Today, the UCI Philosophy Department was rocked to the core by a meeting of the foremost scholars currently working in Bonnie Kent's Spring 2011 graduate seminar. Insights were unveiled, assumptions demolished. The cowardly ran for cover as hypotheses rained down like shrapnel.
Then the break ended and we went back to discussing philosophy.
Anyway, in today's seminar, one of the topics was what Ramon Das (2003) calls the "circularity problem" facing certain forms of virtue ethics. In this essay, I propose a way for virtue ethicists to avoid the circularity problem.
1) The problem
Some virtue ethicists have proposed theories that actually define right action in terms of virtue. For example, Rosalind Hursthouse defines right action as follows:
Exhibit AAn action is right iff it is what a virtuous person would characteristically do in the circumstances. [Hursthouse, in Das 2003, 331]
Ramon Das objects that Hursthouse's account of right action ends up being circular. Why? Hursthouse defines the virtues in terms of eudaimonia, or human flourishing. And, in her discussions of eudaimonia, she ultimately seems to define eudaimonia in terms of right actions. (Roughly, virtues are character traits that promote eudaimonia, and eudaimonia at least partly consists of right actions.) So, ultimately, she seems to define right action in terms of itself (Das 2003, 331-32):
Exhibit B: Hursthouse's definitions1. A right action = an action that a virtuous person would perform (i.e. Exhibit A)2. A virtuous person = a person who has the virtues3. Virtues = characteristics that promote eudaimonia4. Eudaimonia = life involving right action[1]
Interestingly, Das doesn't claim that Hursthouse's account is trivially circular. He thinks that aspects of her account, if fully fleshed out, could be quite illuminating (Das 2003, 334). However, he does claim that the account ultimately involves a definitional circle.
In the next section, I propose a way for Hursthouse to escape circularity altogether.
2) My solution
To avoid circularity, I think, Hursthouse could simply deny that Exhibit A is really a definition at all.[2]
A definition of X is supposed to educate someone who doesn't know what X is. Thus, if all of the statements in Exhibit B are mere definitions, then Hursthouse's account really is circular, perhaps even trivially circular. If you meet someone who doesn't already know what right actions are, then you won't be helping her much if you (a) give her a definition of "right action" that contains the term "Q" and then (b) give her a definition of Q that contains the phrase "right action".
If we deny that Exhibit A is really a definition, then what could it be? Perhaps we could say that it's really a claim about the source of an action's rightness. We can put this claim as follows:
Exhibit A'A right action is right by virtue of having a certain relation to virtue—namely, that of being the action that a virtuous person would characteristically perform under the circumstances.
In other words, Exhibit A' says that an action's rightness flows from its relation to virtue.
If we replace Exhibit A with Exhibit A', then the circularity vanishes. Yes, the virtues are defined in terms of eudaimonia, and eudaimonia is defined in terms of right action. But right action is not defined in terms of the virtues or of a virtuous person. Rather, Exhibit A' assumes that we already know which actions are right, and it simply explains the source of that rightness: the source of an action's rightness is the action's relation to virtue.
3) A metaphysical objection
During today's seminar, my esteemed colleague James Gibson objected to the solution that I describe in section 2. Basically, James denied that a right action has an actual relation to virtue.
According to Exhibit A', a right action has a relation to virtue: namely, it is the action that a virtuous person would perform. But notice: the "virtuous person" in question is hypothetical. Exhibit A' doesn't say that virtuous people must actually exist in order for actions to be right. Rather, Exhibit A' says that right actions are actions that a virtuous person would perform, if he existed. Thus, Exhibit A' doesn't refer to any actually existing virtuous person (even if some virtuous people do in fact exist). Instead, it refers to a purely hypothetical virtuous person.
Now, a purely hypothetical virtuous person doesn't actually exist, so neither does his virtue. And so Exhibit A' seems to presuppose that an action can have a relation to a non-existent entity—namely, the virtue of a hypothetical virtuous agent. James worries that this presupposition is absurd—that you can't have a relation to a non-existent entity.
4) My reply to the metaphysical objection
The easiest way to reply to James's objection is simply to avoid it. Let's modify Exhibit A' so that it doesn't appear to involve a relation to a non-existent entity.
Suppose that universals exist. Now let's modify Exhibit A' as follows:
Exhibit A''A right action is right by virtue of having a certain relation to the universals of the virtues—namely, that of being the action that would characteristically be performed under the circumstances by a person who instantiates the universals of the virtues.
Should we deny that the relation described in Exhibit A'' is a real, existing relation? I don't see why.
What is the relation between siblings? We might call it "siblingship". But we can also represent it by taking the sentence "John is a sibling of Susan" and removing "John" and "Susan":
"_____ is a sibling of _____."
In other words, we can represent a relation by taking a sentence and removing at least two of the words or phrases referring to objects.[3] Now consider the following expression:
Exhibit C"_____ is the action that would characteristically be performed under the circumstances by a person who instantiates _____."
Exhibit C looks like it represents a relation. Moreover, it looks like it represents the relation mentioned in Exhibit A''. Now, we're assuming that the universals of the virtues (unlike the hypothetical virtuous person) actually exist. So what stops Exhibit C from being an actual, existing relation?
Perhaps one might object that Exhibit C can't represent an actual relation because it refers to a purely hypothetical "person who instantiates". I simply don't see the force of this objection. Exhibit C has the form of a relation, and both of the terms of the relation (i.e. right actions and the universals of the virtues) actually exist. Thus, I don't see why we should deny that the relation itself—i.e. the relation mentioned in Exhibit A''—actually exists.
Conclusion? If you interpret Exhibit A as Exhibit A'', then there's no circularity problem.
5) References
Das, Ramon. "Virtue Ethics and Right Action". Australian Journal of Philosophy. 81.3 (2003): 324-39.
[1] Hursthouse's definition of eudaimonia is more sophisticated than this, of course. I give this pseudo-definition of eudaimonia simply to illustrate the circularity that Das sees lurking in Hursthouse's explanations of eudaimonia.
[2] I don't know whether this proposal agrees with Hursthouse's own interpretation of Exhibit A, and I'm inclined to think that it doesn't. But that doesn't matter. Again, my point is simply that Hursthouse could say this to avoid circularity.
[3] This isn't just a way of representing a relation; it may actually reflect the nature of relations. Some philosophers (e.g. Gottlob Frege) think that a relation is basically a state of affairs (e.g. the state of affairs John is a sibling of Susan) minus two or more objects. On this view, particular states of affairs arise from objects filling the empty slots in relations. (For example, the state of affairs John is a sibling of Susan arises from John and Susan filling the empty slots in the relation _____ is a sibling of _____.)
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