Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T15:03:35.419Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Use of Virtue and Character in Applied Ethics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 September 2014

James A. Donahue
James A. Donahue*
Affiliation:
Georgetown University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article explores the criticism made against “virtue ethics” that it is insufficiently normative and thus is unable to assist decision makers in making practical moral choices. By assessing the claims, strengths, and weaknesses of contemporary proposals for “character ethics,” the article contends that a virtue approach to ethics does yield some central moral norms. An ethical perspective that combines these norms with the insights offered by the idea of virtue itself provides a compelling framework for moral choice. A case study illustrates the claims.

Type
Articles
Information
Horizons , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , Fall 1990 , pp. 228 - 243
Copyright
Copyright © The College Theology Society 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

In this essay I will understand the idea of the ethics of character to include the ethics of virtue and the ethics of narrative. One of my contentions is that in contemporary usage these concepts are intertwined and there is an integral connection between them. For an analysis of the way these ideas function in the work of Stanley Hauerwas, see Outka, Gene, “Character, Vision, and Narrative,” Religious Studies Review 6/2 (April 1980): 110–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 These criticisms are articulated most explicitly in the work of Hauerwas, particularly in his Truthfulness and Tragedy (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1978).Google Scholar They can be found however in the works of most of the writers mentioned in the text.

3 See Williams, Oliver F. and Houck, John W., Full Value (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1978).Google Scholar

4 Shaffer, Thomas L., Faith and the Professions (Provo: UT: Brigham Young University Press, 1987).Google Scholar

5 One of the most referenced articles by contemporary theorists of virtue is Pincoffs, Edmund, “Quandary Ethics,” Mind 80 (1971): 552–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 These criticisms are articulated most clearly in Hauerwas' work. In particular, see his “From System to Story” in Truthfulness and Tragedy, 15-39.

7 Most contemporary treatments of the idea of character have tended to take an individualistic cast. Character and virtue have been understood to refer primarily to qualities of the self. This is an unfortunate development in ethical theory and reflects what some critics refer to as the limits of ethical theory in liberal society. The discussion on “civic virtue” that is central to some schools of social and political theory is an important addition to the literature on virtue in ethical theory. For a discussion of how the idea of character might be developed in relation to groups and institutions, see my “Religious Institutions as Moral Agents” in Maida, Adam, ed., Issues in the Labor-Management Dialogue: Church Perspectives (St. Louis: Catholic Health Association of the United States, 1982).Google Scholar

8 MacIntyre, Alasdair, After Virtue (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981), 178.Google Scholar

9 For the most developed treatment of the role of convictions in the moral life see the work of McClendon, James, particularly his Understanding Religious Convictions (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975)Google Scholar and Ethics (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1986).Google Scholar

10 The idea of vision as a moral category can be found most explicitly in the work of Murdoch, Iris, particularly in The Sovereignty of Good (New York: Schocken, 1971).Google Scholar

11 For a fuller treatment of the idea of practices, see MacIntyre's, After Virtue, 169–89.Google Scholar

12 The idea of tradition is treated in greater detail in ibid, 190-209.

13 A superb critical analysis of the use of casuistry in both historical and contemporary contexts can be found in Jonsen, Albert and Toulmin, Stephen, The Abuse of Casuistry (London: Oxford University Press, 1988).Google Scholar

14 The works of Jean Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg, Erik Erikson, and James Fowler have been the primary sources in developmental theory that have been appropriated by writers in ethics. For an excellent summary of the offerings of these theorists for theological ethics, see Fowler, James, Becoming Adult, Becoming Christian (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1984).Google Scholar

15 This example is taken from Hauerwas, , Vision and Virtue (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1974), 73–74.Google Scholar

16 For an insightful critique of the ethics of character, see Pellegrino, Edmund, “Rationality, the Normative, and Narrative in the Philosophy of Morals” in Engelhardt, H. Tristram, ed., Knowledge, Value, and Belief (Hastings-on-Hudson, NY: The Hastings Center, 1977).Google Scholar

17 Groome, Thomas H., Christian Religious Education (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1980).Google Scholar

18 Meilaender, Gilbert, The Limits of Love (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1987).Google Scholar

19 For an analysis of the way that story and moral choice exist in juxtaposition, see my “Narrative Ethics and a Theology of Love,” Bioethics Books 1/1 (1989), 12–19.Google Scholar

20 Two examples of the individualistic use of character can be found in Williams and Houck, Full Value, and Thomas Shaffer, Faith and Professions.

21 The work of Gibson Winter, a social ethicist with a particular appreciation for the role of social science in ethics, is a much overlooked contribution to social ethics. His book, Elements for a Social Ethic (New York: Macmillan, 1966)Google Scholar, is a classic that would contribute valuable insights to the current discussion of character ethics.

22 Hauerwas and Yoder have on several public occasions (at meetings of The Society of Christian Ethics, the American Academy of Religion, the Washington Roundtable on Ethics) refuted the claim that their work is sectarian. For a development of the idea of a public theology, see the work of Tracy, David, particularly his Plurality and Ambiguity (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987).Google Scholar

23 The two best attempts to develop criteria for the truthfulness of stories can be found in Tilley, Terrence, Story Theology (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1985), 182–214Google Scholar, and Goldberg, Michael, Narrative and Theology: A Critical Introduction (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1982).Google Scholar

24 For a superb summary and analysis of the major ethical issues at stake in the current theological debate on foundations, I am indebted to a paper by Ottati, Douglas, “Between Foundationalism and Non-Foundationalism,” presented at the Washington Ethics Roundtable, May 5, 1989.Google Scholar

25 My understanding of the organic metaphor is drawn primarily from its use in the sociology of organizations. An excellent summary of the idea can be found in Perrow, Charles, Complex Organizations (Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman, 1979), 174–99.Google Scholar

26 The idea of a canon containing the essential truths of a tradition is developed in greater detail in Tracy, David, The Analogical Imagination (New York: Crossroad, 1983).Google Scholar

27 The idea of conversation that I develop here derives from Murray, John Courtney, We Hold These Truths (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1960).Google Scholar

28 McClendon, James, Understanding Religious Convictions (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975), 7.Google Scholar

29 For the most thorough analysis of this concept, see Deal, Terrence and Kennedy, Allan, Corporate Cultures (Reading, PA: Addison Wesley, 1982).Google Scholar

30 Murdoch, , Sovereignty, 53–55.Google Scholar

31 The most extensive and insightful work on conversion in contemporary theological ethics can be found in the work of Walter Conn. In particular, see his Christian Conversion (New York: Paulist, 1986).Google ScholarPubMed

32 Curran, Charles E., “The Stance of Moral Theology,” in his New Perspectives in Moral Theology (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1974), 47–86.Google Scholar