Analysis Of Louden’S Views Of Virtue Ethics
In this paper, I will be mainly discussing the perceptive of Louden in his view of virtue ethics for his ethical positions he takes on his writing on Some Vices of Virtue. I will be then rising any objections for what Louden is saying and see if there are any other philosophical thinkers believe the same as he does or not. In Loudens writing, he makes many objections on virtue ethics, but his main two objections are “Casuistry and Applied ethics” meaning that, we humans tend to believe that we should be told how things should be or should be done, but in real it’s the opposite and it is not about “What should I do?’ but rather “how should I do it?”. The other objection he raises is “Who is Virtuous” by this he means that Virtue Ethics mainly focuses on the traits of someone than the traits of act itself. I will be discussing the objections from what I know from the moral rules or also the virtue rules. I will be also including the virtue ethics that Louden is proposing differs from Utilitarianism and Deontology.
Robert Louden main point is that virtue ethics is mostly agent-centered rather than being act-centered. An Act-centered ethical theory is a tool that helps evaluate acts independently based on evidence about the individual who performed them, while on the other hand, an Agent-centered ethical theory, is based on acts on the foundation on who has performed them. Louden claims that the lack of moral action guidance is one of the weaknesses for an ethical theory. But in all, it comes to whether if some do believe that action guidance is the weakness. In the beginning Louden starts off by “it is commonplace that virtue theorists focus on good and bad agents rather than on right and wrong acts. ” Many individuals can do beneficial things, yet that does not make them an idealistic or great individual right? A good example would be the one said in a lecture about how a shopkeeper can charge its customers more or not, but he does not do it because of the principle known as a good act The reason on why he wouldn’t want to charge them more is because he didn’t want to lose his customers, and anyways, it wouldn’t be moral right to charge someone more. Therefore, of Agent VS act, we shouldn’t just focus on the actions but the character to find it out what is really moral.
On Deontology, a deontologist would advise that an action that is ethically right be to apply good moral direction, this event is good, however, it doesn’t really tell disclosing to us whether the individual is a decent person or not. But the concern here is that is a deontologist inspired by his will to pursue certain acts or would he say he is persuaded to make the best decision by his heart? However, Utilitarianism reveals to us that what is good is the action that brings in the greatest good like in other words the greatest happiness principles. Again, like what I mention with Deontology also applies here. This event is all good, but finally, it doesn’t really show us how a person ought to be.
A thing that is so basic among the normative ethical theories is that a good moral dilemma and how we should handle it. For instance, lying to protect someone. I can’t think of anything than during the Hitler’s time when they send out to remove all Jews, but one of their own Germans hid Jews in his home to protect them and lied when authorities came to check. But if we think about it, no one would really tell the truth if it causes the other person to die, but yes, a virtues' person would still feel guilty because he lied rather than being honest. In these cases, you must sometimes make a bad decision to protect the good or make it have a good outcome. On the second note, how about a scenario about killing one man to save five life’s' to employ his organs to spare the lives of the five other individuals?
An ethical somebody would feel awful about doing it, they would not say, 'Ah well it would not have benefited anyone,' or 'oh well it will grant other individuals to get new organs. ' or they would say that' The person was sick, or poor we are just doing him a favor. ' Surely, a virtues' person would not think those things; they would feel awful that they executed the needy individual. So largely, to end this scenario, it ought to be the agent over an act that figures out what is correct. An ethical individual ought to be characterized by their character not their activities.
When we look into Loudens second objections, on how we do not know who is virtuous or not. He starts off by saying the Virtue Ethics kens on the qualities of the person than the qualities of the act itself. It is mentioned that “… the difficulty is that we do not seem to be able to know with any degree of certainty who really is virtuous and who is vicious. For how is one to go about establishing an agent’s true moral character?”
Considering Loudens dispute 'Who are Virtuous' and how would you evaluate it? I would state that an upright individual is one who does benefit things not on the grounds that he feels that it would achieve happiness, or because he would get in a trouble if he didn't, he does it since it is morally right thing to do. There has been everyone that represent a virtuous individual. But before that Louden brings up many ideas for instance the type of virtue depends on either it is spiritual or actinal. A virtuous person doesn’t base their ideas or opinions on what they must do like the law, they do it because it is the right thing to do. If we say that morality was described by one’s actions, it would cause it to be harder to understand if a person is good or not.
In an official courtroom when somebody is on a trial for a wrongdoing, the court considers the individual previous cases and makes the decision of his character if we were convicted or not. For instance, we figure out who our friends are by their way of character as rather as to their actions. For example, louden pointed out two ways of telling if an individual is virtuous or not and how they aren’t really available to virtue ethics. One being is the Externalist method, which is when we observe someone's outwards acts and help us understand their internal character. However in virtue ethic it is established on the ideology when we judge acts its based of agents, not the opposite. The second type is Internalist method, which is how an individual finds their inner state of virtue and identity and also discover who has it as well. In any case, without some earlier idea of who is ethical, we won't know which internal states comprise righteousness.
When we look in to deontology, it mainly is based off the work Kant. Kantian principles are the same in Aristotelian. In the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant focuses on the significance of habituation, gradual development, and education. All the ideas that have been utilized by present day, deontologists to show the judgment believability of the hypothesis. For Kantians, the basic job of excellence and fitting character advancement is that an upright character will enable one to plan suitable maxims for testing. In different regards, Kantian righteousness remains fairly divergent from different originations of excellence. Contrasts depend on yet three thoughts: First, Kantian struggles against feelings. Regardless of whether one supposes, the feelings ought to be enslaved or disposed of, for Kant moral worth comes just from the obligation of thought, a rationale that battles against tendency.
In conclusion, I agree that regardless of the Loudens objections to Virtue Ethics Virtue Ethics is fitted as a present moral theory. It demonstrates what an ethically virtuous person would do. It does not portray a hard-moral guidance because it comprehends that every situation is different and should be treated as its own so as to regulate what a righteous person would do. It also gives us the understanding that a person does sometimes have to make a decision between good or bad and that they have to make the bad decision, finally it does still give that virtuous person the sense of guilt and because in their hearts they know that they have committed an act of wrongdoing.
In objections to where I personally stand with Louden would be that I do agree that an action doesn’t justify someone true character or self. We cannot only base someone offs from the acts they do because we do not really know what their intentions are from it. But I also agree with one of his other objections that he made with the characters of everyone and that how they are that strong to use as an evidence, because people change and when people change character changes as well. But in according to a Utilitarianism, they would say that we should only do things so as to bring greater happiness to the world. Like the trolley example that kill, that one person is better than killing five because it has a bigger mean.
