1. Good character

2. Williams‟s “Integrity objection”
against Utilitarianism
 There‟s a crucial moral distinction between
what happens and what I do
 Without this distinction we can not understand
what it means to have integrity
 Moral integrity requires the individual to view
himself as a moral agent whose actions flow
“from projects or attitudes which in some cases
he takes seriously at the deepest level, as what
his life is about”
 Utilitarianism can‟t understand this notion of
moral integrity, because it leaves no room for
describing the ethical importance of the
relationship between our projects, identity, and
actions.
2

3. Williams‟s “One thought too many”
objection to Kantianism
 At least in some cases, acting from moral duty can not be the
right motivation.
 Some actions can not be adequately justified by reference to
abstract impartial principles.
Bernard Williams
1929 - 2003

4. Character-based theories
Sample approach 1: consequence-based ethics
Utilitarianism
o Start/focus on good states of affairs
o Right actions are those that bring about good states of affairs
o A good character is one that leads you bring about good states of affairs
Sample approach 2: duty-based ethics
Kantianism
o Start/focus on right actions
o Good states of affairs are those in which right actions are taken
o A good character is one that leads you to perform right actions
Sample approach 3: character-based ethics
Virtue Ethics
o Start/focus on good character
o Good states of affairs are those in which good characters are developed
o Right actions are those that bring about (arise from) good character

5. Virtue Ethics: being good & living well

6. Aristotle
 Ethics is practical science – the
practical art of living well.
 What matters most to humans
is to have a good human life –
to flourish.
 Living a good life involves not
just behaving well (doing the
right things) but also having the
right nature - the right feelings
384 BC – 322 BC
and sensitivities and skills.

7. What is a good life?
 A life of wealth?
 A life of pleasure?
 A life of honor?
 A life of virtue?
And no “life-busting” tragedies

8. A Functional Account of the Good
 What good things have in
common is that they perform their
function well. And the qualities
that make something good will
differ depending on their ergon.
 The ergon of a thing is what it does
that makes it what it is as opposed
to something else.
 The good life for a human is one in
which we perform well our
distinctively human function (our
ergon)

9. The Human Ergon
 What distinguishes normal human beings from
everything else and gives us our nature?
 Our nutritive activity? (digesting,
sleeping, reproducing)
 Our appetites/desires?
 Our rational (intellectual) capacity to
contemplate ideas and cosmos?

10. A good human life is…
The good life is an active life
exercising virtues of character and
intellect, with our friends, and
enjoying the pleasures associated
with these activities.
Virtue of intellect – A disposition to reason well.
Virtue of character – A disposition to do the right
things and in the right way.

11. Virtues of Character
We respond virtuously or well if we respond in the right way at the
right time towards the right people and with the right attitude
A Virtue lies at the mean between excess and deficiency, relative to us.

12. Aristotle‟s Doctrine of the Unity of the Virtues
 You can‟t possess any virtue without
also possessing all of the other virtue
 All virtues require finding the mean,
and the practical skill of judging the
mean is a general skill
 If you have this skill, you can find the
mean with regards to all the virtues

13. How do become gain the virtues?
(1) Find someone wise (a virtuous
person – someone who has this
skill) and imitate them.
Develop good habits – practice
doing as the virtuous person
would do until it becomes your
own.
(2) Aim to avoid the extreme that is
more tempting for you.

14. The good life and the best life
If you‟re a virtuous person your
life could never be worthless or
wretched, but unless you have
sufficient support to be able to
exercise your talents and
pursue your ends, you‟ll never
have the best kind of human
life.
Warren Buffett
(Billionaire Philanthropist)

15. Friendship
“Scipio used to complain that men were more painstaking in all
other things than in friendship; that everybody could tell how many
goats and sheep he had, but was unable to tell the number of his
friends; and that men took pains in getting the former, but were
careless in choosing the latter, and had no certain signs, or marks,
so to speak, by which to determine their fitness for friendship.”
- Cicero (from Laelius on Friendship)

16. Friendship and the good life:
Why do we need friends?
 What‟s the point of being rich if  Friends help keep the young
you can‟t use that money to help from making mistakes
others – especially your friends?
 Friends help the old by
 How can you preserve your ministering to their needs
prosperity without friends?
 If things go wrong, friends are the  When men are friends there is
only refuge. no need of justice
 Friends motivate us to do noble
things.
“Without friends no one would choose
to live, though he had all other goods”

17. Aristotle‟s Conditions for Friendship
A friendship must have:
 Feelings of liking and affection
toward one another.
 One must wish a friend well for
that friend‟s own sake.
 The mutuality of affection and
goodwill must be recognized

18. Three Kinds of Friendship
1. Friendships of use – the basis of
your friendship is your
functionality to each other
2. Friendships of pleasure – based
on the enjoyment you get from
your interaction with the other
person.
Aristotle: “Such friendships are short-lived”

19. Three Kinds of Friendship
3. Friendships of virtue – the friendship
of men who are alike in virtue, wish
well to each other, and are good
themselves.
Only virtuous people can have virtue
friendships with other virtuous people
Unlike friendships of utility or pleasure, one can at best
have few friendships of virtue.
Such friendships are long-lasting (potentially permanent), but rare
“Alike in virtue”: roughly on the same level

20. Friendship and the Good Life
 Virtue friends help make you a better
person
 Help you know yourself
 Let you know if your judgment is
good
 Support you in projects that are
tough, but good for you
 AND Friends are pleasurable – they
make people happy.
 Part of the good life is being able to
exercise our virtues with our friends and
enjoy sharing that experience.

