A book review of after virtue

This may be unnecessarily polemical, but I thought it was worth expressing my thoughts on after virtue

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My father has an amusing story that he tells from when he was in elementary school. There was a classic kerfuffle over who would be the team captain for soccer. One of the students, adept in political strategy at a very young age, decided to go on the attack. Rather than present a positive case for his desirability as a team captain, he explained why everyone else was ineligible, his attacks running the gamut of effective elementary school insults—everything from “this guy is too short,” to “this girl is a girl, which is obviously a disqualifying quality.”

Well, being no longer in elementary school, my criticism of alternative theories will avoid the puerile nature of those from elementary school. But, adopting the same general strategy, this post will be exclusively about attacking virtue ethics. The poverty of the alternatives serves as a good argument for utilitarianism.

Attack ads are fun to watch. Flashing red lettering on the screen makes a very compelling argument, especially when combined with Very Serious People discussing other Very Serious People who are against a particular policy or candidate. Think of this as a political attack ad.

1 Ad vice for virtue ethics

“Where’s the beef Mr. Macintyre”

—A good objection

(Gotta associate virtue ethics with scary clowns, this is an attack ad after all)

Fictional dialogue

Me: “So virtue ethicist should we accept the repugnant conclusion.”

The virtue ethicist stroked his beard for a while. Then, after several minutes had elapsed, during which I wasn’t sure if he was dead, asleep, or in a permanent brain freeze induced by being forced to use virtue ethics to solve ethical problems he said, in a voice the sounded like Yoda

“conclusion repugnant the accept conviction and character strong of is who one would.”

Me: “Woah woah woah—no talking like Yoda. Answer the question.”

He stroked his beard for several more minutes.

Virtue Ethicist (let’s call him Kevin because that’s been found by research to be the worst name on dating apps): “Would one who is wise, good, and strong in moral conviction accept the repugnant conclusion?”

Me: “Well, I think so. Huemer seems pretty wise, good, and strong in moral conviction. This Bentham’s bulldog guy is beyond wise, good, and strong in moral conviction—a fact attested to by everyone who has come across him—all of whom have been blown away by his brilliance, genius, and most of all humility. And both of them accept the repugnant conclusion.”

Kevin: “Then you should accept the repugnant conclusion.”

Me: “Well, ideally an ethical system will tell us what things are good. If virtue ethics is parasitic on already realizing the right answer, then it doesn’t help us come to ethical conclusions.”

Kevin: “Virtue ethics tells what’s good. What’s good is what a good person would do. Duh.”

Me: “Okay, but how do we figure out what a good person would do without already knowing what is good.”

Kevin: “Well, we consider lots of virtues and see if they overall count in favor of or against a particular decision.”

Me: “Okay, so let’s take tax policy. My view on tax policy is informed by what tax policy I think will maximize happiness. On your view, how do we decide whether to cut taxes.”

Kevin: “Well, a virtuous person wouldn’t want to take too much money, but also wants to fund good things.”

Me: “This once again seems to rely on having an external standard of goodness. In all the cases there are virtues on both sides. You’re just making ad hoc judgment calls.”

Kevin: “They’re not ad hoc. I think ‘what would a good guy do,’ and then I do it.”

Me: “Okay, but how do you decide what a good guy would do.”

Kevin: “I consider the virtues.”

Me: “But there are always virtues on both sides. How do you weigh them up.”

Kevin: “Well, I consider all the virtues and then come to conclusions.”

Me: “How do you come to conclusions without just relying on intuitions.”

Kevin: “I do rely on intuitions. They’re just intuitions about what a virtuous person would do.”

Me: “Well, we know that intuitions about what is good are often wrong. So why the heck would we think that the nearly identical class of intuitions about what would be done by a virtuous person would be any better.”

Kevin: “We have to carefully reflect in order to figure which virtues are supreme.”

Me: “Where would this diverge from regular moral intuitions.”

Kevin: “I guess it wouldn’t very much. But you utilitarians try so hard to reduce everything to a simple equation. The real world is much too complicated for that.”

Me: “Absent some formula for deciding what’s good how the hell are we supposed to figure out what’s good. We know that intuitions throughout history have been incredibly unreliable. It’s also the case that we have lots of independent intuitions that favor utilitarianism.”

Kevin: “But you accept killing one to save five.”

Me: “Obviously. You only think that’s bad because of intuitions. If you think more about the case, you’ll conclude you should kill one to save five. I’ve written an article about this in fact.”

Kevin: “Okay—compelling points in that article. Maybe killing one to save five is virtuous.”

Me: “Doesn’t this show that virtue ethics is just copy pasting our intuitions and calling it an ethical theory.”

