A Romp Through Ethics for Complete Beginners (3/7)

what we're going to do it this weekend over the next three weeks so four weeks worth of looking at four different key moral theories and you'll see as we look at each one that what you've looked at over the last two weeks is going to come up again and again in different contexts so you'll be applying what you've looked at very quickly and I'm not going to say you're going to way go away understanding it all after the four weeks because of course you're not you've got to do some work yourself but I do want to reassure you that it is going to come up again and again so you'll find so ok and I've had one question about that anyone else have a relatively quick or actually very quick question on any of these things from last week or shall we move straight on good you've had your chance right let's move on ok so I've just said that the four laurel theories we're going to look at and Aristotle's virtue ethics or rather virtue ethics which is derived from Aristotle's moral theory we're going to look at none cognitivism which is derived from Humes moral theory David Hume the Scottish philosopher we look at de ontology which is derived from Kantian philosophy and finally we'll look at utilitarianism and we'll look at that in the context of John Stuart Mill although he is only one of many utilitarians ok so this week we're looking at virtue ethics and we're going to be doing all these things I'll let you just read that quickly so virtue ethics is derived from Aristotle's ethics outlined by him in the Nicomachean ethics he also wrote another book on ethics but but this is the one we're going to be looking at mostly and he dedicated this book to his son Niko MCUs so this is a father talking to his son about what he understands morality to be virtue ethics tells us that the right action is that which would be chosen by a virtuous person okay what do you think of that then does that mean circular sir okay it looks like mod risk of being circular okay anyone and the other comments obviously have different views but that's certainly true okay so there might be different virtuous people with different views you think okay right okay well I agree that it might not seem very helpful and write it right at the ends I'm going to consider whether the fact that it doesn't give us an obvious decision procedure in other words this is a theory that we look at an action you could say to yourself what would virtue ethics say about this and you think well okay it would say that I should do it if a virtuous person would do it and not if a virtuous person wouldn't do it how helpful is that we're going to look at whether that's a black mark for it or not okay but we'll come back to that first and we've got to understand what virtue ethics is okay Aristotle held a teleological view of nature and that sort of view is a view according to which everything has a final cause or a goal or an end or a purpose so um if I do something and you explain what I do a by appeal to a purpose I have been doing it why did she pretend to trip over the carpet answer she wanted to make everyone laugh my wanting to make everyone laugh is the purpose I had in mind in performing that action and that's an explanation isn't it of the action so that's it's a teleological explanation it's an explanation by appeal to end and Aristotle was very keen on teleological explanation and he believed that everything that exists has an end or purpose so let's have a closer look at this to know the final call or the purpose of a thing is to know what it is to be a good one of its kind okay so what's the purpose of a chair it's for sitting on okay a chair that you can't sit on is not a good chair is it and how do we know it's not a good chair because it doesn't fulfill its purpose or what's that horrible phrase they use these days it's not fit for purpose or something okay so um one thing you know when you know the final cause is to know what it is to be a good thing of that kind okay and secondly to know what is good for that thing is to know what it needs sorry that's got the wrong emphasis there but anything that it needs to fulfill its purpose for example what does a chair need in order to be good for sitting on well it probably needs four legs or something like that possibly three yes you can sit on a three-legged chair can't you but and actually if it was one very big one but but you can see what how we're working this out can't you given the purpose of a chair you can work out what a chair needs to be good for that purpose and you can work out what what it is what a good chair is so and here's another example to believe that our things are plant and that it's the function of a plant to grow is to know the good plant is a plant that grows successfully and anything that facilitates successful growth is for plants good okay so that's what it is to have a teleological view of different kinds of thing so Aristotle believed that human beings to have a final cause or a purpose and so a good or as he put it excellent human being is one that successfully fulfills that purpose and anything that facilitates the successful attainment of the purpose of human beings is part of the good for being a human being and see somebody shaking their head down I'm dying to know why it's wondering because you could have different purposes couldn't you I mean for instance in one stage in history women might have been seen their purpose and I've been seems at childbearing and that's all but you know I think they thought we were quite exactly but today we differ in that way okay but but actually actually that's quite a useful question because Aristotle believes that there is one purpose for each kind of thing so actually no he wouldn't agree that there are different purposes there is only one let's have a look at what that one might be and I think that might because you're talking about actually the good for a woman as opposed to the good for a man and that's would be a different thing but we're talking here about the good for humankind for human beings okay the function of a kind according to Aristotle is whatever it is that distinguishes normal mature members of this kind from normal mature members of other kinds okay so if we're looking at the function of humankind we're looking for whatever distinguishes normal mature human beings from other from normal mature members of other kinds okay what what do you think this is let's have a go what what distinguishes us from any other kind from chairs from plants from animals from rationality okay what did you say do not think big seek happiness in oh I mean okay you're making a distinction between pleasure and happiness okay we'll talk about that later so what we creativity yes I wonder if creativity and rationality you have something in common here do you think this is not necessarily what do you mean my creativity understanding creativity is the ability to invent magic okay and wouldn't that link to rationality in that being if you want to invent something you presumably have in your mind the idea of what it is you want to invent and so you have a problem you devise a strategy by which to achieve that end and then you implement the strategy etc so you perhaps creativity and rationality a nots and million miles any other thought self-awareness that's that it's an interesting one of it I mean again there are suggestions that there are animals that are both rational creative and indeed self-aware but let's have a look at self-awareness and a link between that and creativity and rationality and if you're self-aware you're aware of the beliefs you have aren't you and being aware of your beliefs you can also be aware of whether these beliefs are true or false in fact to be aware of a belief of yours is usually to know what it is for that belief to be true or false isn't it and therefore to be able to recognize when that belief is true or false and again you're constructing a picture of the world of a lot of beliefs that again you're looking checking the consistency of so again self-awareness seems to be a necessary condition of rationality or is it that rationality is a necessary condition of self-awareness they certainly seem to go together sorry an ethical and okay we might