the switch.  They defend their decision on the grounds that it is morally better to sacrifice one person to save five.  That is textbook utilitarian thinking. 

Results tend to change dramatically when people are presented with the second version.  Most people refuse to push the fellow over on the grounds that one is deliberating killing him in order to stop a train.  That is textbook deontology. 

The key to understanding the two positions is to see that they focus on distinct aspects of a potentially moral action.  The utilitarian focuses on the consequences of the action.  The deontologist focuses on the motive of the moral actor.  What I find most interesting is that you can defend both positions using the assumptions of the other.  While deontology is much less flexible than utilitarians would like, it seems pretty clear that society would be a lot better off if everyone acted (almost) all the time from deontological principles.  There would be no crime and dilemmas which force one to choose between motives and consequences would be much rarer. 

Likewise, a Kantian might employ utilitarian principles as good candidates for universalization.  He might say that anyone in the situation of the first version problem should throw the switch, regardless of who was on the track, because saving five rather than one is the universally right thing to do.  However, it would be all but impossible to throw the fat guy over without violating the second categorical imperative. 

Virtue ethics has recently been revived as a third position.  According to this, what is important in morality is the dynamic relationship between acts and character.  By doing what is right consistently, as a matter of principle, one builds the habit of acting morally.  When one has such habits, one will of course tend to do the right thing for the right reason.  Virtues may be said to be such habits, but I think it more correct to say that virtue is precisely the dynamism involving actions and character.  Brave actions produce bravery which produces brave actions; that is what makes courage a virtue. 

It seems pretty clear that morality has deep roots in evolution.  Cooperators are frequently more successful in a Darwinian sense (reproductive success) than non-cooperators and so cooperation can be selected for.  In many cases in the history of animals, situations arise where cooperation involves the temptation to cheat.  Some mechanisms must be found for denying reproductive success to cheaters; otherwise, cooperative instincts will be selected out of the gene pool. 

To take one famous example, vampire bats frequently share blood with one another.  This provides insurance for those who have string of bad hunting days.  The bats have rather large brains, in part perhaps to remember who shares and who does not.  Cheaters are excluded from the social safety net.  It is not that the bats understand what they are doing.  It is rather that moral principles are built into their behavioral schemas. 

Human beings are consummate cooperators.  We cooperate with extended nets of partners and have natural expectations regarding their behaviors.  We are sensitive to others opinions of us, especially concerning our fitness as honest partners.  We are naturally inclined to be angry when we suppose that another is not observing his or her obligations. 

Cooperation is obviously utilitarian from a “gene’s eye” point of view.  Human societies have inherited the earth.  However, cooperative societies are also the conditions of the good human life.  Our interests are dependent upon but not at all identical with the persistence of our genes. 

It seems obvious that morality is in part utilitarian.  We need for one another to behave morally.  It seems to me just as likely that Kantian elements have been selected for in the evolution of our moral psychology.  A person who is uncomfortable with doing the wrong thing is obviously a better candidate for a cooperative partnership.  He or she makes a better business partner, friend and ally, or spouse. 

Just as morality cannot be reduced to evolutionary mechanisms (though it must be supported by them) it cannot be reduced merely to making us useful to one another.  This is where virtue ethics is most helpful.  Such Aristotelian virtues as courage, temperance, honesty, and righteous indignation are socially beneficial to be sure.  They are also beneficial to the virtuous person.  To the extent that an individual possesses virtue, he or she is more likely to take advantage of good fortune and bear up under bad fortune.  The virtuous person is most fit for the best human life. 

In the Politics Aristotle expressed his non-reductive thinking with this immortal phrase: though the polis (the political community) comes to be for the sake of mere life, it is exists for the sake of the good life.  He was distinguishing here the historical forces responsible for the emergence of political life from the value of political life for human beings. 

I suppose that while the moral dimension in human psychology came to be for the sake of mere reproductive success, it exists for the sake of our success.  Morality rests on evolutionary foundations.  It enables the formation of societies that are good to live in, in ways that utilitarianism and deontology shed light on.  It is also important to forming an individual character worth having.  The latter confirms the Platonic/Aristotelian account of the virtues.