I really enjoyed your “successor agent” framing of virtue ethics!
There are some parts of the section that could use clarification:
Virtue ethics is the view that our actions should be motivated by the virtues and habits of character that promote the good life
This sentence doesn’t make sense to me. Do you mean something like “Virtue ethics is the view that our actions should be motivated by the virtues and habits of character they promote” or “Virtue ethics is the view that our actions should reinforce virtues and habits of character that promote the good life”? It looks like two sentences got mixed up.
“Virtues are not intrinsically right or wrong;”
I get confused by this statement. I think of virtue ethics as putting all moral value onto the way you are training yourself to act. Virtue is the sole Good etc. Can you clarify what you mean here?
“Taking honesty as an example virtue, we should strive to be honest, even if being dishonest would lead to some greater good”
I guess you mean “lead to consequences that would be better according to a consequentialist perspective”. When discussing different views on ethics the term “good” gets overloaded.
Virtue ethics is the view that our actions should be motivated by the virtues and habits of character that promote the good life
This sentence doesn’t make sense to me. Do you mean something like “Virtue ethics is the view that our actions should be motivated by the virtues and habits of character they promote” or “Virtue ethics is the view that our actions should reinforce virtues and habits of character that promote the good life”? It looks like two sentences got mixed up
Sorry for confusion I tried to paraphrase what classical virtue ethicist believe, in my view.
For clarity, this is how I interpret it in a computationalist way: virtue ethics focuses on the properties of decision procedures leading to actions, and takes them as the central object of theory. “Action is good so far as it was produced by a good(=virtuous) computational procedure + reinforces the good computations”. Where the focus is on the computations.
The philosophy encyclopedia states …. virtue ethicists will resist the attempt to define virtues in terms of some other concept that is taken to be more fundamental. Rather, virtues and vices will be foundational for virtue ethical theories and other normative notions will be grounded in them.
“Virtues are not intrinsically right or wrong;”
I get confused by this statement. I think of virtue ethics as putting all moral value onto the way you are training yourself to act. Virtue is the sole Good etc. Can you clarify what you mean here?
Again, it’s me trying to paraphrase what I believe classical virtue ethicists believe.
My interpretation of the claim is this: in the previously described computationalist paraphrase, you may be left wondering how do you decide about which properties of the computations make them good. Where you have an easy option to ground it in outcomes, consequentialist style. But as I understand it, the classical claim is you try to motivate it purely “intrinsically”: your goal is to design the best possible successor agent … and that it. You evaluate the properties of the computations using that. All other forms of “good”, such as good outcomes, will follow.
My personal take is this leaves virtue ethics partially under-defined.
“Taking honesty as an example virtue, we should strive to be honest, even if being dishonest would lead to some greater good”
I guess you mean “lead to consequences that would be better according to a consequentialist perspective”. When discussing different views on ethics the term “good” gets overloaded.
I really enjoyed your “successor agent” framing of virtue ethics! There are some parts of the section that could use clarification:
This sentence doesn’t make sense to me. Do you mean something like “Virtue ethics is the view that our actions should be motivated by the virtues and habits of character they promote” or “Virtue ethics is the view that our actions should reinforce virtues and habits of character that promote the good life”? It looks like two sentences got mixed up.
I get confused by this statement. I think of virtue ethics as putting all moral value onto the way you are training yourself to act. Virtue is the sole Good etc. Can you clarify what you mean here?
I guess you mean “lead to consequences that would be better according to a consequentialist perspective”. When discussing different views on ethics the term “good” gets overloaded.
Sorry for confusion I tried to paraphrase what classical virtue ethicist believe, in my view.
For clarity, this is how I interpret it in a computationalist way: virtue ethics focuses on the properties of decision procedures leading to actions, and takes them as the central object of theory. “Action is good so far as it was produced by a good(=virtuous) computational procedure + reinforces the good computations”. Where the focus is on the computations.
The philosophy encyclopedia states …. virtue ethicists will resist the attempt to define virtues in terms of some other concept that is taken to be more fundamental. Rather, virtues and vices will be foundational for virtue ethical theories and other normative notions will be grounded in them.
Again, it’s me trying to paraphrase what I believe classical virtue ethicists believe.
My interpretation of the claim is this: in the previously described computationalist paraphrase, you may be left wondering how do you decide about which properties of the computations make them good. Where you have an easy option to ground it in outcomes, consequentialist style. But as I understand it, the classical claim is you try to motivate it purely “intrinsically”: your goal is to design the best possible successor agent … and that it. You evaluate the properties of the computations using that. All other forms of “good”, such as good outcomes, will follow.
My personal take is this leaves virtue ethics partially under-defined.
Yes.