think that what distinguishes human beings from other animals is that they can be moral agents I mean we certainly do think that we don't or we used to hang dogs didn't we for stealing loaves of bread sand things like that but these days we don't do that because we don't think of animals is capable of moral agency but why is that do you remember we looked at some free will last week we looked at what it is to act intentionally do you remember what what is it to act intentionally can anyone remember so if I intentionally trip over the carpet I've got to have an end in mind haven't I and a belief that tripping over the carpet will attain that end again we get a link with rationality we get a link with having beliefs and being able to perceive rational relations between beliefs do you see what I mean that so rationality to be rational is to have beliefs and to see the rational relations between beliefs are if I believe P and I believe that if P then Q I must also believe thank you and if I believe P and Q and I believe not P what do i what am i force to do so I believe if so P and Q and I believe and then I form the belief not P it's a contradiction so I'm going to have to drop one of those beliefs anti because I'm presented because I see the two beliefs are inconsistent I am forced to see that I've got evidence for error one or other of those beliefs has got to be wrong and therefore rationally I'm forced to drop one or other other of them so Russian the idea of rationality beliefs truth and falsehood having ends and having beliefs about how to achieve these ends all of this is bound up in being rational being creative being self-aware etc and Aristotle thought that the only thing that distinguishes normal that your human beings from normal members of other kinds is our capacity for reason yep and and you see the other answers you gave are tied up in this you didn't mention one thing that I'm surprised you didn't mention something that distinguishes human beings from all other animals thank you thank you yes it does seem to be a rather obvious man doesn't it again just as I said there there is some evidence that some animals are rational creative self-aware etcetera there's also some evidence perhaps that some animals have language dolphins people talk about elephants and what's the other there's another one that people think have whales yeah okay but how do you think language and reason go together can anyone think of a way that you might think that you couldn't have language without having reason to have language yes that's good so a word like red is an expression of a concept of redness isn't it so there's redness the property in the world there's redness our concept of redness and then there's the word red which expresses the concept etc so absolutely so language and reason go together as well because in using language every time I assert a sentence assert a sentence rather than using a sentence to question something if I assert a sentence what I'm doing is expressing a belief aren't I so if I say the chair's blue I'm expressing expressing a belief of mind that the chair is blue was that a question I was going to say that I can't see how you can reason without language I was going to hmm lots of philosophers do think that you can treat without language you can't reason and therefore actually the language and reasoning goes together so any animal who isn't capable of language in some way is also a land animal that can't reason what about mathematics without language you could have a concept of numbers do you think you could have a concept of the number two ah without language I'm not sure I agree with you anyway yes perhaps I could leave that because I think that takes us I think it's an interesting question perhaps we can talk about it later okay so our capacity for reason is what distinguishes it us from everyone else and this according to Aristotle is a key to the purpose of the life of a human being so the purpose of a human being if Aristotle is right is successfully to exercise reason it's not just to exercise reason because if you go around reasoning badly you're not being a successful human being but if you successfully exercise reason and then you are going to become a successful human being you are fulfilling your human potential and Aristotle would call it your exercising the virtues so let's have a look at that okay so to be a successful human being is to be to reason successfully to successfully exercise your capacity for reason and there are two sorts of virtue according to Aristotle there the virtues of the intellect and there are the moral virtues or the virtues of character so in order to become an excellent human being you've got to exercise both of these it's no good exercising one and not the other and in fact you will see later on that Aristotle thought that if you have any virtue you must have all the virtues you can't have just just one virtue so let's we'll but we'll look at that later okay two sorts virtue intellectual virtues and knowledge so you know things good judgment and practical wisdom in other words you in action you exercise reason well and the important thing about the intellectual virtues according to Aristotle is they can be taught so if you have good parents parents who themselves exercise the intellectual virtues and they do their duty by you and you have good teachers who do that you can be taught how to acquire knowledge how to exercise good judgment how to be wise in practical matters and so on so all these things can be taught which is great but when it comes to the virtues of character or the moral virtues which include and only include there are many more than this courage generosity fair-mindedness self-respect etc these can't be taught according to Aristotle all your parents can do well let me ask you why why can't they be taught what can our parents teach us so I thought that was two questions and that's very unfair let me start again what can our parents teach us how to live well that's one answer what do they teach us what what do you as parents teach children young children here I'm not talking about your grown-up children but what do you say to them you you give them okay you you provide them with examples yes okay I'm looking for one word here and I'm obviously not getting into getting this and this is a big problem for teachers you think you're going to get the word immediately and you don't rules exactly so that was the word I was looking for that's what we give children isn't it and in our example we try and live these rules so if you want to teach your children to be fair you try not to be unfair in front of them and you say to them when they do something that isn't fair when they pinch somebody else's toys or something like that you say no you've got to be fair you give them rule and Aristotle thinks that when you're doing that and you're helping them to get into a position well where they will be able to acquire the virtues but what you're not doing is teaching them to be moral why might you think that thinking back to the last two weeks that's certainly one answer because it's it's certainly true that when young children do what their parents want them to do you know there's that time when all the children do exactly what you want them to do and isn't it wonderful and and then they grow up about five I think and at that point it's it's whether they choose to accept your rule yes okay that that's a good thing what was the question I asked I'd forgot oh yeah that's right why teaching rules isn't teaching morality what's what's the other problem you're going to hit as a parent okay so you never do anything unjust in front of your children initially but then eventually you you don't follow your own rules so daddy you lied and we've all had that happen we and at that point what are you going to say about what they should do to act immorally because you're the rule that you've given them that you've brought them up with and has proven to be actually not very useful you yourself have broken it and it may be that you've broken it when you're obviously shouldn't have done and in that case it can be fairly easy you can say daddy shouldn't have done that you know it was really bad but on another occasion it might be one of these