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The Skill of Virtue

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THE SKILL OF VIRTUE Matthew Stichter A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY August 2007 Committee: Daniel Jacobson, Advisor Michael Zickar Graduate Faculty Representative David Copp Fred Miller David Sobel © 2006 Matthew Stichter All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Daniel Jacobson, Advisor The revival of virtue ethics brought the ancient Greek concepts of ‘virtue’ and ‘the virtuous person’ back into prominence. Contemporary virtue ethicists present an attractive picture of virtue, for the virtuous person knows how to act in a morally appropriate way and is reliable in acting accordingly. This portrait of the virtuous person appears to be the type of person one should aspire to be, but problems arise with many of the details. Often, only the end state of the virtuous person is described, and it is left mysterious how an average person could ever achieve such an idealized state. Accounts of virtue have left readers with the impression that the virtuous person is an unattainable ideal or psychologically implausible. This dissertation argues that reviving the ancient Greek idea that virtues are like practical skills, which is rarely discussed in contemporary literature, can help provide a more plausible account of the virtuous person. The moral knowledge of the virtuous person is analogous to the practical knowledge of the expert in a skill. Learning a skill is a process of acquiring practical knowledge, that is, the knowledge of how to do something, like building a house or driving a car. With virtue, the practical knowledge is the knowledge of how to act well, like acting brave or just. The few current discussions of the skill analogy rely on a reconstruction of the ancient account of skills for a comparison to virtue. There are advantages, however, to using a modern account of skill acquisition that has had the benefit of research and iv application. This dissertation adapts an account of skills developed by Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus in their research on artificial intelligence. The Dreyfus account displays the features of skills that were relevant in the ancient analogy to virtue: a progress from novice to expert, which begins with following rules and then progresses to being sensitive to the relevant features of particular situations. The skill model of virtue offers the most promising direction for contemporary virtue theory, because it can ground a plausible account of the moral knowledge of the virtuous person. v To Beth, who inspires me to be a better person vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my parents, who have supported me through so many years of study. I owe thanks to my undergraduate professors who stimulated my interest in philosophy, particularly professors Teloh and Tlumak. I would also like to thank the faculty at Bowling Green, for such a rewarding graduate experience. My deepest thanks goes to my committee: to Daniel Jacobson, for all his patience and guidance as my advisor; to David Copp, for his continued help despite the long distance; to David Sobel, for all his interest and encouragement since I first arrived at B.G.S.U.; and to Fred Miller, for the wealth of feedback from all of our discussions. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW……………………………………………………………………….1 1.1 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..1 1.2 Chapter Summaries………………………………………………………………………..4 CHAPTER 2: ARISTOTLE ON VIRTUE AND SKILL………………………………………..14 2.1 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………14 2.2 Virtues as Habits…………………………………………………………………………15 2.3 Doing What is Virtuous………………….………………………………………………18 2.4 Virtues as a Mean……………………………………………………………………...…20 2.5 Acting for the Sake of the Noble………………………………………………………...21 2.6 Conclusion…….…………………………………………………………………………24 CHAPTER 3: ANNAS ON VIRTUE AS A SKILL……………………………………………..25 3.1 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………25 3.2 Annas’s Account of Skills………………………………………………….……………27 3.3 Is Annas’s Account of Skills Counterintuitive?.…………………………………………31 3.4 Intellectualist versus Empiricist view of Skills...…………………………………...……33 3.5 Which Account of Skills Does Aristotle Endorse?………………………………………36 3.6 Which Account of Skills is Best?..........…………………………………………………38 3.7 Is the Skill Model Still Suitable for Virtue?..……………………………………………42 3.8 Conclusion………………………………………………………………….……………44 CHAPTER 4: THE DREYFUS SKILL MODEL………………………………………………..46 4.1 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………46 viii 4.2 The First Stage – Novice…………………………………………………………………49 4.3 The Second Stage – Advanced Beginner...………………………………………………50 4.4 The Third Stage – Competent Performer...………………………………………………52 4.5 The Fourth Stage – Proficient Performer...………………………………………………53 4.6 The Fifth Stage – Expert…………………………………………………………………54 4.7 Conclusion……………………………………………………….