Kevin: “No, our intuitions about what is virtuous are not the same thing as our moral intuitions. Most bad things indicate vice and good things indicate virtue.”

Me: “That’s certainly true of some things. However, lots of good actions can be done by vicious people. Suppose that a psychopath saves a child, merely for attention. They would have stabbed the child to death if it would have made their life better, but it happened to make their life better to save the child. That’s obviously indicative of vice, but it’s still better that the action happened. Similarly if a person attempts a murder but fails and accidentally saves the person’s life, it’s good that the action happened.”

Kevin: “But surely we shouldn’t do vicious things.”

Me: “Acts can’t be viceful, only people can. Acts can indicate viciousness, but they are not themselves conduits of vice. You should be a virtuous person, but that doesn’t give you guidance to deciding what acts are taken.”

Kevin: “It seems like most bad acts can be explained by being unvirtuous. Lying, stealing, killing are dishonest, selfish, and brutal.”

Me: “Bad acts do tend to indicate bad character. However, bad people can do bad acts. Rough correlation doesn’t indicate causation.”

Kevin: “Why should ethics be about deciding right action. Why can’t it just be about being a virtuous person.”

Me: “I’m all on board with being a good person. But there are lots of tough ethical questions. Questions like whether you should eat meat, donate lots to charity, lie to avoid offending people, and vote for a particular candidate are important ones that are worth deciding. If your moral theory can’t decide what we should do, that counts against it. But a related problem avails your theory—how do we decide what the virtues are?”

Kevin: “Eudaimonia inducing things are virtuous. Your life goes better if you are honest than if you are dishonest. Eudaimonia is the things that determines how well your life goes.”

Me: “So then aren’t these all just means to an end, with that end being Eudaimonia.”

Kevin: “There’s a necessary relationship between the two, neither being explainable in terms of the other.”

Me: “Okay so what if there was more flourishing brought about by everyone lying. Should people lie.”

Kevin: “No, it’s not virtuous. It couldn’t bring about Eudaimonia.”

Me: “Well, if one lie prevented two other lies that would bring about more total Eudaimonia.”

Kevin: “Okay, well maybe the virtues are just irreducible.”

Me: “That’s possible, but then it’s hard to account for all of the virtues being utility maximizing heuristics. Lying generally has bad outcomes. So does being cruel, selfish, hateful, and spiteful. How do you account for that.”

Kevin: “Virtues cause good consequences because they’re virtuous.”

Me: “Okay, but surely we could imagine an alternative world with a different set of things that have good outcomes that aren’t considered virtuous. Suppose that every-time a lie was told it made the life of the person who you lied to 1% better, without their knowledge. In that world lying would have good consequences, but it would not be virtuous.”

Kevin: “Maybe it would be virtuous.”

Me: “Okay, let’s imagine that showing callous disregard to human life prevented a demon from torturing everyone. Would it be virtuous then.”

Kevin: “No.”

Me: “But if we had two worlds, one in which a demon tortures everyone because people are virtuous and one in which everyone has a super high quality of life, surely the second one is better.”

Kevin: “I guess.”

Me: “But that shows virtues aren’t what fundamentally matters.”

Kevin: “Virtues don’t have to be the only things that matter.”

Me: “Well, if you agree that utility matters and all of the virtues are strictly reduceable to utility, then it seems preferrable on theoretical grounds to suppose that only utility matters.”

Kevin: “Perhaps.”

Me: “But there’s another problem with virtue ethics. It holds that it can be bad to give a perfectly moral person the choice over whether some event occurs. Suppose that we grant that it’s unvirtuous to push the fat man in the trolley problem variant called bridge. It’s also surely the case that the world would be better if the man fell naturally—one would die rather than five. Thus, giving a perfectly moral person control over whether or not the man falls makes the world worse. This is quite counterintuitive.”

Kevin: “I guess.”

Me: “It’s also not clear how we ground things using virtue ethics. Why are some things virtues and others not?”

Kevin: “Much like a car is good if it fits its purpose or a pen is good if it writes well a human is good if it meets its purpose.”

Me: “That’s obviously equivocation on the word good. It’s good at being a pencil if it writes well. That doesn’t make it morally good. A date rape drug is a good date rape drug in one sense if it’s effective, but that certainly doesn’t make it morally good. I’m also not sure how we decide what the objective ends of humans are.”

Kevin disappeared in a gust of smoke, replaced by the book after virtue, which began talking immediately.