dilemmas that we talked about in the first week we're actually being dishonest seems preferable to being unkind or or something of that kind so the trouble with teaching children rules is you're not actually equipping them to engage in moral reasoning are you you're helping to put them in a position where they value the things that they'll have to reason about things like fairness honesty and what-have-you but you're not actually giving bid because in telling to be kind and be honest you're not giving them any clue how to deal with the situation where you can't be both kind and honest as in the dilemma that we talked about so Aristotle's problem here is that we we actually can't teach the virtues of character every person must acquire them for themselves partly because they've got to get behind the rules that their parents they can they've got to see why honesty fairness etc are important and they've got to work out what's honesty fairness et cetera are and how you know what it is in a particular situation to be honest fair or whatever the squash session which which I thought was brilliant yes I think he said so lot easier than the metaphor yeah okay but but I thought he said Aristotle said that some things you are born with so briefly to road-rage the playing with me so so here you're saying yeah they have to be acquired you you are not born with the moral virtues and I'm going to talk about that in a minute actually so I won't talk about it it's us here but it's absolutely true that you're not born with a moral virtues nor can you be taught them so somehow we each have to acquire the moral virtues for ourselves the virtues character for ourselves okay so no human being according to Aristotle can achieve life's purpose without exercising these virtues if to be a successful human being is to exercise the capacity for reason that is to acquire both acquire and exercise both the intellectual and the moral virtues that's what we've got to do before we can achieve our potential but if we do exercise the virtues in accordance with excellence we'll be satisfying a condition Ness sorry for the achievement of our purpose in life and an Arsenal calls our purpose in life what we're aiming to achieve eudaimonia okay that's what we're all after and this is usually translated happiness but I'm going to say something about that in a moment but what's in particular I just want to point out that if we acquire and exercise the virtues and we do it very well we won't necessarily end up with eudaimonia we might still miss it because we'll have satisfy the condition necessary for it but unfortunately not sufficient and the reason it's not sufficient is Aristotle says and I think probably will agree with him here and you can be as virtuous as you like but if your family's wiped out in an accident or you lose all your money in the inner because some bankers stolen it you're not going to end up and with eudaimonia so you've satisfied a necessary condition but but it's not sadly a sufficient condition you also need Aristotle says luck and you need a certain amount of money and we might pour scorn on that but I think possibly we agree with that a certain amount of money don't need to win the lottery but enough to pay the bills and eudaimonia is often translated as happiness but we think of happiness don't we as a sort of meant as a mental state okay it's a state we can be in at a time so it's true of me that either I'm happy or not at a particular time is that not right okay so that if we think of happiness as a mental state then it doesn't capture at all what Aristotle means by eudaimonia and we achieve you dominate aerosol only if we live a successful life so it's a life of it for a start you can only achieve eudaimonia at the end of life I mean Aristotle says that we we aren't I I'm going to sometimes use happy for eudaimonia because it just comes naturally but if I do please understand I don't mean the mental state of happiness okay Aristotle says we're not happy till we're dead oh so I mean Erika thinks that's rubbish but actually if you understand what eudaimonia means you can see that actually at this stage in our line so we've still got projects that we're engaged in aren't we we still don't know whether our projects are going to come to fruition our children may be about to get into drugs and sex and rock and roller probably already into drugs sex and rock and roll but they may go down the wrong route and end up selling them or something like that we don't know yet our projects are going to turn out if at the end of life the projects that we've worked on that we've we've seen as our purpose in life have worked out well our marriages have been happy our our children have worked out well or succeed careers have been a success and so on we can look back on our deathbeds and think yeah okay now we've achieved eudaimonia and and what's worse it's not just how we feel about our lives you know other people look at our lives and think yes that was that was a good life this person has had a successful life they've fulfilled their potential in life so you domain is often translated as flourishing and flourishing is somehow better I think than happiness but it still doesn't quite capture the idea that this is this is a property of a whole life it's not the property of you now it's the property of a whole lifetime one two three and then we're going on translation no I don't think it would because you could live a contented life can't you without living a successful one I mean if I I sometimes think as I drink my wine in the evening and eat my pasta or something this is this is the life I'm content but but if I were to do that every night for you that could be a successful but I I think well I did actually something from John Stuart Mill's quite useful here if you think about a happy pig and an unhappy Socrates Mill thinks that it would be better to be an unhappy Socrates than a happy pig because the sort of pleasure that a pig can get which I should imagine is something similar to what I'm getting when I have my wine in my pasture is not enough for the happiness of a human being because a human being needs to have it these ends that we because the thing is what a pig can't to do or at least it's not obvious a pig can do it is to to set itself a goal to formulate a strategy by which to achieve that goal and then to implement the strategy which might involve for example not acting on some of its desires if I want to get into that ballgown at the ends of two months and I'm going to have to not eat this cream cake okay so I suppress one of my desires in order to to achieve another longer term desire this is what human beings do and it need necessarily be elitist it could be you know if you're a disabled child who wants to learn how to tie your shoelaces and you by trial and error and by putting in a lot of effort and so on you do it then you are exercising the virtues in exactly the way you should do in order to achieve eudaimonia in the end are you with me so it needn't be an elitist thing it's just a thing that's characteristic of human beings that we form goals we formulate strategies by which to achieve goals and then we exercise tenacity self-discipline etc in order to implement those strategies and and when we do that and we achieve those goals the the happiness we feel is not available to a pig is it or at least it seems unlikely so that's that's I mean I'm using actually mill there this is what mill was talking about not what Aristotle was talking about but but the idea is if we can see what Aristotle means by exercising the virtues in this way and see that if over a lifetime we do this we formulate goals for ourselves and we and we exercise the virtues of character in achieving those goals and that's going to be not getting some of the things we want so we set aside some things that we want in order to achieve things that we deem better then we are on our way to achieving eudaimonia where we're on our way to having a successful life to living a life in accordance with the reason that makes us human I've said all this in the ones I'm going to use now ok so you're likely to be happy if you've achieved eudaimonia but you can be happy without achieving eudaimonia ok you can be happy just because you've