Relation to others· Morals
Virtue ethics
Axis: Criterion of right action — What makes an action morally good?
The fundamental moral question is not "what should I do?" but "who should I be?". Acting well means acting as a virtuous person would: courageous, just, temperate, practically wise. Morality is a matter of character and education, not merely of rules or calculations.
Movements 10
Aristotelianismexplicit
One does not become just by knowing justice, against Socratic intellectualism, nor by following a rule that would hold identically for all: virtue is a stable disposition of character, acquired by habituation like a skill. Hence the : courage is not a fixed quantity but the point adjusted between cowardice and rashness, relative to us and varying with circumstance. No formula can settle it in advance; only , the practical reason of the experienced person, discerns it in the concrete case. This is why right action is a matter of situated judgement, not of calculation or obedience.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, II, 6 · Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, qq. 55-67
Cynicismexplicit
For Cynicism, virtue is the only good and suffices for happiness: it is not taught in theory but acquired through exercise (askesis), as an art of living in accordance with nature. The whole of ethics lies in the formation of a free, self-sufficient character, indifferent to conventions, with neither rule nor calculation of consequences.
Diogenes Laertius, Lives, VI
Confucianismexplicit
No law and no calculation can stand in for an upright character: what makes the good is the acquired disposition from which the right act springs naturally, not an external rule one applies. Hence the primacy of self-cultivation (xiushen) over prescription: the moral life is the gradual acquisition of virtues, chief among them ren 仁 (humaneness), whose accomplished figure is the junzi (the person of noble character). This is why Confucianism distrusts solutions by decree, whether the universal love decreed by the Mohists or the order imposed by the penal law of the Legalists: only the transformation of the heart yields a reliable agent.
Confucius, Analects (Lunyu) · Mencius (Mengzi), 2A6
Platonismexplicit
Platonic ethics is a virtue ethics (a morality centred on the agent's character and excellence rather than on the rule or the consequence): to act well is to realize justice within oneself, understood as the harmony of the , each part performing its proper function under the rule of reason. Virtue is ultimately reducible to knowledge of the Good.
Plato, Republic, book IV, 441c-444e, the justice of the soul · Plato, Meno, 87c-89a, virtue as knowledge
Stoicismexplicit
Stoic ethics is a virtue ethics par excellence: moral good lies in excellence of character and rightness of intention, not in consequences nor in obedience to an external rule. Virtue, one and indivisible, is the only good and suffices for happiness, and it is virtue that qualifies the agent as wise.
Cicero, On Moral Ends, book III · Diogenes Laertius, Lives, VII
Show inferred positions (5)
Taoisminferable
Taoism is wary of explicit moral rules, which it takes as the sign of an already-lost virtue: to Confucian codification it opposes the spontaneous virtue (te) of one who accords with the Tao. The good life obeys neither principles nor a calculation, it flows from a character cultivated in simplicity and naturalness, hence a virtue ethics of a paradoxical, effortless kind.
Laozi, Tao Te Ching, ch. 38 · Zhuangzi
Rationalisminferable
The rationalists converge on an intellectualized virtue ethics: the good lies in the perfection and power of the rational soul. Descartes' , Spinoza's active blessedness, Leibniz's wisdom make moral life the flourishing of a character enlightened by reason, more than obedience to a law or the calculation of effects.
Spinoza, Ethics, IV-V · Descartes, The Passions of the Soul
Romanticisminferable
Romanticism opposes to the Kantian rule and the utilitarian calculus a morality of the heart: value is born of feeling, of sympathy and of the beauty of the soul, not of an abstract principle. To be good is to be true to oneself and attuned to others through empathy, an ethics of sensible virtue and of care where the authenticity of feeling is what counts.
Rousseau, Emile (conscience) · Schiller, On the Aesthetic Education of Man
Existentialisminferable
Existentialism refuses any pre-given morality: with no values inscribed in things, the good life lies in authenticity, assuming one's freedom and responsibility without bad faith. Beauvoir draws from this a demand of care: to will one's own freedom is to will that of others. An ethics of virtue (authenticity) and of care (the freedom of others), more than of rule or calculation.
Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism · Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity
Buddhisminferable
Buddhism grounds morality on the cultivation of virtue (sila) and on compassion (karuna) and loving-kindness toward all sentient beings, down to animals. Merit lies in the quality of intention and the transformation of the mind more than in obedience to a law; consequences count through the karmic fruits they carry.
Dhammapada · Metta Sutta
Philosophers 21
Platoexplicit
Platonic ethics is an ethics of virtue: a person's good lies in the state of the soul, and justice is defined as the harmony of its three parts, each performing its own function under the rule of reason. The good life is not a matter of rules or of calculating consequences but of an ordered, virtuous character.
Republic, IV, 441c-444e · Gorgias, 506c-508c
Diogenes of Sinopeexplicit
Moral worth lies entirely in the state of the character, free and self-sufficient: this is a virtue ethics in the strict sense, where neither an external rule nor a calculation of consequences grounds the good. Virtue is not taught in words but acquired through exercise (), like an art. Diogenes goes further than ordinary virtue ethics: he makes it a bodily discipline, a training in hardness and want, closer to an athlete's gymnastics than to a sage's deliberation.
Diogenes Laertius, Lives, VI, 70-71
Aristotleexplicit
Against Socratic intellectualism, for which no one does evil willingly and virtue reduces to knowledge, Aristotle observes that knowing the good does not suffice to do it: virtue is not a science but a disposition (hexis) of character, acquired by the repetition of just acts as one becomes a lyre-player by playing the lyre. The right action thus cannot be deduced from any general rule: it consists in aiming, in each situation, at the relative to us between excess and defect, determined by the of the discerning person. Hence a morality governed neither by consequences nor by a law, but by the kind of person one becomes.
Nicomachean Ethics, II.1 and II.6
Epictetusexplicit
For Epictetus the only good is virtue, understood as the right use of : moral worth lies entirely in the state of the character and of the , not in consequences nor in an external rule. It is a virtue ethics in the strict sense, with a thin deontological strand in the idea of faithfully discharging the duties attached to one's roles.
Discourses, I.29 · Enchiridion, §30
Marcus Aureliusexplicit
Moral worth lies wholly in excellence of character and rightness of intention, not in consequences nor in an external rule: a , with a thin deontological strand in the idea of faithfully discharging the function attached to one's roles.
Meditations, V, 1 · Meditations, III, 6 · Meditations, XI, 1
Senecaexplicit
Seneca's ethics is regulated by virtue and the character of the , not by a reckoning of consequences nor by an imperative rule. To live according to nature and reason, cultivating courage, temperance and justice: this is a , where the good is the excellence of the soul.
Letters to Lucilius, LXXVI and CXX (virtue, the only good and the end of life) · On the Happy Life, VIII-IX (virtue suffices for happiness)
Confuciusexplicit
Because morality can neither be codified into rules nor reduced to a reckoning of outcomes, what must be formed is a person, their character and their situated discernment. Hence the shift of appraisal from the act to the agent: the measure of the good is the junzi 君子 (person of noble character) animated by ren 仁 (humaneness), and this virtue cannot be decreed, it is won through long self-cultivation and the imitation of exemplars. Virtue is not obedience to a law but an inner disposition made stable by habit, which anchors the foundation on the side of virtue ethics. A deontological share remains in fidelity to the li 禮 (rites), and a share of in the primacy of familial affection.
Analects (Lunyu), XII, 1-2 (ren and self-mastery through the rites) · Analects, IV, 5 and VI, 30 (the junzi never departs from humaneness)
Thomas Aquinasexplicit
The criterion of the right lies for Thomas in virtue, a stable disposition that perfects the agent: he takes up 's four cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, courage, temperance) and orders them to the final end. But virtue ethics is articulated with the natural law, which supplies the objective rule that applies to the singular case, hence a deontological strand: the virtuous agent is the one whose dispositions agree with the rational order of ends. At the summit, the virtues acquired by habit are crowned by the theological virtues, faith, hope and charity, infused by grace, which orient the human being toward an end that surpasses his nature.