2 The talking book

After Virtue: “Let me do what Kevin could not and defend virtue ethics. Let’s start with chapter 1. What say you to it, the broad thesis that modern ethical talk is analogous to rediscovering science after a period during which all scientific knowledge was destroyed except a few phrases. We use terms analogous to neutrino—talking about right and wrong and ought and ought not, but at the end of the day we have no good grasp on ethics.”

Me: “Well, my prior in that is pretty low. It seems unlikely that the wide diversity of moral views is just rediscovering ancient stuff. But let’s see what your further chapters argue.”

After Virtue: “Okay, what do you think about chapter two. First the claim that moral debates are rationally irresolvable—they just come from different starting points but can’t ultimately be solved.”

Me: “I don’t think that’s true at all. Lots of things have fierce disagreement but that doesn’t mean there’s no progress. Huemer accepts the repugnant conclusion. That shows that people can be convinced by persuasive argument to accept things they didn’t accept initially. I’ve written a series of articles providing compelling ethical arguments for things.”

After Virtue: “But the disputes about abortion, war, and justice have been going on for an eternity.”

Me: “That’s true of lots of things that are rationally resolvable, including whether or not god exists, how we get consciousness, which theory of quantum physics is correct, which political party will bring about greater aggregate welfare, and whether the minimum wage will increase aggregate welfare.”

AV: “But for each argument they can be supported by premises which can’t be proven, but can either be accepted or rejected.”

Me: “That’s true of math too. If you reject mathematical axioms, you’d be left without mathematical reasoning. That doesn’t mean that math is rationally irresolvable. I think for ethics we can do lots of reasoning, and come to conclusions about which assumptions are justifiable. I’ve written quite a lot about particular cases of allegedly justified deontologist assumptions that I don’t think stand up to scrutiny.”

AV: “But deontologists would say the same.”

Me: “Yes, and they’d be wrong. Flat earthers think the evidence favors a flat earth. They’re wrong.”

AV: “I don’t have the time to wade into your extensive arguments for utilitarianism.”

Me: “Okay, I was just explaining why I disagree with your premise.”

AV: “Okay, what do you think about point two that morality proceeds by appealing to impersonal rationality, in a way that’s foolish given that those allegedly rational assumptions can’t be independently justified. Asserting that you have a reason to accept my deontological arguments is ridiculous—if I ask you to vote against abortion and you say because you want me to, that gives you no reason. The same is true if I appeal to it being your duty. If you don’t care about this, it gives you no reason vote against abortion.”

Me: “It’s false. Moral injunctions may not give you a motivating reason, but that’s not the same as saying they give you no reason. Epistemic rationality is a good parallel. Saying that your position that the earth is flat is rationally unjustified may give you no motivating reason, the same as if I said that the fact that I believe it’s round gives you no motivating reason, but it does give you an epistemic reason. You are foolish to believe unjustified things.”

AV: “This would get us into pretty thorny metaethical territory that we’ll steer clear of for now.”

Me: “Okay.”

AV: “What about point 3 that ethics falsely assumes to be part of some grand tradition, but really a lot of people are talking past each other and just upholding their societal norms. Kant can’t be analyzed absent understanding Prussia, Hume absent Scotland.”

Me: “I’m not sure about whether people have been talking past each other. There seem to be fundamental moral concepts like ought, right, shouldness, and goodness, the details of which are merely disagreed about. I’m also not sure why this requires understanding the history of people. We can just consider their arguments without having a comprehensive understanding of Scotland from 300 BCE to 1825 CE.”

AV: “These points will be developed further. Do you agree with my takedown of emotivism.”

Me: “Yes.”

AV: “Okay—do you agree of the failure of rationality to establish morality.”

Me: “No—I agree with you about the failures of Kant and others to do so, but I think utilitarians have done a pretty good job. Sidgwick was great at this. We can start with some very plausible axioms and reason our way to morality. Those axioms can be concluded to be true, like mathematical axioms.”

AV: “I address that in chapter 5.”

Me: “I’m reading chapter 5 now. When you say “Thus all these writers share in the project of constructing valid arguments which will move from premises concerning human nature as they understand it to be to conclusions about the authority of moral rules and precepts,” that just seems obviously wrong. Kant wasn’t making claims about human nature, he was making claims about what we have reason to do. Same with Sidgwick.

AV: “Well, those applied only to humans.”

Me: “Kant said they applied to all rational beings. Sidgwick’s applies to all beings that can suffer.”

AV: “It’s still broadly about human nature.”

Me: “I guess. But then when you say that morality has to be about all three—human nature, passions, and reason, I just flatly reject that. Morality would be the same if no one had any emotions and if human nature was such that it wanted to cause maximal suffering.”

AV: “I’m criticizing the conceptions of Kant and friends, not you.”