got a Valentine's card this morning ok I've said this already so successfully exercising the virtues is not a sufficient condition of achieving eudaimonia if your family get wiped out in an accident you're not going to achieve eudaimonia even if you have successfully exercise the virtues and I've said this as well so let's move on so for Aristotle a virtuous person do you remember we said virtue ethics says that the virtuous Act the right action is the action that's performed or would be chosen by a virtuous person so we're getting more of a feel now for what a virtuous person is a virtuous person is a person who acts or exercises the virtues both intellectual and moral in accordance with excellence and they're on their way to achieving eudaimonia and this helps us see why he also says that the right action in any given situation is that that would be chosen by a virtuous person let's have a closer look at this a virtuous person it's one who knows what's right does what right and does it for the right reason okay let's have a look at this spore closely I want you to think back to our moral dilemma okay can anyone tell me the moral dilemma just so that it's in our minds what was the moral dilemma with which we started in week one do you remember okay and what was the situation in which we had that choice that's right a friend of ours has been to the hairdresser she comes back she says it might be a he of course sorry I realized that I was in danger of being sexist there they come back from the hairdresser and they say what do you think and you think yuck okay and the problem you've got is should I be kind should I be honest okay so the virtuous person in this situation would only need to be in the situation in order to see and I've put seeing because obviously we don't mean seeing by perception we mean see intellectually here and and of course in being in the situation there would know all sorts of things that we don't know now because we've just got a very abstract situation here but imagine if if this is a first time you've seen your Powell smile for six months that pushes you in one direction doesn't it or let's think of something that will push you in the other direction let's say that you know she's going to meet this hot date tonight that she's really hoping to impress and you know that he's going to loathe this or she okay so each the more you know about the situation the more you're you're able to see what the right thing is to do is the thought of it and anyway the virtuous person would in a situation know what to do that's what the thought is anyway and such a person knowing which action is right is always going to perform it so we all well I do anyway perhaps you don't but we all know what it's like to believe that we should tell the truth in this situation and then find ourselves not telling the truth whatever the situation is in this case the virtuous person knows what the right action is and would knowing it always perform it so if telling the truth is right in this situation we're not saying it is but if telling the truth is right in this situation he would tell the truth he wouldn't give in to moral cowardice now I'm sure you've never done that but sermon but no no no I can see you're shaking your head but you know what it's like when you think more but no you don't okay but I do yeah you think I ought tell the truth here but if I do I'm going to get myself into trouble here and you don't tell the truth you put your own comfort if you like before doing the right thing well virtuous person people don't do this okay they they do the right thing and they also do the right thing for the right reason if telling the truth is the right thing to do they tell it because it's the right thing to do not because they gave in to a moment spite okay so you can imagine your friend comes in says what do you think and and you think I really ought to tell them the truth and actually I'm dying to tell them the truth yeah after that thing she said to me last week yeah you know no I don't think it looks nice at all the virtuous person wouldn't do that because they would do they would see what was right they would do what was right and they'd do it because it's right not for any other reason so if if it's right to be kind they would do they would be kind because being kind was the right thing to do rather than because they were giving in to moral cowardice you with me so do something for the right reason is as important as actually doing the right thing so to understand this is to see that exercising the virtues and this is very important because and if you think that the end in life is eudaimonia and the way to achieve this Enders to exercise the virtues you might think okay I really want eudaimonia therefore I'm going to exercise the virtues in order to achieve eudaimonia can you see that would be missing the point entirely because actually if you're using if you're being kind as a means to the goal of your own happiness then what have you not done okay you've may have done the right thing but you haven't done it for the right reason and the fact you haven't done it for the right reasons means you're not virtuous which means you're not going to get there anyway are you so it's a it's pointless so completely missing the point if you see exercising the virtues as a means to the achievements of eudaimonia and I want you to note aristotle is a realist about right and wrong about moral action he believes that there is an action that's right but that we are only acting rightly if we perform that right action for the right reason so he distinguishes a right action from a writer or moral action if you like from a moral agent a person who's acting morally so the person if in a situation it's right to tell the truth and you tell the truth okay you're performing the right action that you may not yourself be acting virtuously because if you're telling the truth for the wrong reason then you may be performing the right action but you do it for the wrong reason and you are not yourself to be praised for this so you see again what I mean so there's a difference between being the right action or performing the right action and actually being morally right to yourself Aristotle is presupposed to know what the right action is and all the sudden I mean if he's not presupposing he's he's saying that you wouldn't be a virtuous person unless you knew the question of dropping the atomic bomb the end of the Second World War I don't know even to the state whether it was the right action or not so what do we know about him no his sorry yeah sure there are some but if you were in a situation where you actually had to make that decision you would make that if you were a virtuous person actually let me come to that at the end because do you remember I taught I said that we're going to talk about whether this is a right good decision procedure at the end so perhaps we'll come back to that question Rawdon answer it here well if a dilemma arises because there are two two rules that clash in a situation I mean we're all brought up with rules we all use moral rules whether they're moral absolutes or rules of thumb is a different thing entirely but a dilemma happens when you've got two rules both of which you want to obey and you can't that sets up a dilemma I don't see why honestly right but if I were somebody who was exercising mathematical virtues it wouldn't mean that a mathematical conundrum wasn't a conundrum for me it would mean that I would approach it and in the hope of solving it and I was succeed if I was exercising excellence in mathematical so I still I don't see that a diamond be a dilemma initially it but it's a question of how the virtuous person would approach the dilemma I mean he wouldn't just go into this dilemma do you remember in the first week I said one way you can respond to that sort of dilemma is to make yourself new rules every time honesty and kindness come into conflict I'm going to be honest do you remember and I said do you know anyone like that and you all went me yes and sometimes you might say kindness and honesty come into conflict I'm always going to be kind and we all know people like that too don't we so the virtuous person would go into a dilemma see the dilemma and he wouldn't