Summa Theologiae, Ia-IIae, q. 55-67; IIa-IIae
Beauvoirexplicit
If God is dead and no value falls from any heaven, the foundation of morality can only be freedom itself, the one thing that posits itself as unconditionally desirable in choosing itself. But a freedom cannot coherently will itself without also willing the other freedoms that give a world and a meaning to its project: this is Beauvoir's reply to the charge of nihilism levelled at existentialism. She nonetheless refuses any universal rule fixed in advance, for the good is decided each time within the thickness of a singular situation, hence an ethics of engagement and responsibility toward others, with no recipe and no alibi.
The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947), "Freedom and Liberation"
Show inferred positions (12)
Laoziinferable
Laozi distrusts proclaimed codes and duties: "when the great Dao is lost, benevolence and righteousness arise," a sign of a virtue already fallen into artifice. Right action is neither obedience to a rule nor the calculation of an outcome, but the expression of an inner state attuned to the Dao, the (de) that acts without parading itself as virtuous. It is, for want of any alternative, a virtue ethics, but a spontaneous virtue that denies itself as a code the moment it is named.
Dao De Jing, ch. 18, 19 and 38
Zhuangziinferable
Zhuangzi mocks the "benevolence" and "righteousness" of the as paraded virtues that maim the natural, like the duck whose legs are stretched. Good conduct is neither obedience to a rule nor a reckoning of consequences, but the expression of an inner state attuned to the , a spontaneous excellence (de) that does not know itself virtuous. For want of any alternative, it is a virtue ethics, but of a virtue that denies itself as a code and holds every proclaimed morality to be a falling-off.
Zhuangzi, ch. 8 and 9
Nietzscheinferable
Beyond his critique of "morality", Nietzsche's positive ethics prizes traits of character, strength, nobility, the of the strong, rather than rules or consequences. His reads as a virtue ethics of power, inferred from his praise of accomplished types.
Beyond Good and Evil, §260 · On the Genealogy of Morality, I, §10
Socratesinferable
For Socrates the criterion of action is neither the reckoning of consequences nor obedience to a law, but the state of the soul the act proceeds from: to act well is to act from an excellent soul. By making virtue the whole of morality and the object of self-care, he opens the tradition of virtue ethics later carried on by Aristotle and then the Stoics.
Plato, Apology, 30a-b; Crito, 47e-48a (the good soul, the only true good)
Spinozainferable
Virtue coincides with power, the capacity to act under the guidance of reason and according to the laws of one's own nature: to act from virtue is to persevere in being by seeking what increases it. This naturalistic , centered on the and the flourishing of the power to act, is governed neither by duty nor by the mere reckoning of consequences.
Ethics, IV, def. 8 and prop. 20 (virtue, the power to act according to one's nature) · Ethics, IV, prop. 24 (to act from virtue is to act under the guidance of reason)
Hegelinferable
The morality of duty alone, in , is an empty formalism: from the mere form of law, non-contradictory universalizability, no determinate duty follows, and one can make it hold that "there ought to be property" as well as the contrary. The good has content only in concrete , the mores and institutions in which the individual is formed, not in abstract moral conscience (Moralität).
Elements of the Philosophy of Right, §135 Remark (the empty formalism) · Elements of the Philosophy of Right, §142 ff. (Sittlichkeit)
Descartesinferable
The morality of rests on a master virtue, : to know that nothing truly belongs to us but the free disposal of our will, and to feel within ourselves a firm resolution to use it well. The right is decided less by rule or consequence than by the quality of the one who acts: generosity is like the key to all the other virtues and the general remedy against the disorders of the passions, which anchors Descartes in a virtue ethics, with a share of duty in the firmness of judgment.
The Passions of the Soul, arts. 153-156 and 161 · Letter to Princess Elisabeth, 18 May 1645
Sartreinferable
Sartre rejects any morality of a priori rules: to the young man torn between staying with his mother and joining the Resistance, no doctrine, neither Christian love nor Kantian duty, dictates the answer: no general ethics can show what is to be done. What remains is the primacy of the agent who makes himself through his acts, close to a virtue ethics refounded on freedom and authenticity, without a table of values or a reckoning of utility.
