PHI FINAL STUDY GUIDE 1 Title Author General Topic Summary of Argument a FE Ch 17 Virtue Ethics Russ Shafer Landau i Virtue ethics is concerned both with the right thing to do and with achieving our full potential ii Schafer explains to us why both of these aspects of ethical theory are important through his goodness as human beings example of the begrudging police officer 1 We should focus more on the moral character rather than moral duty 2 The police officer would steal cheat and lie if he could get away with it But he doesn t We cannot criticize him for what he has not done In that reason we must analyze his moral character in which we can refer to virtue ethics iii Virtue Ethics Theory 1 A focus on learning how to become good i e an educational theory 2 A focus on developmental moral psychology and the role of role models in moral education 5 6 Objections 3 A good resource for exploring non western views 4 An understanding of how acquiring the virtues gives us a new ability to see the world around us It understands the virtues and vices as the primary mode of assessing character a Some argue character traits don t exist b Many ethicists think that virtue ethics doesn t give an adequate answer to the b WV pg 1 8 Rebecca L Walker Philip J Ivanhoe question what should I do i The introduction ii Everyone knows what moral and immoral things are iii We all want virtue ethics to be installed into our children iv Focusing on the role of the virtues or a virtue ethical approach to these topics present sustained practical examples of virtue analyses at work engaging practical moral problems and promote a wider understanding of the virtues and virtue ethics by offering a variety of theoretical perspectives under the umbrella of virtue based analyses v Explains what virtue ethics is why it s important and what the objections are 1 A focus on learning how to become good i e an educational theory 2 A focus on developmental moral psychology and the role of role models in moral education 5 6 Objections 3 A good resource for exploring non western views 4 An understanding of how acquiring the virtues gives us a new ability to see the world around us It understands the virtues and vices as the primary mode of assessing character a Some argue character traits don t exist b Many ethicists think that virtue ethics doesn t give an adequate answer to the c WV Caring as Relation and Virtue in Teaching Nel Noddings question what should I do i Meaning in order for caring to be achieved both people make contributions to the relationship 1 Distinguishing this type of caring from a type where we are focused only on one person a Doesn t much take others wants needs actions or attempts at communication into account ii 2 types of relational caring 1 Case 1 Step 1 a A is attentive to B When B needs something A puts aside her needs temporarily and tends to B s needs positively PHI FINAL STUDY GUIDE 2 Case 1 Step 2 a A has motivational displacement and her motive energy begins to flow towards B s needs Things can block this flow A s disapproval B s needs are too great A doesn t fully understand etc But as long as A is attentive flow of energy continues positively 3 Case 1 Step 3 4 Case 1 Step 4 5 Case 2 caring a A acts or responds to B a B also makes a contribution a A doesn t listen half listens Selective hearing see s B s bodily language words but assesses evaluates diagnoses B s conditions and infers a need and the acts to satisfy that need one which may be entirely different from the one expressed by B d WV Famine Affluence and Virtue Michael Slote i Caring is an overall attitude or motivational state 1 Roughly an ethics of caring holds that an act is morally right or permissible if it doesn t exhibit a lack of caring not mere neutrality and wrong if it does 2 W hen I speak of acts exhibiting a caring attitude or one inconsistent with caring the caring I am speaking of includes attitudes toward distant and personally unknown others 548 Sympathy vs Empathy ii An ethics of caring will hold that it is virtuous to be more concerned about near and dear than about strangers or those one knows about merely by description but it will also insist that an ideally or virtuously caring individual will be substantially concerned about people who are distant from her 549 1 That we have special or stronger moral obligations to those who are physically or sentimentally closer to us is commonsensically appealing iii Rather than sympathy the word Hume uses in forming his sentimentalist theory which today means roughly a favorable attitude toward someone Slote is concerned with empathy the state or process in which one takes on the feelings of another 1 Question Is the development of empathy necessary to one s development of altruistic concern for others 2 Psychology generally hypothesizes that caring works via empathy and that morally good caring can be specified in relation to the development of human empathy iv If we believe that empathy has moral force or relevance then we can argue that 1 Since it is easier to empathize with another adult human than with a squid 2 It is as such morally worse to harm an adult human than to do the same to a squid 3 That is we can say that an action is right or wrong depending on whether or not such 4 actions reflect a deficiency of normally or fully capable caring motivation It would then other things being equal be morally worse to prefer a fetus or embryo to a born human being because such a preference runs counter to the flow of developed human empathy 550 5 Contra Singer then a failure to save the life of a distant child by making a charitable donation is not as morally bad as failing to save the life of a child drowning in front of you v Singer holds that spatial distance simply cannot be morally relevant to our obligations to aid others 1 Empathy gives us a firmer basis than distance for distinguishing the strength of our obligations in the cases Singer compares 2 Spatial distance and decreasing empathy do in fact correlate in a wide variety of cases PHI FINAL STUDY GUIDE 3 Such a view can not only help to explain why failing to help in the drowning case seems worse than a failure to give to famine relief but it can also justify that ordinary moral intuition vi Turning away from someone we see who is in need seems worse than ignoring someone whom one knows only by description is in need 1 Our empathic capacities respond to immediacy 2 What makes failing to give aid in the former
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