respond thus okay he wouldn't make himself more rules that are going to lead him into so I don't think I agree that it wouldn't be a dilemma just that he would be better equipped to solve it do you think I'm Aristotle and overplays reason for instance well actually can can I stop you there and put that question to the end because that's quite a major one and also we'll be looking at that over the next couple of weeks as well but yeah but it's absolutely true that reason is absolutely central to Aristotle's moral theory next week we're going to look at a theory which takes reason right out of the center stage so so I'd like to answer your question next week if that's all right okay so there is an action that's right but we are only right if we perform that action for the right reason we can perform the right action and not be acting morally de dar de da okay we saw earlier that Aristotle believes that we've got to acquire the virtues of character because they can't be taught to us he rejects the idea that we know moral truth by knowing rules he absolutely believes and this is you're again going to think he puts reason right at the center the rules he says run out you can only become a moral agent by learning how to exercise moral reasoning in each situation that you come to you've got to exercise moral reasoning right from the beginning rules will not help you or rather they'll help you but only up to a certain point they won't take you any further okay so let's look at how we acquire these virtues of character now we're all interested in acquiring them though not of course in order to achieve eudaimonia because that would be defeating the purpose okay to acquire the virtue of courage and one of the first things we've got to do is reflect on the nature of courage okay just just before I go on to the other bits there Dhirubhai said that whenever you're hit with a dilemma whenever you're forced into a position where you think ah I can't be both kind and honest what am I going to do you've got to think well what is it to be kind do I sometimes have to be cruel to be kind for example what about lying is telling a white lie the same as a black lie sort of thingy so you're reflecting on the nature of truth what is truth what is kindness and Aristotle thinks that as a virtuous person that's one of the first things you're going to do because you can't possibly know what the right action is in a situation unless you know what it is to have courage to be kind et cetera so what we're going to understand is that the courageous person is going to avoid vices of both Rass rashness and cowardice okay the right action is the golden mean you'll have heard this used in connection with Aristotle so his rashness this is the person who never feels fear he doesn't really need courage he just goes out there and gets himself you know you see somebody beating somebody up in the street and he goes straight in and pulls them apart and doesn't even think about what might happen to him okay is that courage or is that rashness and then there's the other person who sees what's happening in skulks around the corner and thinks I probably should intervene here but I'm not going to to be courageous you've got to go somewhere in between those two things you don't want to be rash you don't want to be cowardly you want to have just the right amount of courage and for each of us that might involve something different so maybe Joan is some very rash person okay and John tends to cowardice sorry okay so when you're thinking about how to be courageous you've got to take into account where you're coming from so if you know of yourself that you have a tendency to be rash then you've got to guard against that rash aspect of your character in order to achieve the golden mean and if you know that you have a tendency to cowardice you you know that you've got to fight against that to achieve the golden mean so the in order to acquire the virtue of courage or indeed any other virtue and you've got to know the virtue itself what courage is what the two vices are that it's in between and you've also got to know yourself if you don't know yourself you're not going to acquire the virtues so to acquire the virtue of courage you've also got to get into the habit of acting courageously I mean actually this is this is it's quite good be the light we all well again I keep saying we all know but perhaps you don't I've got to give you that the first lie is is quite difficult second one's a bit easier third one's even easier and the next thing you know actually lying is second nature we can get into the habit of being dishonest and what we've got to do if we want to acquire the virtues is get into the habit of being honest so this is why Aristotle says you're not born with a virtue you may be born with a tendency to be courageous or a tendency to be honest but it doesn't guarantee that you're going to get the virtue of courage somebody who might use born strong born with the potential for being an athlete it's not necessarily going to become an athlete are they because if they grow up lazy and fat they don't eat the right things they don't exercise they don't look after themselves they don't actually fulfill the potential with which they were born do they they don't become athletic because they've allowed themselves to become flabby and lazy and in the same way we can get morally flabby so the thing about having a tendency to be honest let's say is that if you're doing it just from instinct there's no real guarantee you're going to do it when it becomes difficult to do it do you see what I mean if it becomes difficult to do it you might think for more ok I'm not going to do it here whereas actually if you've got the virtue of honesty you will be honest even though it's difficult even though all your instincts cry against not being honest here because it would further your ends in some way you would still be honest because you've got yourself into the habit of honesty so getting the virtue of honesty guarantees that you're going to be honest even when it goes against your inclinations whereas simply having an instinctive honesty means that your inclination is to be honest but it doesn't guarantee that you're going to be honest when you it's against your inclinations okay so that's why does that answer your question John about was it was it you I can't remember who it was who asked about being born virtuous okay that's the answer that that's why we're not born virtuous we may be born I mean it's very nice to be born with a tender it's easier to acquire the virtue of honesty if we're born with a tendency to honest honesty but if if all we have is a tendency an instinct to be honest that's not the virtue of honesty okay actually I just want to say something else do you remember something I said the during the first week the thing about an honest person is not simply that they're always telling the truth okay because a dishonest person has very good reason always to tell the truth doesn't he what is that reason because you can't lie to somebody unless they trust you and to get them to trust you you've got to tell them the truth most of the time so a dishonest person has very good reason to be honest being on telling the truth on most occasions doesn't make you an honest person because if you're dishonest you're holding yourself ready to tell a lie as soon as it is good for you sort of things so simply telling the truth doesn't distinguish an honest person from a dishonest person the honest person is in the habit of telling the truth tells the truth because it's the right thing to do and so on not because they want people to trust them so okay to have the virtue of courage is to understand the nature of courage it's to be consistently courageous and always to be courageous for the right reason no pressure there then and Aristotle says two things about virtue that we might find odd he thinks that the virtues are unified that you can't have one without having them all okay so you can't be courageous without being honest and kind why do you think you might say that I mean isn't it obviously wrong can't you have a courageous burglar yes oh yes well Erica thinks you can okay what's the rest of you think Darren you know it probably hey I'm in a