Towards Overcoming the Schizophrenia of the Modern Ethical Theories. Virtue Ethics vs. Aretology
Abstract
In his paper, Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories, Michael Stocker accuses modern ethical theories of affecting a moral agent with a kind of schizophrenia, where one of the agent’s „I” desires something while the other “I” of the very same agent commands to do one’s duty. The problem is that quite often one’s desires do not match with his or her duties, and the harmony of both – as Stocker says – is a sign, and therefore one of the goals of good life.
Modern ethical theories mainly focus on the analysis of moral acts alone (as deontologies do) or on their external consequences (as utilitarianism does), Hus ignoring all that happens within a moral agent (his intentions, motives, moral dispositions and attitudes). In moral evaluation they concentrate merely on moral rightness of an act, leaving moral goodness, as it seems, out of the range of their interest.
The aim of this paper is to show that one can overcome the schizophrenity of utilitarian and deontological approaches by resorting to the category of virtue. Currently, such a solution has been presented by the advocates of virtue ethics, recognized as a serious alternative to deontology and utilitarianism. A virtuous person is an agent who not only knows what one should do, but also desires to act so. Emotions and feelings are in harmony with moral judgments of practical reason; a moral agent acts as he or she should and finds satisfaction in acting so, even if it requires a change of one’s desires and the agent must properly work on shaping his or her own desires. One of the thesis of this paper is that one can solve the problem of schizophernity also within deontological or utilitarian theories by simply incorporating some aretology (theory of virtue).
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