………………………59 CHAPTER 5: NEO-ARISTOTELIAN VIRTUE………………………………………………..60 5.1 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………60 5.2 The Dreyfus Skill Model and Aristotle’s Account of Virtue…….………………………61 5.3 The Dreyfus Skill Model and Neo-Aristotelian Accounts of Virtue…….………………64 5.4 Are perceptual metaphors a sign of a bogus epistemology?..……………………………65 5.5 Does the silencing of reasons make the virtuous person a moral fanatic?.………………68 5.6 Should a non-virtuous person always try to act as the virtuous person acts?……………71 5.7 Can the knowledge of the virtuous person be codified?…………………………………73 5.8 Limits of the Skill Model of Virtue………...……………………………………………76 5.9 Conclusion…………………...………………………………………..…………………77 CHAPTER 6: PRACTICAL WISDOM…………………………………………………………78 6.1 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………78 6.2 Practical Wisdom as an Intellectual Excellence…………………………………………79 6.3 Practical Wisdom and Deliberation…...…………………………………………………86 6.4 Natural Virtue versus Genuine Virtue………………………………………...…………88 6.5 Eudaimonia and the Unity of the Virtues..………………………………………………92 6.6 Conclusion...………………………………………………………………..……………95 ix CHAPTER 7: THE UNITY OF THE VIRTUES………………………………………………..97 7.1 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………97 7.2 The Strong Unity Thesis………………………………………………………..………101 7.3 The Moderate Unity Thesis…………….………………………………………………102 7.4 Objections to the Strong and Moderate Unity Theses.…………………………………103 7.5 The Weak Unity Thesis...………………………………………………………………106 7.6 Objections to the Weak Unity Thesis…………………………………..………………107 7.7 The Minimal Unity Thesis…………………………………..………….………………109 7.8 Objections to the Minimal Unity Thesis……………………………………………..…111 7.9 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………...……116 CHAPTER 8: HONESTY AS A SKILL……………………………………………………….118 8.1 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………..118 8.2 The Simple View of Honesty…………………………………………...………………118 8.3 Rejecting the Simple View of Honesty…………………………………………………120 8.4 What Might Honesty Require?…………………………………………………………122 8.5 Honesty in Business Practices………………………………………………….………124 8.6 Complex Cases – Not wanting to be told the Truth…………………….………………126 8.7 Complex Cases – Negotiation……………………………………………………..……128 8.8 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...131 CHAPTER 9: EPILOGUE……………………………………………………………………...132 9.1 Incompleteness of the Skill Model of Virtue…………………………………...………132 9.2 Further Applications of the Skill Model of Virtue……...………………………………134 9.3 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………...…138 x BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………………139 1 CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW 1.1 Introduction The revival of virtue ethics has brought the ancient Greek concepts of ‘virtue’ and the ‘virtuous person’ back into prominence in ethical discussion. According to Rosalind Hursthouse (2003), a virtue “is the concept of something that makes its possessor good: a virtuous person is a morally good, excellent or admirable person who acts and feels well, rightly, as she should.” A person with the virtue of kindness, says John McDowell (1998), “can be relied on to behave kindly when that is what the situation requires,” because “a kind person knows what it is like to be confronted with a requirement of kindness” (p. 51). Hursthouse and McDowell present an attractive picture of virtue, for the virtuous person knows how to act in a morally appropriate way and is reliable in acting accordingly. This portrait of the virtuous person appears to be the kind of person one should aspire to be, at least from the moral point of view. When one looks closer, however, problems arise with some of the details. Although passages like the ones quoted above give a good indication of what it would be like to possess a virtue like kindness, it is unclear how the kind person came to have knowledge about when a situation requires kindness. Often, only the end state of the virtuous person is described, and it is left mysterious how an average person could ever achieve such an idealized state. Accounts of the virtuous person have often left readers with the impression that the virtuous person is an unattainable ideal, a moral fanatic, or just psychologically implausible. This dissertation argues that reviving the ancient Greek idea that virtues are like practical skills can help provide a more plausible account of the virtuous person. The moral knowledge of the virtuous person is analogous to the practical knowledge of the expert in a skill. Applying the 2 skill model to virtue is an attempt to take up Aristotle’s suggestion that “we should use as evidence what is apparent for the sake of what is obscure” (Nicomachean Ethics 1104a14-15).1 Aristotle uses this methodology in the frequent analogies he draws between virtues and practical
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