cat burglars who've got so you have some courage don't they to to climb up and simply because it's okay maybe exercising courage for the wrong reason uh okay there'd be exercise yes they wouldn't be performing the courageous act because it's the courageous thing to do that's certainly true okay any any other thoughts on that could a burglar be courageous courageous you know dangerous places what were you going to say is it soldier that uh what could a soldier be courageous well yes but you might also be immoral you might be dishonest as well Mike Mullen what we're looking at is whether it's possible to have one of the virtues without having the other and I'm using a burglar because a burglar by definition is dishonest and therefore Aristotle would have to say he can't be courageous and and so it looks as if a courageous burglar is a counterexample to Aristotle are you with me did I misunderstand your point no okay as if the burglar while carrying out the burglary noticed that the house was on fire and carried the householder out okay okay dudu we think we've got a courageous burglar though when he needs change from Bieber oh no what now I don't think it quite works like I hope their burglar and a rescuer or a rescuer and a burglar would tea with them okay let me ask you do you think someone who chooses to make a living by burglary is somebody who is manifesting courage in life or is there something immediately Laki encouraged in deciding to become a burglar we don't know you said that we have to know well we don't know why someone's the caliber it may be to feed your family but actually can I stop you right there because it's the virtuous person who must know what the virtuous act is not we who must know that somebody else's motive so so that bitter we don't know there doesn't well okay let's say that he needs to feed a family of 15 okay and he chooses to do so by engaging in burglary okay is is that though is that the correct okay well do we think so is being courageous at a selfless act and the burglar is not being selfless and actually that puts us into another thought about the universe can you be courageous and selfish because that would imply that if you can't sorry what would it imply I've just lost my train of thought there but I'm sure you can work it out that would mean you can't have all that okay so if you can be selfish and courageous then Aristotle would again be wrong so is it essentially self selfish to become a burglar am I asking the right question there I seem to have suddenly gone babe well it's certainly dishonest to be a burglar but but the the question we're asking can dishonesty and courage go together can dishonor well courage and selfishness go together Aristotle would say not because he says if you have one virtue you have all of the virtues and I do think that if you look carefully at what it is to have each virtue to do the right thing to do the right thing for the right reason and to do the right thing as a habit it does look as if actually I reckon I feel but but obviously there are disagreements here that actually choosing burglary as a career is not a very courageous act and if you think that you'll you'll think that okay you can't be a courageous burglar doesn't mean that there are not all sorts of other problems with Aristotle's idea that the virtues are unified but but that's one perhaps there is an answer to but okay going back to what you're saying you're saying that somebody who okay they need to feed their family the only way they can do it is by stealing it sometimes the courageous thing to do to steal we can imagine I think a situation of that kind but then maybe it's the as going to say is it dishonesty at that point yes I mean you for two more times yes then you may be going against some sort of law but actually my video or at least it might not be the dishonest thing to do rather than yeah but it's interesting isn't it to think about these things to think about the situation well we're looking at what courage is and whether being a burglar is consistent with having courage where you're not thinking about one courageous act you're talking about having the virtue of courage so it does make it a very different question and it forces you to see things much more in the rounds than you might otherwise do I'm a bit so there's almost a moral standard which is floating along out of focus and it's kind of out of focus are you accusing me of being out of focus okay gone Oh Aristotle not me okay that's fine you're a cat starts with to successfully exercise reason it goes on good judgment so there are qualifiers built into the ark but the bidding he said that Aristotle was a more realistic I just the weather this right thing to do isn't somehow there without being quite explicit well no I think you I'll defend our shuttle on this because don't forget where we go we're coming from here is that there is a final purpose human beings have a final purpose in life a final cause what something that makes us a good human being so the final purpose and the good of a human being or a good human being are inextricably linked because what makes a human being good is that he achieves the final purpose and achieving the final purposes what makes a human being good and if in order to achieve that final purpose we've got to we've got to fulfill our function which is to exercise the virtues it's no good exercising the virtues badly because that's not going to achieve our end we've got to achieve the virtues excellently because that will achieve the ends do you see what I mean I don't think he can be accused of arguing in a circular here circle here is a lot of work well I know it is but but why is there a problem with time we know what's excellent we don't we can in difficult circumstances I think maybe this cuz what-what are you wanting to have here a rule or do you want something you want me to say okay and exercising the virtues excellently is doing this this this this this in other words I'm going to give you a manual one of those things you put under your computer to stop it give you a manual on how to act morally Arsenal says you can't do that the only way you can act immoral is is to exercise reason in each particular case and the only way you'll do it well is by acquiring these virtues well actually its virtuous to be forgiving so no I don't think if we're assuming that Aristotle is himself virtuous he would but you don't get the impression from Aristotle try fail try again fail better no that's so unfair no don't forget that what we're doing here is we're trying to give you a procedure to follow by which to acquire virtue I mean what our subtle are saying is if you do all these things you will acquire virtue and you will all things being equal if you're lucky and so on achieve eudaimonia he's he's not saying you know you're going to do it first time he says it has to be acquired you have to get into habits if and unfortunately if your parents didn't help you if your teachers didn't help you it's going to be more difficult for you so there's a very it would be a completely different thing to then if I were going to say to you sorry let's start again I could do two things one is I could tell you what Aristotle says that you should do to acquire virtue the other thing is I could adopt with you the situation of coach where I'm actually trying to encourage you through the acquisition of a virtue now I think if I'm doing the lat her i'm going to be saying come on I've got new name come on Julia you know a June sorry Judith you you you know I I heard you tell that lie then why did he do that and you'll say well I didn't quite have the courage to and I'll say okay well look let's put that behind you you've got to acquire the habit of virtue so do you see that coaching would be a completely different thing from writing down what it is you need so I don't I don't think we need to say that Aristotle because I do think forgiveness is also a virtue and therefore if he were unforgiving he would lack virtue himself and of course actually none of this says that Aristotle was a virtuous person does it all he's doing is writing down what I mean it's difficult to think that he would not be a virtuous person if he can do this but might be wrong never arasaka felt that he