Existentialism Is a Humanism (the example of the young man, moral invention)
The Buddhainferable
Buddhist ethics cultivates right conduct (sila) and wholesome states of mind: generosity, loving-kindness (metta) and compassion (karuna) toward all beings. It is an ethics of virtue and care, where the agent's inner transformation matters, joined to an attention to the karmic fruits of acts, intention bearing the moral weight of the action.
Metta Sutta · Dhammapada
Leibnizinferable
Leibniz's ethics lies in caritas sapientis, the charity of the wise: justice is love regulated by wisdom, willing the good of others within the order of universal perfection. This concern for others guided by knowledge unites a virtue ethics (the perfection of the soul) with a share of care (benevolence) and of duty (the rational order of the just).
Meditation on the Common Concept of Justice · Codex iuris gentium, Preface
Rousseauinferable
The foundation of morality is neither the calculation of consequences nor an abstract rule, but two natural movements of the heart: well-ordered self-love and , the immediate feeling that makes us suffer at another's harm. Conscience, the instinct for the good, precedes reason. This is close to an ethics of virtue and of care, where feeling, rather than law, grounds obligation.
Rousseau, Emile, Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar · Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality
Camusinferable
Camus's ethics is born of revolt: from the refusal of the absurd arises a value, human solidarity, and a measure. I revolt, therefore we are: in rising up, the rebel affirms a common dignity and limits not to be crossed, even within revolt. Neither a calculation of consequences nor an abstract law, but a virtuous fidelity to the human and a concern for others.
The Rebel
Argument
- Following a rule does not suffice to make an action good for certain: one can know it and apply it grudgingly, out of interest, or at the wrong moment. The occasionally just man is not yet the just man.
- What makes a person act well consistently is a lasting disposition of character: the one who has become just does the just thing regularly, gladly, and for its own sake, without consulting a rule each time.
- And this disposition, unlike a rule fixed in advance, stays attentive to what is particular in each situation: the person endowed with perceives what this precise case demands, where a general rule, unable to foresee everything, must sometimes betray it.
Therefore So the ground of right action is a good character, not the observance of a rule or the calculation of effects: to act well is to have become the one who sees and does what the moment demands.
See the pageObjectionAttacks the position
- Virtue ethics offers this rule: do what the virtuous person would do. But who is this person? The one who does what ought to be done.
- The criterion goes in a circle: it defines the right action by the virtuous agent, and the virtuous agent by the right action, without ever saying, in the concrete case, what ought to be done.
- And when equally admirable people judge in opposite ways, whether to lie to save a friend, to fight or to yield, the appeal to character stays silent, where a rule or a calculation do give an answer.
Therefore So virtue ethics may describe the good agent, but it does not guide action: it lacks the criterion that duty or consequences provide.
See the pageListening to conscience: feeling before reasoningRuleInspired by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Ask your heart what your reason is about to excuse.
For , conscience is a feeling, a « divine instinct », that makes us sense the good before reason establishes it, and that clever reasonings often serve to stifle. The practice consists, when facing a moral choice, in first consulting that inner feeling, what the heart approves or recoils from, before letting oneself be won over by skilful justifications, one's own and others'.
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- PrescriptiveMoral Thought experimentSaving a loved one rather than a stranger
We save the one we love without hesitating; but is what makes that act good a calculation, a rule that permits it, good character, or the bond itself, which no morality should require us to justify?
an act for a loved one - PrescriptiveMoralBeing good or acting rightly
Is morality a matter of acts to be judged one by one against rules, or first of all a matter of a person's character, of who one is and how one has learned to see situations?
the agent - PracticalCan one learn to be good?
Can goodness be taught, like a body of knowledge, or is it acquired through habit? And how is it that we sometimes know the good yet fail to do it?
the agent - PrescriptiveMoralRivals or facets
Consequences, duty, virtue, care: are these rival theories of which only one can be true, or the facets of a single morality that nothing compels us to unify?
the moral criterion - PrescriptiveMoralThe rule or the situation
Is acting well a matter of applying principles fixed in advance, or of judging each situation in its singularity, at the risk that rule and case never quite coincide?
moral judgment