tbieter wrote:...I was struck by Bailey's statement, her reason for acting as she did, her doing "the right thing."
Is it reasonable to assert that her action is evidence of the existence of an objective moral order, or of the existence an objective order of right actions ?
In every encounter between a human being and another being, is there a right action to be taken by the human being?
Similar actions occur occasionally and are reported in the news. I've always been struck by the fact that the actor usually (a) acts spontaneously, and, (b) when questioned, refers to doing "the right thing." For example, I recall a report about a homeless guy. He found a briefcase containing a lot of cash in a public place. He promptly went to the nearby police precinct and turned it in. When questioned, he simply said it was the "right thing to do."
What do you think?
As you know, Tom, my system of Ethics is not oriented around the concept "action." Rather, it is concerned with the individual of good character. Such a person would tend to 'do the right thing' most of the time, out of habit and/or out of devotion to being a moral person.
When, as shown in M.C. Katz - BASIC ETHICS -
http://www.myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/BASIC%20ETHICS.pdf - it defined the three most well-known schools of traditional ethical theories, and thus absorbed them into its grand synthesis, it managed to rank them, objectively - since the tools it employed to demonstrate this are objective in the universe; but when people get hold of them they often mess things up, they invert the order. In application, their use is subjective - it turned out that, of those three, recent
Virtue Ethics ranked highest.
Virtue theory, we demonstrated, has the most relative value among the three schools; it has some insights that will gain us the most returns in terms of well-being.
All of the problems that come up in the course of your thread arise because folks are focusing on "action." This causes
confusions because the idea is so vague and ambiguous. What, one might well ask, are the limits of an "action"? What are its boundaries? Reasons for an action, though, are important.
Tom, the homeless guy in your cited example many would describe as "honest." True?
Let's listen to the words of a leading authority in the most-up-to-date virtue ethics, Rosalind Hursthouse.
The mindset of the highly-moral individual
is, she informs us - as she focuses on
honesty as a typical characteristic of such an individual:
"the wholehearted acceptance of a certain range of considerations as reasons for action.” Dr. Hursthouse writes (in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy):
“An honest person cannot be identified simply as one who, for example, practices honest dealing, and does not cheat. If such actions are done merely because the agent thinks that honesty is the best policy, or because they fear being caught out, rather than through recognizing that “To do otherwise would be dishonest” as the relevant reason, they are not the actions of an honest person.
An honest person cannot be identified simply as one who, for example, always tells the truth, nor even as one who always tells the truth because it is the truth, for one can have the virtue of honesty without being tactless or indiscreet. The honest person recognizes “That would be a lie” as a strong (though perhaps not overriding) reason for not making certain statements in certain circumstances, and gives due, but not overriding, weight to “That would be the truth” as a reason for making them.” Here she is referring to someone who is totally ethical, which – let’s face it – very few of us are. What Ethics teaches us is, in effect, Be as honest as possible under the circumstances!
Moreover, She admits this when she adds:
“…to possess, fully, such a disposition is to possess full or perfect virtue, which is rare, and there are a number of ways of falling short of this ideal (Athanassoulis 2000). Possessing a virtue is a matter of degree, for most people who can be truly described as fairly virtuous, and certainly markedly better than those who can be truly described as dishonest, self-centred and greedy, still have their blind spots—little areas where they do not act for the reasons one would expect.
So someone honest or kind in most situations, and notably so in demanding ones may nevertheless be trivially tainted by snobbery, inclined to be disingenuous about their forebears and less than kind to strangers with the wrong accent.” And scientific Ethics, in its definition of the concept “morality,” explicitly reminds us that
morality, like all values, is a matter of degree. {For details, see the o.p. of the thread “What is Morality? -
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=10207.}
"An honest person's reasons and choices with respect to honest and dishonest actions reflect her views about honesty and truth—but of course such views manifest themselves with respect to other actions, and to emotional reactions as well. Valuing honesty as she does, she chooses, where possible to work with honest people, to have honest friends, to bring up her children to be honest. She disapproves of, dislikes, deplores dishonesty, is not amused by certain tales of chicanery, despises or pities those who succeed by dishonest means rather than thinking they have been clever, is unsurprised, or pleased (as appropriate) when honesty triumphs, is shocked or distressed when those near and dear to her do what is dishonest and so on.
Given that a virtue is such a multi-track disposition, it would obviously be reckless to attribute one to an agent on the basis of a single observed action or even a series of similar actions, especially if you don't know the agent's reasons for doing as she did (Sreenivasan 2002)".
It could be useful to draw a distinction between the moral genius - who does what s/he should wholeheartedly without a struggle against contrary desires, with no inner conflict - and those who have
strength of will. The latter may, for example, own up to a mistake because it would be dishonest not to do so but not without some inner tension. They fully intend to be ethical but it takes a little will power. Until they reach a state of high-morality, they have to control a desire or temptation. Let’s recognize that it is not always easy to get one's emotions in harmony with one's rational recognition of certain reasons for action.
Here is how Professor Hursthouse puts it, writing about modern virtue ethics:
“…Quite generally, given that good intentions are intentions to act well or “do the right thing”, we may say that practical wisdom is the knowledge or understanding that enables its possessor, unlike the nice adolescents, to do just that, in any given situation. The detailed specification of what is involved in such knowledge or understanding has not yet appeared in the literature, but some aspects of it are becoming well known.
Even many deontologists now stress the point that their action-guiding rules cannot, reliably, be applied correctly without practical wisdom, because correct application requires situational appreciation—the capacity to recognise, in any particular situation, those features of it that are morally salient. This brings out two aspects of practical wisdom.
One is that it characteristically comes only with experience of life. Amongst the morally relevant features of a situation may be the likely consequences, for the people involved, of a certain action, and this is something that adolescents are notoriously clueless about precisely because they are inexperienced. It is part of practical wisdom to be wise about human beings and human life. (It should go without saying that the virtuous are mindful of the consequences of possible actions. How could they fail to be reckless, thoughtless and short-sighted if they were not?)
The aspect that is more usually stressed regarding situational appreciation is the practically wise agent's capacity to recognise some features of a situation as more important than others, or indeed, in that situation, as the only relevant ones. The wise do not see things in the same way as the nice adolescents who, with their imperfect virtues, still tend to see the personally disadvantageous nature of a certain action as competing in importance with its honesty or benevolence or justice.”
My system of Ethics does not probe into personal intentions, for they are too elusive to measure. We look at actual conduct, and the ‘obligatory norms’ that individuals have openly set for themselves as aiims to which they want to exemplify by their observable conduct.
The benefits of living an ethical life are these: happiness, flourishing, and well-being. All of these together comprise what we shall speak of as a Quality Life. (QL).
Flourishing (in this context) is for rational beings. Happiness, speaking morally, is not subjectively determined. It is measured by scores on a Happiness Index – one designed for individuals, and one designed for societies or nations. [These already exist, fortunately.] These measurements enable us to avoid self-deception. “We have no difficulty” writes Dr. Hursthouse, “in recognizing that I might think I was healthy, either physically or psychologically, or think that I was flourishing and just be plain wrong; It is all too easy for me to be mistaken” about whether my life is a Quality Life, not simply because it is easy to deceive oneself, but because it is easy to have a mistaken conception of a Quality Life, or of what it is to live well as a human being, believing it to consist largely in
physical pleasure or luxury for example.
How do you all feel about these points. Were they helpful? Do you see their relevance to the topic?