couldn't be virtuous you would be a virtuous person if you were a woman or as they did you basically have to be a sort of you know you had to be an elder an Athenian you're right he did think the women wouldn't women weren't rational in the way a man was and therefore couldn't acquire virtue or eudaimonia etc but actually I think that we can sort of say Aristotle was a creature of his time I I forgive him for that i I think that where he around today he might change his mind but anyway he did definitely say that and he also said the slaves weren't rational and that slaves also couldn't achieve eudaimonia but of course you might think that is true how could you fulfill life's purpose if you weren't free to make your own choices it wouldn't be anything against the stay but he did think and maybe that's also why he thought women couldn't acquire it because they weren't free to make their own decisions but no he did and actually the group of people he thought satisfied the condition of being rational was a very very much smaller group than we would apply it to but but I think we can take what he's saying about what rationality is and just know that we apply it rather more widely mentally impaired you're asking me questions that I can't answer because that's an historical question I don't know but let me tell you what what I would think if I were doing this I mentioned earlier somebody tying a shoelace you know if a mentally impaired impaired person is still capable of forming plans forming strategies by which to achieve those plans and exercising the virtues of character in the implementation of those plans then why not I don't see why that isn't an exercise of reason of virtue in exactly the same way it would be for you just as a lower level because there isn't the capacity there being judgmental about you know worthy plans if your plan is just to have a new color I didn't mention my own you know and you work towards that end and then it's another color for another mobile phone do we laugh this is this is a very good question because actually the worthiness of ends and the worthiness of means by which to achieve your ends when we talk about cants we'll talk about the difference between those things two things because actually if all your ends are unworthy but you achieve those you formulate strategies by which to achieve those ends and you exercise the virtues in implementing those strategies are you a virtuous person surely you wouldn't be there must surely be something about that the choosing the right goals so if you decide to be a burglar you've got a problem immediately haven't you because you this is not a worthy goal I mean the person who steals because their children are starving this is not a person whose end in life is to become the best burglar he possibly can is it so there would be a difference so perhaps at we're coming back to your claim about the the person stealing because he had children in a different way because his end would be completely different but these are really interesting questions aren't they I mean if it I'm no Aristotle scholar I I like to think about what he says but when you ask me specific questions about what he says I'm going to send you to to the reading list and you can find out for yourself what he says okay the other another thing he says is that possession of virtue means that you're not even tempted not to do the virtuous thing this is an interesting question as well imagine two Mother Teresa's okay there's one mother Teresa I'm going to have to change this example because nobody understands eternal Mother Teresa there's one mother Teresa who's always wanted to dance in red silk can go to nightclubs and have her and everyone tell her she's beautiful and so on and she thinks no this isn't right I'd really like to do this but this is not what I should do I'm going to look after the poor and then there's another mother Teresa who's not even tempted by the red silk looks at the red silken it she's just oblivious to it all she wants to do is look after the poor which mother Teresa is more virtuous okay you think it's the one so you think it's more virtuous to be tempted and to resist it rather than to not be tempted in it rather than not to be tempted in the first place how do people feel about that is our so for right about that straw poll is he right it's better not to be tempted at all okay you think using hostile artists I can resist everything but temptation oh I thought you were going to come out without the other one which was some notice may may West or somebody said what did she say can't help me no one can remember there's something to do is of to temptations I will I know I can't remember sorry I'll see if I can look it up for next week but okay who thinks that Aristotle is right that it's more virtuous not to be tempted than to be tempted and to overcome temptation ok quite quite a few of you ok and who thinks the opposite oh right ok so Aristotle is wrong in your opinion ok but now think about this in terms of what temptation is ok so temptation is when you see the right thing to do but you have reasons personal reasons to do something other than whatever the right thing is so you can see that you should be honest here but you can also see that being honest is going to get you into trouble so you're tempted not to be honest ok now that's at a time ok but remember the the honest person according to Aristotle the person with the virtue of honesty is someone who's formed the habit of being honest even when inclinations are moving him in a different direction so a situating time we don't know I mean I dare say one has to be at least 50 in order to have acquired the virtues you might then not be tempted and and you could see why you wouldn't be tempted because it would just it's no longer part of your character to even think that you would get away with something sorry that you would rather be dishonest in order to get away with something than you would to be honest do you see again how the long t of its the fact that you're it's a habit you're getting yourself into over a lifetime with being honest temptation would tend to just suffer if you're on this cycle of virtuous automatic process like Aristotle it's not an automatic pilot you're using your reason the whole time oh no it's not you think then you cease to be sorry when do you no longer have to think you don't have to think about being virtuous it's a habit and so you're negating I see went reluctantly the humanity of being a rational human being which would mean that you're always aware of different possibilities you know I don't like the sort of thing on this automatic pilot because like that somehow denies you your humanity which is that your your your you have to to be able to be a human being you have to be rational and reasoning well you have to exercise reasonably exercise then if you're on automatic pilot the little decisions made and then you get okay I can see what you mean in quite a few other people are nodding here and the idea of being an automatic pilot would be very foreign to Aristotle but I can see where you're coming from the habit he does definitely say you have to get into the habit and then having got into the habit you're not tempted that definitely does make it sound like automatic pilot doesn't it but on the other hand he says you've got to do the right thing for the right reason so reason is never very far away from Aristotle whenever you act you act for reasons you act to achieve a purpose and the reason for which you're acting is you you are doing the honest thing because it is the honest thing to do that's so reason doesn't fall away but I do see what you mean out I said must feel tremendous struggle to tell me what it is is a tremendous struggle to reach the stage anyway and the strong must continue I don't see it you've reached it and then the struggle no longer no longer happened is the struggle to reach this this point anyway this is this virtuous stage presuming there'd be some sort of payback I mean you must be doing it for the payback but as you as you acquire virtue you would also be acquiring a reputation you would be acquiring self-respect you'd be acquiring all sorts of good things that okay you're not doing it in order to achieve those