Me: “I don’t think that’s a fair characterization of Kant. I think he’d agree with me. But okay, go ahead, I’m all for Kant bashing.”

AV: “So what say you of the way that I cross the is ought gap—that it’s possible to go from this watch tells the time accurately to this is a good watch without an unjustified inference.”

Me: “This seems like equivocation. When we say ‘this is a good watch,’ that’s not a moral claim. That sentence semantically means it furthers the purpose of a watch. That’s not a normative claim.”

AV: “But surely you’d be in favor of watches being good, even if it caused suffering. You wouldn’t take it’s effects to make it a bad watch. The same is true of humans. A good human meets the functional role of a human.”

Me: “But against, that’s not a moral claim. A good slave catching ship might be good at meeting its functional role, but it’s not morally good. Let’s imagine that we created a race of rapist murderers, made with the sole aim of raping and murdering. They were created with that express purpose. Surely it would still be bad for them to rape and murder people. A man made virus made to kill lots of people is bad in the moral sense, despite being good in the functional sense.”

AV: “Then how do we cross the is ought gap.”

Me: “The same way we cross the is-will be gap. While it doesn’t follow straightforwardly from what is that something will be the case, we can still use induction. Reason lets us figure out what things are good, despite it not being a straightforwardly natural property. But you’re dodging the point. Surely this is not an account of moral goodness.”

AV: “I’m a good book. I perform the function of a book. A book does not argue points not made in the book. Macintyre did not address this argument so I can’t help you there. But he’s a smart guy, I’m sure he could think up a response. But anyways, you ground morality in imperatives. But imperatives can’t be truth apt.”

(You might think dear reader that this is being uncharitable. It is not. Macintyre literally does not address this blatantly obvious objection. At all.)

Me: “I’m not sure if morality is an imperative—I find the discourse to be hopelessly muddled and confused. I think we can figure out what we should do by reasoning. The statement ‘we should do x’ is not saying ‘do x’ it’s a claim about what we would do if we were completely rational and impartial. But statements about imperatives are certainly truth apt. The statement ‘if you were totally rational and impartial you’d follow this imperative,’ is truth apt certainly.”

AV: “I’m just a book. But what have you to say about my utilitarian bashing in the next chapter.”

Me: “I agree that the claim that people do what maximizes their pleasure doesn’t straightforwardly imply any moral claims. Mill and Bentham were wrong there. But your criticism of Bentham is wrong. You say that Bentham’s view that if we were rational we’d be utilitarians fails because a social reformer should try to persuade the irrational masses. I agree that this makes it not straightforwardly able to cause major social reform but that doesn’t make it false.”

AV: “I was just making a claim about the social reform.”

Me: “You also say that Mill was “clearly the most distinguished mind and character ever to embrace Benthamism.” I don’t think that’s true. Sidgwick seemed to be a greater thinker, though he was less influential. Singer also gets a lot more right than Mill.”

AV: “I was making a claim of how renowned the thinkers were, not absolute greatness.”

Me: “Okay then, carry on.”

AV: “What do you make of the objection that there are too many different types of pleasures.”

Me: “That’s obviously true but it’s not an objection. Pleasures coming in different varieties doesn’t mean some aren’t greater than others. It is obvious that the pain of a pinprick is less than the pain of being brutally tortured. It may be hard to figure out whether a particular shade of yellow is brighter than a particular shade of pink, but that doesn’t mean that brightness is subjective or that white is not brighter than black.”

AV: “But the fact that there’s no clear criteria of pleasure makes it unable to be used to evaluate experience.”

Me: “There is a criteria—pleasure describes the mental states that are desirable, such that if you were totally rational you’d want more of them. Greater pleasures are more desirable. There are some difficulties with the details but that doesn’t mean it’s no criterion. There are also difficulties with determining if viruses are alive, but that doesn’t mean life is a “pseudo concept,” to use your words.”

AV: “But if an individual can’t evaluate different pleasures, surely a society can’t do interpersonal comparison of utility.”

Me: “An individuals inability to weigh between pleasures is an epistemic problem. So pleasures are greater than others. The pleasure of eating food one really enjoys is greater than that of eating food one doesn’t really enjoy. We can make similar interpersonal comparisons. We know that one person being tortured causes more suffering than another stubbing their toe.”

AV: “But we can make evaluations about fictions. We can know that ironman is made of atoms, even if it were not told to us.”

Me: “Perhaps, but that’s just based on stipulated features. The claim that being boiled alive is more painful than a toe stub isn’t part of the definition of pleasure of pain. Rather, it’s a feature that we discover. None of the stipulations baked into the definition of pleasure render it necessarily true that torture is more painful than a pinprick.”

