Kwame’s stance on the psychological
evaluation of virtue ethics was surprisingly similar to my own view on the
matter. After he explained the concepts and theories behind virtuous actions, I
came to my own conclusion that the excessive amount of theories to explain the
changes and relations for situations involving virtue are over analyzed. He
touches upon a similar notion that people need to create complex physiological
theories to explain a concept that never fits one definition. I want to know
just as well as Kwame why people feel the need to over scrutinize common
everyday situations and slap a huge thesis to it. The subject of virtue ethics
is simply determined by the general attitude of the person; as well as the
morals they have been brought up on and abide to. No explanation is
needed. Kwame touches upon the same
topic by stating that a person who sworn to himself not to give out change to
someone would not do so even when environmental factors should influence him to
do the opposite. This one example in my opinion shuts down the arguments on the
opposing side. Even though not all people my be rooted so deeply in their
values, bending more in at a given time, they still may never do a virtuous act
even when the situation permits it to. I also came to another understanding
that most of these situations deal with the honesty of the one being studied.
When the investigators asked the people the reason for why they either did or
did not pick up the papers, most of them believed it was a test of honesty. Thus,
the people we influenced to give an answer that they thought the investigator
would most want to hear. This forced people to give two of the common answers
that was stated for a response; one being that they felt good so they helped
out and the other being that they thought it was the right thing to do. Both of
the examples fit the honest answer that each individual person gave.
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ReplyDelete"Kwame touches upon the same topic by stating that a person who sworn to himself not to give out change to someone would not do so even when environmental factors should influence him to do the opposite. This one example in my opinion shuts down the arguments on the opposing side. Even though not all people my be rooted so deeply in their values, bending more in at a given time, they still may never do a virtuous act even when the situation permits it to."
ReplyDeleteValid point. Appiah and virtue ethicists would argue, though, that there is indeed a baseline for what's moral and what isn't. Remember that Aristotle originally developed a long list of the specific morals that people should try to develop, and that's the list that Hursthouse and other virtue ethicists work with, and the list that Appiah is working with here as well.
This doesn't mean that there's no room at all for a discussion of moral relativism, of course, which is the discourse you're entering into here. But merely for the purposes of this essay, they're working with the traditional virtues laid out by virtue ethics.
It might be worth having a discussion in class about how virtue ethics fits into contemporary society (or, indeed, whether or not it even does) in tomorrow's class.