good things but willy nilly those good things would come and actually it's a very nice feeling as we all know of course being over 50 some of them that's actually acquiring a good reputation is a nice thing to have acquiring self-respect is a good thing to have and both those things come with having on the whole chosen the right virtues be valuing the right things and on the whole living up to your values I mean what happens when we don't live up to our values and if so you value truth therefore you believe you should tell the truth but you don't tell the truth okay what's going to happen you're going to feel guilty you're going to feel ashamed you're okay and that of course takes away from your self-respect doesn't it or it can do something else because you another thing we do sometimes when we don't live up to our values is start thinking truth why should I be bothered about truth we actually become cynical so either we we hate ourselves we lose self-respect because we're not living up to things we value or in order to get some simulacrum of self-respect we trash the values that we previously held love what's love truth what's truth and we become cynics instead so so actually living up having the right values and living up to them generally speaking brings good doesn't it rather than just making a sort of rule-bound what was the word youth automatic pilots let's carry on okay Aristotle believes that our characters are in our own hands we choose to become or not to become virtuous so Aristotle very definitely believes in free will and he doesn't think that our characters are set that we're born as the people are Aristotle believes very importantly that there are two thing for human beings there are two things there are where we are and where we ought to be or where we believe we ought to be and to get from one to the other we exercise the virtues so we know that we're given to cowardice and we want to become courageous and we know that in order to become courageous from our position of tendency to cowardice we've got to do this this this and this so you're using the intellectual virtues in setting out your strategy and then you're using the virtues of character in order to get to your goal but he thinks that you're doing that by your own free will you can become morally flabby if you choose if you decide to take the easy option instead of exercising tenacity or whatever and if you become at 50 let's say you don't know what courage is you don't act courageously and you don't see courage as a reason the fact that something is courageous has a reason to do something you're actually culpable do you see what I mean it's not that you have somehow sadly you've been brought up even if you have been brought up badly you have been offered enough opportunities in your life to acquire the virtues of courage okay Erica disagrees with that and I'm sure many other people do but Aristotle believes our characters are in our own hands if we make the right decision at each decision point we will acquire virtue if we make the wrong decision at each decision point we weren't so we don't get there in a minute it takes us a long time to get there but we will where we get to is a function of the choices that we make on the route it's not anyone else's fault if we become morally flabby it's our own fault you're all gonna go away aren't you think you are good right so let's look at the claim that Aristotle's ethics doesn't generate a decision procedure that it doesn't tell us how to act all it says is that the right action is the action that would be performed by the virtuous person what is Aristotle actually telling us here that we've got to go and become virtuous people haven't we and and once we do we will ourselves know what the virtuous act is but of course we've got to acquire this this is this is not going to come easily his only advice to us before or when we're on the way to acquiring our virtues is that if we want to know how to act we should look to the actions of a virtuous person okay but that's actually what we all do isn't it isn't this what you do whenever you you have in your own life a bit of a moral dilemma you're not sure how to act you could do this you could do that you can see the arguments for both you or not so which one you should do and we're talking moral here rather than prudence or something I bet all of us would go and seek the advice of someone whose advice we respect so we may be wrong and we may think they're virtuous and they're not but we seek the advice of somebody we respect and to the extent we do that we're actually we're acting on exactly what Aristotle would say and even the government does this I'm faced with a controversial issue let's say whether embryos have the moral status of human beings or whether we should engage in therapeutic cloning or something like that what does it do it sets up a committee of the great and good and it's points of Philosopher's of course to chair it it says to Merrie Monarch okay ask all these virtuous people what they think and then together come to a series of recommendations and that will be the right action that'll be what what we should do so even the government goes in for a rather Aristotelian decision procedure when faced with a dilemma when faced with a controversial issue but of course we're looking to these exemplars where every time we do ask for the advice of somebody we respect what we've got to do is not take that advice just unthinkingly we don't just do I mean actually have you ever given advice to somebody who's then gone off and acted on your advice and then turned around and blamed you for it because it didn't go well and they've got that wrong haven't they because what should you do when somebody gives you advice go and think about it put it into your decision procedure as a bit of advice but then maybe you have to make your own decision and when you act it's your responsibility for what you choose to do it's not theirs it's a I mean they didn't if they told you to go and jump over a cliff would you do - right so Aristotle believes that moral beliefs are true or false okay so if we go back to our first session it our moral statements true or false he thinks yes therefore he thinks that our moral facts okay there's something that makes moral beliefs true or false he doesn't on the other hand think that there are moral rules or rather of course he accepts there are moral rules but he doesn't think that that's where morality lies that to be a moral agent what you've got to do is find out what the right rules are and follow them he doesn't think there is annual for being moral and he thinks we can acquire moral knowledge okay so do you remember in the second week we looked at whether there is such thing as moral knowledge what it is to acquire moral knowledge and and Aristotle has us and he thinks that the virtuous person in a situation will somehow see what the right thing to do is his capacity for reason will enable him to reason to what the right action will be and finally he thinks we're free to choose our actions and you might just ask yourself and of course these are not words that meant anything to Aristotle you know he said if you'd said to Aristotle are you a token absolutist he would have said eight and we might how does he actually explain what it is that a virtuous person is doing when in a situation they see what it is to act morally so lots of questions still about Aristotle and there may be all sorts of things you disagree with about Aristotle but all we need you to do is is feel that you've got some grip on what his theory was and here as usual are a list of questions for you to think about if you want to think about Aristotle so what is the golden mean why does Aristotle think it's important okay I did talk about that but you might need to go away and think a bit about that but that question will get you thinking about that bit of it so these questions are just there to stimulate your own reflection and finally here's the reading for next week

Channel: University of Oxford

Views: 15,015

Rating: 4.8000002 out of 5

Keywords: Marianne Talbot, ethics, Aristotle, classical philosophy, Oxford

Id: AeT3zbJnT-A

Length: 82min 24sec (4944 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 15 2012