Ethically Yours

 

Philosophy web-courses should contain a warning: Danger Brain My Explode.  Invest in coffee, aspirin and find a hobby to relieve pressure. 

A good beginning for Aristotle Virtue Ethics: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-ethics/

Some semi-random thoughts as I read through student posts…

Acting “Out of character” sounds like something we would hear with respect to a virtue ethics. One’s character might be thought of as “Who they truly are.” Most often we judge character as revealed by expressions and actions that indicate the presence or absence of virtues and vices. Acting out of character would mean, then, that we are not acting as expected…or as we customarily or habitually act in similar situations. (Of course, a person could be a really good actor and the actions do not reflect the true inner self.)

What about the issue of akrasia with respect to the case study we analyzed? My guess is that when you combine raging hormones, alcohol, peer pressure, etc. you begin to act through a weakness of will. At first this may not be, technically, immoral. Yet, if such behavior becomes part of your character (you are the town drunk, you are the party animal, etc.) then it might reveal that you have embraced various vices and are, thus, acting immorally. Much of the analysis in virtue ethics relies on intent and knowledge…e.g., did the young man intent to get drunk and wild because he knew that that would increase his chances at sexual activity? Or was he more like the “doe-eyed-innocent” who went to a party and before he knew it he was drunk and wild? (As an aside, note how often these types of questions arise in the case of suspected rape, including date-rape or sexual activity at or after parties. Different moral intuitions regarding the nature of responsibility and moral culpability will answer these differently. Which is one reason it is important to study.)

The friendship issue is interesting. According to Aristotelian notions of friendship, "true" friends seek the best for the other and are happy about the other’s happiness/well-being. Thus, for example, say you, a true friend, and a stranger are competing for a promotion at work. According to Aristotelian notions of true friendship you should be happy as long as you or the true friend gets the job. ..happy without reservation or regret.

Accordingly, we might argue that it is okay to cause temporary pain in a true friend as long as it is done for their own long term good and well-being. (Much like the temporary pain of a dentist visit is good because of the benefits to your overall dental health.) Hence, regarding the case, if we identify the type of friendship it might help us evaluate how to proceed.

Has anyone suggested that the virtuous person would refuse to make such a promise as in this case. That is, it might be wrong for the sister to make a promise she may have to break due to friendship and the duty to try to prevent harm. Alternatively, they may see this as a case where one person is asking the other to engage in deception and, possibly, promoting future long-term harms on another individual. This would seem counter-virtuous.

Let’s unpack this a bit and ask, "At what point does one cross the line from akrasia to acting immoral?" and "How can a person identify what type of friendship someone has?" 

The first question is rather difficult to answer.  Aristotle (1999) says, "There are three conditions of character to be avoided–vice, incontinence, and bestiality” (p. 99). Bestiality would be acting purely on the passions or animal instincts for food, pleasure, sexual gratification, etc. However, a beast lacks the capacity to reason, so has neither virtue nor vice. The opposite of bestiality is “The Heroic,” going above and beyond even human virtue to something akin to the divine. Although bestiality is commonly found within humankind, it is rare to find the divine. By now we should have a good idea that vice is represented by either the excess or deficiency of a virtue. That leaves us with incontinence.

The incontinent person (one who has or is acting from akrasia) is one who cannot control or master himself in the sense that although they have made the correct moral decision they fail to act on their reason and instead act upon their passions. For example, last night my wife and I got the Pizza Hut special “The Big Dipper – 24 Dipping Strips, 4 cups of marinara, etc.” Watching a movie and eating I ‘knew’ that I should stop eating. When my wife got up to get seconds I ‘knew’ that I should not get another piece. But, lacking self-control I went ahead and ate some more. (It was rather yummy…like cheesy breadsticks with pepperoni). So, is this an example of vice, incontinence, or bestiality?

Given that for the past two years I’ve been gaining weight due to overeating, I’m willing to say that according to virtue ethics I’m pretty much in danger of having the vice of overeating (gluttony?) I say “in danger of” because after talking to my doctor about losing weight I’ve been pretty successful over the last few months of exercising more and changing my diet throughout the week. Thus, I think I’ve moved into the nebulous virtue versus incontinent area.

As long as I ‘know’ the right actions but allow myself to slip and overeat or skip exercising I’m acting according to akrasia (or being incontinent). I’m letting my passions, desires, or animal nature to temporarily take over. However, if I ever say something like “Screw diet and exercise. I’m going to die anyway someday so I may as well just sit on the couch and eat,” then I would slip from incontinence to immoral vice because although I ‘know’ the virtue from the vice I have consciously chosen to embrace the vice. It is not so much that there is a “line in the sand” that once you cross you enter immorally. You have to factor in intent, habitual actions, knowledge, etc.

Does this make sense?

What about friendship?

Aristotle is one of the first philosophers who took seriously the study and importance of friendship. One of my favorite quotes is contained in this passage, “The next topic is friendship; for it is a virtue, or involves virtue. Further, it is most necessary for our life. For no one would choose to live without friends even if he had all the other goods” (Aristotle, 1999, p. 119).

As we have seen, Aristotle (1999) proposes that there are three types of friendship:

Friendship has three species, corresponding to the three objects of love…those who love each other wish good to each other [only] insofar as they love each other. Those who love each other for utility love the other not in his own right, but insofar as they gain some good for themselves from him. The same is true of those who love for pleasure; for they like a witty person not because of his character, but because he is pleasant to them. (p. 121)

The lowest types of friendship are based on utility and pleasure. Examples of these types of friends would be ‘school-friends,’ or people you hang out with while at school, maybe eat lunch with, or head to a bar to drink, but you wouldn’t necessarily share secrets with. Or maybe a ‘work-out’ partner, someone you can depend on to help you at the gym, but again you probably wouldn’t call them up to see if they wanted to see a movie or hang out at the park. One aspect of these friendships is that as soon as you no longer take pleasure in each-others company or gain use in their association the friendship usually dissolves. Another aspect is that they are relatively common.

“Complete friendship,” according to Aristotle (1999), “is the friendship of good people similar in virtue; for they wish goods in the same way to each other insofar as they are good, and they are good in their own right” (p. 122). As you can see, this seems to go beyond utility and pleasure into something like caring for, respecting, and valuing each other as virtuous people. Aristotle claims that this type of friendship is very rare. Not only is it difficult to find someone who is similarly virtuous as oneself, but it takes a long time and effort to cultivate this type of friendship. (You really have to ‘know’ the other person as good as you ‘know’ yourself; you have to absolutely trust them; express unconditional love, care, etc.)

Aristotle has much more to say on friendship. He gives examples of typical activities between friends; he relates how friendship ‘works’ (or fails) between unequals; etc. However, you should have the basic foundation for being able to identify what types of friendship you have with people you are acquainted with. (I sometimes think of this in terms of people I’ve “friended” in facebook…many of them are not really “friends” in any significant sense. Of those who are friends, I am guessing that only a handful are in a relationship with me that would be considered a “complete friendship.”

Aristotle, & Irwin, T. (1999). Nicomachean ethics (2nd ed.). Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett Pub. Co.