Virtue Ethics As The Hole-Plugger For Deontological Ethics

Most moral philosophy proceeds by way of thought experiments, like the (in)famous trolley problem.

Virtue ethicists, who believe that morality is about strengthening certain virtues and weakening certain vices within the individual, have little patience for those sorts of thought experiments. They point out that they’re almost always incredibly contrived, and bereft of the context that would allow a virtuous person to make an informed and moral decision.

A good example is Elizabeth Anscombe’s well-known paper Modern Moral Philosophy. She describes as the paradigm of injustice the fact of knowingly sentencing an innocent man to death for a crime he didn’t commit. In the related footnote, she points out that, inevitably, when she presented the paper, some smart-aleck asked: “What if Country A threatens to nuke Country B if it doesn’t sentence an innocent man?”

Now, her point was merely to define the sentencing as “unjust”, at least ostensibly bracketing the question of whether it might be “moral” in some circumstances to do the “unjust” thing in question. But she also points out the incredibly contrived and narrow character of the thought experiment. She writes:

But the most important thing about the way in which cases like this are invented in discussions, is the assumption that only two courses are open: here, compliance and open defiance. No one can say in advance of such a situation what the possibilities are going to be‑-e.g. that there is none of stalling by a feigned willingness to comply. Accompanied by a skillfully arranged “escape” of the victim.

The whole point of virtue ethicists is that the virtuous man, because he has developed virtues such as prudence, wisdom, courage, etc. can, in the real world, come up with such “third options” that are a priori excluded by smart-aleck thought experiments. Because “no one can say in advance . . . what the possibilities are going to be”, such thought experiments are just irrelevant to the virtue ethicist. Nice trick!

Any ethical system built on general principles will generate aporias–moral dilemmas where the application of the moral principle would seem to be immoral. We all know about them. “So you think someone should never tell a lie, regardless of the consequences? Well what if you’re hiding a dissident from a tyrannical regime in your house, and the Gestapo come looking for him?” “Oh, so you think we should never kill? What about self-defense or defense of an innocent third-party?”

The answer seems to be either casuistry (“Well, no, it’s unjustified killing I’m against.” “Oh, and what counts as ‘justified’?” Here we go…) or grasping the nettle (“No, you should not lie, even to the Gestapo.”).

But virtue ethics point to a third answer: within a deontological framework, people should still develop the virtues, so that when they come to such a dilemma, a place where there is no deontological “map”, they can still navigate it.

One of the reasons why I love Catholic moral theology so much is because it actually provides a wonderful, harmonious synthesis of all moral systems. It is obviously and famously deontological, but Catholic moral theologians have also placed enormous emphasis on the development of virtue ethics (and there is even a small place for consequentialism!).

While Catholic casuistry (and I use the word non-pejoratively here) has certainly been no slouch about trying to anticipate every possible option under a deontological framework, and is very useful (jus in bello! Double Effect Doctrine!), the simple fact of the matter is that, even after 2000 years, not every problem can be anticipated.

What is more, as is well known, while casuistry can be a necessary part of moral reasoning (for example, it does seem that neither warlikeness nor pacifism can be reconciled with Christian ethics, so that we do need something like a “just war theory” that allows Christian soldiers to kill despite the Decalogue’s prohibition against killing), it can also be very easily twisted into a warrant for immorality.

For example, I am told that after World War II, some American clergy tried to justify the Hiroshima and Nagazaki bombings on the basis of the doctrine of the Double Effect. While some see in it an indictment of the doctrine, I see in it only an indictment of those who put forward such arguments.

In other words, we still need virtue in order to know how to apply our deontological principles in the real world, both practically and, more importantly, psychologically. The human tendency towards self-justification is well-known and infinite, and no theoretical faculty lounge discussion can stymie it.

My point is that it should actually be fine for even “strict” deontologists, to, at some point, just throw up their hands and say “You know what? No one can plan for absolutely every contingency, and at some point we should just give a virtuous man the benefit of the doubt.”