AV: “Perhaps. But what say you to my treatment of Sidgwick.”

Me: “I think it’s absurd. You claim that Sidgwick concluded his inquiry was a failure. This is false. Sidgwick concluded that reason alone could lead us to either prioritize our own interests or to care about good generally. This just means reason by itself doesn’t automatically make us moral. Others, like Singer, De Lazari-Radek, and Parfit have disagreed. However, Sidgwick was quite firm in his conviction that reason could lead us to only either utilitarianism or egoism. Thinking that reason doesn’t motivate us to be good is different from thinking that reason can’t let us conclude anything about morality.”

AV: “But Sidgwick agreed that his principle couldn’t motivate everyone through reason alone. So it can’t serve as the ultimate moral principle.”

Me: “That doesn’t matter. This was a separate philosophical view of Sidgwick’s, one that many utilitarians disagree with.”

AV: “Perhaps. But what do you think about my treatment of rights?”

Me: “I agree with it. I’m no believer in rights.”

AV: “Any disagreements pre chapter ten.”

Me: “Some perhaps, but none relevant to our discussion today. There’s a lot of historical claims that I haven’t any ability to assess, but none seem to make arguments against utilitarianism or for virtue ethics.”

AV: “In chapter 10, what say you about story telling being the predominant way ethics is done.”

Me: “Plausible, I’m telling a story right now of a dialogue with a book but I’m not sure that it’s true. You just point out that it is important, not that it’s the predominant way ethics is done.”

AV: “But what about the numerous examples of stories I give.”

Me: “I can give numerous examples of books written by left handed people that informed people of ethical truths. That doesn’t make it the primary method of ethical transmission.”

AV: “This is all just in service of the point that stories helped tie people back to moral history.”

Me: “I’d accept they did to some degree, not that this was their defining feature.”

AV: “But doesn’t this show that stories caused people to adopt appreciation and practice of particular virtues?”

Me: “To some degree…”

AV: “How about my claim that ‘Courage is important, not simply as a quality of individuals, but as the quality necessary to sustain a household and a community. Kudos, glory, belongs to the individual who excels in battle or in contest as a mark of recognition by his household and his community.’”

Me: “I agree courage is usually good but not single handedly necessary to sustain a community. America is sustained without acts of particular courage.”

AV: “I was just describing the historical background of these virtues.”

Me: “Okay but if you’re just bloviating about the history then why the hell does this have significant normative implications for today. Why should we care about what the greeks thought about virtues being important.”

AV: “Well, the thesis of the book is that we live in the shadow of the once recognized virtues.”

Me: “Even if that’s true, as long as we can coherently talk about other moral concepts, we should surely do so if they’re better, regardless of the history of your virtues. But your chess analogy runs into problems.”

AV: “It does?”

Me: “Yes, like nearly everything else inside of you. You say that a good chess player is one who plays chess well according to the rules—that chess, like morality requires some agreed upon metric. However, this seems to rely on reason being unable to resolve moral questions, which seems obviously false. Much like reason annihilated logical positivism, it can annihilate bad arguments in ethics.”

AV: “But what about my scathing rebuke of enlightenment ethics, that tries to reason its way to morality.”

Me: “I think it’s false for reason I already explained. But even if it were true that morality is not a rationally realizeable code of conduct, we can still use reason to argue against particular moralities. Look at Hare’s or Smart’s universal prescriptivism. They were non cognitivists but still made ethical progress. Look at the targeted arguments deployed against the repugnant conclusion. They don’t rely on any extravagant metaphysical claims. Even if we accept that morality is something subjective like art, we can still change people’s views about art by reasoning. Informing people of the history of art can change their views. Similarly, the best video game is obviously subjective, but that doesn’t mean that no utterances can inform people of which video games they’re likely to prefer. Informing people of the violence of Grand Theft Auto may make them like it less. The same is true of ethics. I’ve written quite extensively about ways to debunk particular ethical intuitions with reasoning. It’s obviously possible.”

AV: "Again, being a book I can’t stray too far off the trajectory of my writings.”

Me: “Your explanation of the disanalogy in the chess case is also totally wrong. You say ‘One reason why the analogy is dangerous is that we do play games such as chess for a variety of purposes. But there is nothing to be made of the question: for what purpose do the characters in the Iliad observe the rules that they observe and honor the precepts which they honor? It is rather the case that it is only within their framework of rules and precepts that they are able to frame purposes at all; and just because of this the analogy breaks down in another way, too. All questions of choice arise within the framework; the framework itself therefore cannot be chosen.’ This is obviously false if we accept that reason can inform us of ethical truths. It would be absurd for a utilitarian to reject all criticisms of their theory based on them being internally justified within their theory and there being no way to criticize theories externally. We can appeal to independent standards of judgement to criticize a theory. For example, I have a friend who is a radical libertarian. He holds the view that you shouldn’t steal a penny from Jeff Bezos to prevent infinite child rape. This counts against his theory. I can criticize his theory based on it rendering this absurd verdict, even though this is an external critique. Were this not the case, there would be no way of deciding upon a moral theory.”