21. Friendship among unequals
 Virtue friendships are equal
 Other friendships are properly not equal
 Older/younger, wealthy/poor,
ruler/subject, mentor/mentored
 In such relationships, the love should be
proportional to the merit of the parties.
 Friendships do not tolerate difference in
virtue, wealth or anything else that are too
large.

22. What do we owe our friends?
 Friendship asks a man to do what he
can, not what is proportional to the
merits of the case
 In unequal friendships, we must
repay what we can and how we
can.
 if you receive money or virtue,
return in honor.
 Wronging someone becomes
increasingly worse, the closer friends
you are with him
 What you owe to your friend
increases with the intensity of the
friendship.

23. Friendship and Morality
Your best friend is dying and needs a
kidney transplant to survive. Your
connections at the hospital allow you to
put her name at the top of the list. If
you do it, a stranger that would have
otherwise lived, will die.
Does your obligation to your friend
conflict with the moral thing to do?
“Friends help friends move, real
friends help friends move bodies”

24. William Frankena‟s criticism
Sample approach 3: character-based ethics
o Start/focus on good character
o Good states of affairs are those in which good characters are developed
o Right actions are those that bring about (arise from) good character
 Without principles we wouldn’t know what traits to
encourage!
 For every moral principle there‟s a morally good
trait – the disposition to act according to it.
 For every good moral trait there is a principle that
defines how that trait expresses itself in action Because it‟s a matter
of principle, you
 It‟s the principles that are basic should develop the
kind of character that
 But we still need the virtues:
will act accordingly. “I
 To motivate us to be moral made the wrong
 To act responsibly decision but I did it in
a responsible way.”

25. Good actions & Good people
Ex: 2 people work for a bank &
 An action is right if it follows the right principles have the opportunity to embezzle
$1 million from the bank. One
 Whether an action or person is morally good
doesn‟t depend on rightness, but on motive. person doesn’t even consider it,
What kind of motive? the other considers & wrestles
1. When done solely from a sense of duty or with it but doesn’t end up doing it.
desire to do what is right (Kant) Which one is more right?
2. When motivated primarily by a sense of duty Aristotle: “you won’t think about
or desire to do what is right (Kant-ish) your duty, but it’ll flow naturally
3. When motivated at least in part by a sense of from who you are, because you
duty or desire to do what is right (Aristotle) have a certain kind of character”
4. If your sense of duty or desire to do right Ex: one person donates $100 to
would keep you trying to do your duty, Ethiopia b/c she thinks it’s the right
whatever your actual motivation was; OR if thing to do but has no feelings
you acted out of natural kindliness, about it, the other person does the
gratefulness, or similar morality-supporting same because they feel empathy
motivation (Frankena)
& THIS is the right motivation
while acting from a sense of duty
is not.

26. Cardinal Virtues
A cardinal virtue is a virtue that: A contemporary view:
1. Can‟t be derived from any other virtues;  Beneficence
2. Other moral virtues are derived from it  Justice
Ancient Greek view: Traditional Christian view:
 Wisdom  Faith, hope and love (the
 Courage theological virtues)
 Temperance  Prudence, fortitude, temperance
 Justice and justice (the human virtues)
Virtue ethics begins with principle. Criticism is that it needs to begin with principle.
Cardinal virtue: the grounding for other virtues – fundamental character trait from which other character
traits come. The cardinal virtue doesn’t come from any other virtue.
Traditional Christian view has different sorts of cardinal virtues – Jesus is the model
Frankena’s view: there are really only 2 kinds of virtues: (contemporary view) desire to bring beneficence
& justice into the world

27. First and Second-order virtues
 First order moral virtues - all the virtues cardinal or otherwise that
correspond to corollaries of moral principles; help to become a
good person.
 Ex. Honesty = one must always tell the truth
 Second-order virtues – more general virtues that help us make
good moral decisions or be a good person more generally; tell us
how to be so that we can develop first order virtues.
1. Conscientiousness
2. Moral courage (have this  have courage to do what‟s right)
3. Disposition to find out and respect the relevant facts
4. Disposition to think clearly
5. Ability to make moral decisions
6. Ability to revise your principles and change your opinions
7. Ability to realize vividly the “inner lives” of others
(5-7 are abilities, not virtues)

28. Moral Ideals
“you have integrity if you‟ll still
say 4 with a gun to your head”
Having a moral ideal is wanting to be a person of a certain
sort, wanting a certain trait of character rather than others.
If one‟s ideal is truly a moral one, nothing in it wouldn‟t be
covered by the principles of beneficence or justice – even it
goes beyond the call of duty.

