Thursday, February 4, 2010

Virtue and Judgment: How is There Justice?

A basic understanding of Virtue as defined in Nicomachean Ethics shows that virtue is enacted through actions. The question of concern in book III is whether that action is voluntary or involuntary and what this means in the judgment of virtue. Involuntary actions are those that are forced, and therefore since the agent of action really contributed nothing to the actions being done we have a hard time assigning virtue. Deciding whether an action is voluntary or involuntary becomes a little more convoluted when someone has a choice, but because of external conditions one is practically left without a choice. For example telling a lie to save your mother, you have a choice to tell the truth but in reality you are forced to tell the lie because of the external condition of saving your mom.

So how does one choose what good justifies what evil? On one end of the spectrum it seems that everything can be qualified as forced, for example one can say in defense of stealing, that he did it to feed his family, he was forced to engage in the evil in order to provide for his family, is it justified? This is the stream of logic that Aristotle poses. The question that I pose however, is where do you draw the line, in a separate but similar example one could say that he was forced by the promise of pleasure to steal the stereo. How can any action be qualified as virtuous since almost everything that one does has an ulterior motive which can justify to a certain extent any action. This is why I believe that justice could not be based off of this ethics system, all that one would have to prove is that they had sufficient reason to do what they did and then they would walk, how do you judge what is sufficient reason.

This predicament is furthered when Aristotle brings ignorance to the picture, our justice system states that ignorance does not free someone from judgment, I think that this is necessary for establishing a justice system because how would you assign justice when anyone could simply claim ignorance in their defense. However I see the reasoning as to why the consideration of ignorance in assigning judgment, might be necessary. What if someone truly was ignorant of the fact that what they are doing is wrong and not virtuous, what if everyday John Doe goes outside and sprinkles rice around his yard for the birds to eat, he thinks that he is doing something virtuous but in reality the birds eat the rice and die when it expands in their stomach. Is he guilty? I don’t know.

He says that actions in response to appetite or spirit or spur of the moment actions are voluntary and should be included when judging virtue, but they are not a decision. Decision as Aristotle defines it is what I believe to be the most solid evidence of judging virtue, the decisions that one makes especially those that are heavily deliberated over are the most solid pieces of evidence to ones character. I believe this to be true because in my opinion to make a decision after deliberating over it, one has taken into account all of the possibilities that the outcome could be, this forces one to dig deep into his beliefs and decided whether or not he is going to follow these beliefs and since this decision is not rushed he has had time to research what he is going to decide so as not to be ignorant.

3 comments:

Mike Giandomenico said...

Are involuntary actions forced insofar as they are innate? Then, if we say that involuntary actions such as breathing, blinking, the pains of hunger, thirst, etc. are innate, then these actions must be natural. And if these actions associated with the natural are appetites according to Aristotle, they must be irrational. So in essence we have two conflicting ideals; what is natural with respect to bodily pleasures is virtuous, but what is irrational thus would be deficient in reason because appetites are associated with animals – by which I mean – animals feel only these appetites at a basic level without reasoning, and act to satisfy their needs. Overall I agree that with respect to judgment there is a grey area; but it may be safe to say in this regard that virtue acts as an exception to the rule, and is justifiable within the reasonable context.

meh said...

You bring up a very interesting question when asking about the man who feeds birds rice. It brings up the classic argument about good intentions. Even though Aristotle argues that ignorance can be excusable, it doesn't make much sense practically. Sure, the man has nothing but good intentions when feeding the birds rice, but it is still resulting in the birds' death. The man has the responsibility to notice the consequences of his actions. At the risk of taking your example too literary, the man would seem to have to purposely ignore the fact that birds are dying as a result of his ignorance, which is not virtuous in any sense.

Even more interesting is your other example of a man stealing bread to feed his starving family. Surely the man must know that the act of stealing is like, theoretically, stealing the food from the baker's family? In order for him to even go through with the act of stealing, he has to ignore that fact. Which again, would not be considered virtuous.

Mike Diaz said...

Hey Grant, I enjoyed your post. I'm not sure I agree with you that everything can be qualified as forced. Lets take a look at the stealing example. While yes I understand that you must do something to feed your family...stealing is most often not the only option you have. You could get a job for instance and pull yourself out of the situation. I think evil would be better defined as when you have the choice for a good and bad option you take the bad one. Any thoughts?