AV: “But isn’t that regressive. How do we decide on a metric for deciding upon metrics.”

Me: “That’s just the Munchaeusen trilemma. We can hold certain metaphysical axioms like phenomenal conservatism that we use to form bedrock conclusions, and we can also hold the view that we have direct access to certain moral truths. It’s not inconceivable that I have direct access to the badness of pain.”

The book stroked its beard and looked pensive for a moment before nodding.

Me: “This wise guy persona isn’t helping your case pal. But anyways, your claim that ‘first that all morality is always to some degree tied to the socially local and particular and that the aspirations of the morality of modernity to a universality freed from all particularity is an illusion,’ is once again false. Morality is obviously influenced by your social location, but if you accept my claim about ethics being rationally derivable, then it’s like mathematics. Obviously your mathematical knowledge will vary depending on where you are, but math itself doesn’t change. You keep doing this infuriating thing where you go on a long ramble about history and then act as if that justifies controversial ethical claims, without any further argument. It would be like me arguing for utilitarianism by presenting the history of the roman empire and then saying that the answer that must be learned is the truth of utilitarianism.”

AV: “We’ve already argued about whether or not morality is rationally derivable.”

Me: “We did for a bit. But your criticism of my derivation was basically pleasure isn’t real, which is a terrible objection. If this false claim requires you being right about your other false claim then I guess we’re at a standstill.”

AV: “Perhaps we are. What say you to my second point, that ‘secondly that there is no way to possess the virtues except as part of a tradition in which we inherit them and our understanding of them from a series of predecessors in which series heroic societies hold first place.’”

Me: “Is there more.”

AV: “No, should there be.”

Me: “Yes. You just rambled about history and then made another controversial ethical claim. You didn’t provide an explanation of why that followed from the historical account that you gave. It seems conceivable that one could have virtues based on reading aristotle and cultivating them. Why the hell should I accept this claim.”

AV: “Based on the historical analysis.”

Me: “The historical analysis showed one thing and one thing only, that lots of previous societies got virtues from their culture. This does not establish it as being necessary and sufficient, it just establishes that they’ve coincided.”

The book remained silent for several minutes. I wasn’t sure if it was sleeping. It then nodded, stroked its beard, and said “Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.”

Me: “You can’t keep pivoting away from my points. I know you got that from a fortune cookie. It’s the first google result when you type in fortune cookie quotes.”

AV: “A ship in harbor is safe, but that’s not why ships are built.”

Me: “ARGH. Okay, well you next discuss that within these stories people have no standpoints divorced from that which is demanded of their social roles—no point of view from either uniquely their own or from societies. Maybe this is true, you’re a better historian than I. But I’m not sure why individual stories are indicative of the broad views of people in ancient societies. There wasn’t evidence presented for the claim that this was broadly the point of view in ancient society. And if this is true, why can’t we just make everyone’s social role utilitarian.”

AV: “Because we can’t all agree on utilitarianism.”

Me: “Same with virtue ethics. And I’m working on getting everyone to be utilitarian.”

AV: “But virtue ethics was widely agreed upon.”

Me: “I don’t know if that’s true. But even if it is, that was a very different society. This also just shows that it would be nice to get society to be based on virtue ethics, not that individuals should follow it.”

AV: “Perhaps. Keep reading.”

Me: "Okay, you say next ‘Every activity, every enquiry, every practice aims at some good; for by 'the good' or 'a good' we mean that at which human beings characteristically aim. It is important that Aristotle's initial arguments in the Ethics presuppose that what G.E. Moore was to call the 'naturalistic fallacy' is not a fallacy at all and that statements about what is good - and what is just or courageous or excellent in other ways-just are a kind of factual statement. Human beings, like the members of all other species, have a specific nature; and that nature is such that they have certain aims and goals, such that they move by nature towards a specific telos. The good is defined in terms of their specific characteristics.’ This has lots of problems.

1 The one I gave earlier. Purposes are not morally good if something has a bad purpose. A boat made with the purpose of catching slaves is good at being a slave catching ship if it’s effective, but that doesn’t make it morally good.

