Virtue ethics is an ethical theory that emphasizes character above behavior. The concept underscores the importance of mentality, personality, and a feeling of honesty. According to virtue ethics, an acceptable act is one that a virtuous individual performs (Shafer-Landau, 2007). In other words, virtue ethics explores the ethical standing of the personality of the individual doing an activity as opposed to the act or its outcomes. This way, it addresses the rightness or wrongness of particular acts and outlines the elements and behaviors that a moral or decent individual should espouse. Virtue ethics proponents believe that a universal list of values could benefit everyone. The traditional set of fundamental virtues includes justice, prudence, temperance, bravery, and fortitude (Morales-Sánchez and Cabello-Medina, 2013). In short, virtue ethics encourage humans to be virtuous individuals.
The classical foundation of virtue ethics is eudaimonism, which alludes to well-being or happiness. The theory argues that the ultimate aim of human existence is Eudaimonia (Warnock, 2006). This aim may be attained by a lifespan of exercising virtues in one’s daily pursuits, open to the application of common sense to reconcile any contradictions or difficulties that may emerge (Stewart, 2009). Thus, adopting a virtuous existence would be happiness, which must be viewed as an objective, rather than a subjective, condition defined by a good life, regardless of the psychological state of an individual encountering it.
Conversely, there is no universal consensus on what constitutes a virtue, since certain virtues might be culturally and societally unique. As a result, some have argued that one of the theory’s primary flaws is the challenge of defining the essence of virtues, particularly when various individuals, nations, and civilizations have widely divergent views on what makes a virtue (Hirji, 2019). Virtue ethics is not action-oriented, focusing on the attributes that one should cultivate to become a moral individual rather than on ethically permissible and impermissible activities. A virtue thinker could contend that a judge who sentences a criminal to death lacks many essential virtues, including compassion and fairness. This implies that the theory does not define murder as an intrinsically unlawful or unethical act, rendering it ineffective as a universal standard of behavior on which to build laws.
Virtue theory is self-centered since it is concerned primarily with the agent’s personality. In reality, morality is concerned with other individuals and how human actions influence them (Singer, 2011). Therefore, any approach to ethics must compel individuals to regard others for their benefit, rather than if specific actions might reward them. Finally, it may also be argued that the entire notion of individual happiness, which is self-interest as a moral master virtue, is flawed, given that its inherent personal character prevents personal judgments. This means that happiness is subjective, meaning it depends on the individual state, yet the theory wants such a state to be viewed as objective.
Virtue ethics focuses on the pivotal relevance of character, reason, and honesty consciously formed throughout a lifetime to give direction in moral decision-making. In my opinion, this approach allows for a comprehensive understanding of human nature that incorporates both logic and enthusiasm, depending on practical moral understanding and expertise. As a result, moral character development fosters personal ethical accountability for deeds and assists humans in determining how to behave ethically in different life situations. However, this theory should be used as the universal basis for making moral decisions. Fundamentally, there is no clear characterization of a virtuous model, and emulating a person who is thought to be such may lead to poor moral actions and tragic outcomes.
Virtue ethics fails to address the outcomes of actions, and in principle could sanction virtuous activities performed by virtuous individuals irrespective of the outcomes were devastating. For instance, an individual might decide to act in the manner of a good member of their faith. They might naively model their evangelizing acts on the contemptuous enlightened principles of the virtuous model, albeit with disastrous repercussions. Identifying moral exemplars is often not an effective way to build a righteous system with social justice. For these reasons, I would not recommend this theory as the standard for making moral decisions.
Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is the notion that the rightness or wrongness of an undertaking is decided purely by its impact on aggregate utility in increasing pleasure or happiness as totaled across all persons. The maximum satisfaction for the largest audience is, therefore, the overall utility of persons that is relevant (Stewart, 2009). The philosophy is called after utility, which is a metric in the economics of the proportional contentment from, or acceptability of, the use of things. Utilitarian theory is therefore a quantifiable and overly simplistic theory of ethics. There are two types of utilitarianism, namely, act and rule utilitarianism.