29. (Moral) Saints and Heroes

30. How Morality
 Some actions are “forbidden”. We
must not perform them.
 Some actions are “required”. We
have a duty to perform those actions.
 All other actions are “permitted”.
They are morally neutral. We can do
them if we like.

31. 3 ways to be a saint or hero:
 Someone who does his duty regularly in
contexts in which inclination, desire or self-
interest would lead most people not to do it,
and does it through exercising abnormal self-
control is a saint.
Ex: stay home & care for sick relative
 Someone who exercises abnormal self-
control in contexts in which terror or fear are
involved is a hero.
Ex: care for a population that‟s contagious &
fatally ill, when normal people would flee from the
situation
J.O. Urmson (1958)

32. 3 ways to be a saint or hero:
 Someone who does his duty in contexts in
which inclination or self-interest would lead
most men not to do it, without effort is a saint.
Ex. washing a homeless person‟s feet in
skid row
 Someone who does his duty in the context of
fear and terror without effort is a hero.
Ex: an ER nurse, responsibility for the lives
of others
J.O. Urmson (1958)

33. 3 ways to be a saint or hero:
 Someone is saint if she performs actions that are far
beyond the limits of her duty.
Ex: Contagion (movie), the CDC doctor goes the extra mile
& chooses to enter the area where the epidemic is going on
 Someone is heroic if they perform actions that are far
beyond the limits of their duty in the context of fear and
terror. (Going beyond the call of duty.)
Ex: Soldier that jumps on a grenade, self-sacrifice, his body
takes the impact & saves other soldiers but nobody would have
blamed him had he not done it.
Ex: Stand & Deliver (movie), teacher quits his great job for
one at a bad HS & teaches a remedial math class full of gang-
bangers, but he teaches them calculus & they ace the AP exam.
J.O. Urmson (1958) This goes beyond the call of duty

34. Are saintly and heroic moral actions beyond the
call of duty?
 Does it matter whether St. Francis thinks
his actions are obligatory or whether
they really are obligatory?
 What he thinks the action is a duty for
him, but not for others?
 Minimally, there is something different
between duties all of us have and these
types of duties.
St. Francis preached to the birds about Christ because he believes it
was his duty. Is he going beyond the call of duty when his duty is to
preach to people, not animals? Is this action supererogitory?
Urmson doesn‟t give answers to these questions, just gives them as
food for thought.

35. Other types of moral actions that are neither
optional, forbidden, or permitted
 Going the extra mile (Ex: dropping a friend off at the
airport & stopping on the way so that they can also run
an errand.)
 Favors (Ex: Charity – can of food… Something done out
of the goodness of your heart, not because you have to.)
 Acts of generosity (give because you want to)
 Forgiveness (you don‟t have to forgive)
 Mercy (Ex: “I‟ll overlook something you did that typically
goes against justice,” such as not pressing charges
against someone who did you wrong. Ignoring, not =
forgiving!)
 All of these acts aren’t required!

36. Supererogatory actions
Supererogatory actions are morally good actions that seem to go beyond „the
call of duty‟ – actions that are good, but that the agent has no overall
obligations to do. (Actions that are good, but not required.)
Some initial thoughts:
1. Supererogatory acts are praiseworthy because unlike most moral actions,
which are required, they are done voluntarily. Saintliness can‟t be a duty.
(Urmson, 1958)
2. Supererogatory acts appear to „extend‟ moral demands. They promote
moral value „beyond the call of duty‟ and so seem essentially connected to
moral duties and the values they promote.
3. Supererogatory acts are praiseworthy for (at least something like) the usual
moral reasons, rather than other types of reasons (e.g. pragmatic or
aesthetic).
Urmson asks why it is that we think these acts to be so praiseworthy.
Answer: the fact that we‟re voluntarily doing something good, something we
don‟t have to do.

37. What should we make of all this?
Supererogatory actions are morally good actions that seem to go beyond „the
call of duty‟ – actions that are good, but that the agent has no overall
obligations to do.
 Option 1: Show that we do, in fact, have duties to
do these morally good actions
 Option 2: Conclude that the praise we have for
these actions is not for their morality, but for
something else (e.g. – the beauty of character they
reveal).
(We‟re not saying that they did something better than
what‟s morally expected/there‟s something morally better
about them, just that there‟s something beautiful about
their choice.)
 Option 3: Explain what it is that could make an act
morally valuable other than than being morally
required

38. The “moral” & the “ethical”
Option 3: Explain what it is that could make an act morally
valuable other than than being morally required
 The agent makes a first-order judgment Φ
that:
 morality requires A
 to do B would be to perform a morally
superior action
 She is (physically) capable of doing B
 The agent then makes a second-order
ethical judgment Ψ concerned with what
to do given Φ, which concludes that she
should do B

39. Is moral sainthood too good for its own good?
“I don‟t know whether there are any moral saints. But if there
are, I am glad that neither I nor those about whom I care most
are among them. By moral saint I mean a person whose every
action is as morally good as possible, a person, that is, who is as
morally worthy as can be. In other words, I believe that moral
perfection in this sense, does not constitute a model of personal
well-being towards which it would be particular rational or
good or desirable for a human being to strive.”
- Susan Wolf, “Moral Saints” (1982)