2 This is the naturalistic fallacy, as Moore points out. Pointing out that Aristotle was ignorant of the naturalistic fallacy is not a response to the charge.

3 It also runs into Moore’s open question argument. It seems like even if something meets the role of a human well, there’s still an open question of whether they’re morally good.

4 It’s also equivocation—it’s confusing practical goodness and moral goodness.

5 It’s not clear how humans have a nature grounded in anything. Assuming god doesn’t exist, we were made by the blind process of evolution, rather than by a creator. Thus, there’s no clear defined purpose. The closest there is to a purpose is passing on our genes, but that’s obviously not a moral imperative. Killing 1 billion people to impregnate 9 would be morally bad.

6 It’s not clear that every action does aim at some good. People often acknowledge that they’re being immoral or foolish, but don’t revies their ethics. There’s nothing incoherent about this.”

AV: “Perhaps. Keep reading though.”

Me: “Okay, well you don’t address any objections to this Aristotelian account. But next you say that a man’s purpose is eudaimonia, which is what makes a person’s life good. You then say ‘We thus cannot characterize the good for man adequately without already having made reference to the virtues. And within an Aristotelian framework the suggestion therefore that there might be some means to achieve the good for man without the exercise of the virtues makes no sense.’

This is maybe true within an Aristotelian framework. However, this is a problem for the framework. Consider a severely mentally disabled person who lacks the requisite understanding of the world to pursue any virtues. It seems like things can still go badly or poorly for this person. If this person is happy, that is good for them.

This also runs into a circularity problem. You can’t ground ethics in what’s good for people without it being circular. Making the leap from ‘what is good for people,’ to ‘virtue,’ is an unjustified leap that assumes the conclusion. Instead, I’d argue, as I already have extensively, that what makes people’s lives go well is how much happiness they have.”

AV: “It would be virtuous to help the severely mentally disabled.”

Me: “Perhaps, but on your theory, them being happy wouldn’t truly be good for them. Maybe it would be good for others to make them happy. But their happiness is not intrinsically good. This seems obviously wrong. It’s bad for people to be sad and good to be happy. This truth would hold even if no one could affect the quality of life of anyone else.”

AV: “This gets us away from character analysis.”

Me: “But surely we have to get away from character analysis. We need to make tough ethical decisions. Asking what a good person would do doesn’t get us very far.”

AV: “Well, I’ll address the circularity objection. It’s not circularity given the external justification for virtues.”

Me: “I don’t think there was much of a justification beyond just asserting that they’re good and rattling off random historical anecdotes.”

AV: “Perhaps. Keep reading though.”

Me: “Okay, you next say ‘This last remark suggests that one way to elucidate the relationship be-tween virtues on the one hand and a morality of laws on the other is to consider what would be involved in any age in founding a community to achieve a common project, to bring about some good recognized as their shared good by all those engaging in the project. As modern examples of such a project we might consider the founding and carrying forward of a school, a hospital or an art gallery; in the ancient world the characteristic examples would have been those of a religious cult or of an expedition or of a city. Those who participated in such a project would need to develop two quite different types of evaluative practice. On the one hand they would need to value-to praise as excellences-those qualities of mind and character which would contribute to the realization of their common good or goods. That is, they would need to recognize a certain set of qualities as virtues and the corresponding set of defects as vices. They would also need however to identify certain types of action as the doing or the production of harm of such an order that they destroy the bonds of community in such a way as to render the doing or achieving of good impossible in some respect at least for some time. Examples of such offences would characteristically be the taking of innocent life, theft and perjury and betrayal. The table of the virtues promulgated in such a community would teach its citizens what kinds of actions would gain them merit and honor; the table of legal offences would teach them what kinds of actions would be regarded not simply as bad, but as intolerable.’”

Lots of problems here.

1 It’s not clear that this corresponds to the virtues. It seems like being honest is not needed to build a community.

2 It’s not clear why we should care about the traits needed to build a community. Suppose that to achieve a common project, one needed to torture lots of babies. That wouldn’t make torturing babies good. We can stipulate that this is just a law of nature.

3 To the extent that we’re not building a community, the traits needed to build a community aren’t straightforwardly relevant. Given that there’s already a community and individuals ethical systems don’t have ripple effects on the communal morality, it’s not clear why we should care.

4 This can’t account for moral relevance not tied for virtues. If a boltzman brain appears and then freezes to death, that would be bad but not unvirtuous.

5 This seems to justify arbitrary prejudice. Caring about non human sentient beings is not needed to make a school. It’s good nonetheless. Similarly, not being racist would not be needed to make a community, if the community was comprised entirely of one particular race. Finally, caring about people far away is not necessarily conducive to building a community.”