Utilitarianism begins with the assumption that gratification and happiness are inherently desirable, that misery and anguish are invaluable, and so everything has worth only in providing satisfaction or eliminating pain. According to Warnock (2006), it is a form of hedonism, as it focuses on pleasure or happiness as the eventual aim of moral judgments. Utilitarians advocate fairness through the impartial representation of needs, and they oppose superficial classifications between who is and is not deserving of attention, as well as bias between persons. Nevertheless, it embraces the notion of diminishing marginal utility, which acknowledges that a comparable activity advances the goals of a wealthy person less than it advances the goals of a less wealthy one.
Act utilitarianism is a classic example of ‘the end justifies the means.’ Broadly, it is the concept that an act is ethically correct if it provides the most benefit for the maximum number of individuals. This is in contrast to rule utilitarianism, which holds that the goodness of an act is determined by the trustworthiness of the principles that enable it to realize maximum satisfaction. From an act utilitarianism perspective, it is permissible to violate a rule if it promotes the greater interest. This contradicts rule utilitarianism, which claims that while a rule cannot provide a higher payoff, violating it will not.
Conversely, utilitarianism has several drawbacks as an ethical theory. Some suggest that not just in reality, but also in theory, quantifying and contrasting happiness across diverse individuals is difficult (Thomson, 1999). This is true considering that there is no way of determining what level of happiness qualifies as ‘maximum happiness.’ Another obvious flaw in utilitarianism is that it solely considers the outcomes of deeds, rather than the goals or motives that inspire them, which is a factor considered essential by most people. Hence, an act meant to cause suffering, but that accidentally produces beneficial outcomes, is regarded to be comparable to the outcome of a deed performed with good motives.
A rather particular objection has been advanced against utilitarianism on the premise that causality is either true or untrue. If it is true, humans have no clear alternative to their actions; if it is untrue, the outcomes are unexpected, not least as they will rely solely on the deeds of others whom people can expect (Haji, 2021). Utilitarians might suggest that justifying enslavement, torture, or indiscriminate executions would need impossibly great advantages outweighing the victims’ immediate and intense pain, and also considering the secondary influence of social tolerance of immoral practices. For example, if human rights are frequently violated, widespread uneasiness and terror may intensify for everyone. Ultimately, since utilitarianism ignores the reality that human behavior is variable and developing, the notion of a uniform utility for all people is shallow and might be ineffective in some situations.
Utilitarianism is a good basis for promoting moral decisions, particularly those that affect masses of people. This is primarily because it encourages us to assess the various degrees of gain and harm that arise from our deeds. This way, we understand that the optimal course of action accomplishes the greatest pleasure or balances well over harm. In perspective, morality in society is mostly founded on the principles of utilitarianism, especially act utilitarianism. This can be seen in the promotion of recently developed COVID-19 vaccines by governments and health officials worldwide. While vaccines have side effects on specific people, they have been mandated because they lead to the greatest benefit, which is to protect people from the adverse effects of the virus.
Reference List
Haji, I. (2021) Obligation incompatibilism and blameworthiness. Philosophical Papers, 50(1-2), pp.163-185.
Hirji, S. (2019) What’s Aristotelian about neo‐Aristotelian virtue ethics? Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 98(3), pp.671-696.
Morales-Sánchez, R. and Cabello-Medina, C. (2013) The role of four universal moral competencies in ethical decision-making. Journal of business ethics, 116(4), pp.717-734.
Shafer-Landau, R. (2007) Ethical theory: An anthology. Massachusetts: Wiley-Blackwell.
Singer, P. (2011) Practical ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Stewart, N. (2009) Ethics: An introduction to moral philosophy. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Thomson, A. (1999) Critical reasoning in ethics. London: Routledge.
Warnock, M. (2006) An intelligent person’s guide to ethics. London: Duckworth.