AV: “Perhaps.”

Me: “I agree with the next chapter that you can ground the virtues based on what all the virtue ethical accounts agree upon. However, this responds to a pretty poor objection. The better related objection would be that, even if you rattle off a list of things that you take to be virtues, it’s hard to give a deeper underlying account of why they’re virtues, or quantify how important they are.”

AV: “But the problem of ascertaining relative importance plagues all moral systems.”

Me: “Not really. All ethical systems have to make tough judgement calls. But for utilitarianism, there’s some principled metric by which we can make evaluations. With virtue ethics, there’s no way in theory to figure out how important virtues are or to ground them. This is particularly a problem when there is a complex, disunified mishmash of different virtues.”

AV: “But doesn’t that plague utilitarianism as well. Pleasures have no underlying quality.”

Me: “They do. That quality is pleasantness. They may be quite different but they all share the quality of being choice worthy—of being desired when experienced. We can figure out how much things would be desired when experienced by clear headed thinkers.”

AV: “We can just accept some virtues as desirable.”

Me: “Okay, but that sacrifices massive amounts of parsimony and explanatory power.”

AV: “On my account, parsimony doesn’t matter because ethics is generated, not discovered.”

Me: “That doesn’t make parsimony unimportant. Presumably you’re trying to figure out what you’d care about if you were super rational. Well, obviously if you were super rational the odds you’d care about a,b,c, and d are lower than the odds you’d care only about a.”

AV: "Perhaps.”

Me: “Next you say ‘Consider another equally trivial example of a set of compatibly correct answers to the question 'What is he doing?' 'Writing a sentence'; 'Finishing his book'; 'Contributing to the debate on the theory of action'; 'Trying to get tenure'. Here the intentions can be ordered in terms of the stretch of time to which reference is made. Each of the shorter-term intentions is. and can only be made, intelligible by reference to some longer-term intentions; and the characterization of the behavior in terms of the longer-term intentions can only be correct if some of the characterizations in terms of shorter-term intentions are also correct. Hence the behavior is only characterized adequately when we know what the longer and longest-term intentions invoked are and how the shorter-term intentions are related to the longer. Once again we are involved in writing a narrative history.’

I’d agree that some actions are wrapped within a narrative but this is not the defining characteristic of actions. I might blink instinctively—that’s not best analyzed as part of a narrative. Additionally, explanations need not stretch back to their ultimate source to be intelligible. If you ask why I’m typing this sentence, the best answer would be because I’m writing a response to After Virtue, rather than the ultimate explanation of me thinking that it will maximize the positive experience of conscious creatures. This also is a slightly strange use of the term narrative. If I scratch my arm because it itches and I think itching is bad and unpleasant, that’s not best cast as a narrative.

But you next say ‘We place the agent's intentions, I have suggested, in causal and temporal order with reference to their role in his or her history; and we also place them with reference to their role in the history of the setting or settings to which they belong.’

I don’t know why that’s true. We certainly consider motivations, but that’s not the same thing as placing their actions in causal and temporal history with their settings. If asking why I’m typing that sentence, hashing out the history of my country would be unnecessary.”

2

At the end of the day I have several complains with After Virtue.

1 I think intuitionist ethics is bad. Our moral intuitions throughout history have been disastrously wrong.

2 It thinks a devastating objection to other theories is their inability to get universal agreement. This is true of literally all theories including virtue ethics.

3 It gives no guidance for solving any ethical questions that are not blatantly obvious.

4 The criticisms of other theories are bad, especially utilitarianism.

5 The claim that ethics must be communal is false—a person not in a community torturing people is bad.

6 There is inadequate justification for the claim that rationality can’t ground morality.

7 The claim that ethics is about what a proper human would do is not justified.

8 The historical ramblings are annoying and fail to justify significant ethical claims.

9 There was basically no argument given for virtue ethics being correct other than attacking other theories and historical analysis.

10 Scott Alexander is right about after virtue.

11 There’s no good metric for deciding what things are virtues.

12 As Alexander says “I broadly agree with him about this problem. I discuss it pretty explicitly in sections 6.5 and 8.1 of my Consequentialism FAQ. I propose as the solution some form of utilitarianism, the only moral theory in which everything is commensurable and so there exists a single determinable standard for deciding among different moral claims.

Annnnnd MacIntyre decides to go with virtue ethics.

The interesting thing about virtue ethics is that it is uniquely bad at this problem. In the entire book, MacIntyre doesn’t give a single example of virtue ethics being used to solve a moral dilemma, as indeed it cannot be.”

If making compelling historical arguments is a virtue, MacIntyre’s book is certainly after virtue.