<i>Virtue and Action: Selected Papers</i>

Rosalind Hursthouse is a key figure in the twentieth-century revival of virtue ethics. Her On Virtue Ethics was one of the first—and remains one of the best—systematic developments of neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics (Hursthouse 1999). But Hursthouse has also written a number of important essays that not only clarify and extend the argument of that book but also take her distinctive approach to ethics into new territory. Julia Annas and Jeremy Reid have done a great service by collecting and editing the most significant of these essays into this volume. Combined with an insightful introduction that highlights the main themes of her work, Virtue and Action will prove an invaluable resource for moral philosophers.The book contains nineteen previously published essays, organized into three sections: “Aristotle and Ancient Virtue Ethics,” “Normative Virtue Ethics,” and “Action Theory, Politics, and Naturalism.” Given that Hursthouse’s interest in Aristotle is never purely historical or exegetical, these divisions are somewhat artificial. “Aristotle for Women Who Love Too Much,” for example, begins by intervening in the long-standing debate about whether Aristotle holds that only character friends are true friends, but it ends with important insights into how friendship can be both genuine and limited. Likewise, Hursthouse’s normative work is so Aristotelian in its inspiration that we better understand the normative essays of the second and third sections once we grasp her account of Aristotle’s phronimos, which spans several of the essays in the first section of the volume. Reading these nineteen essays together, one comes away with an appreciation for both the breadth of Hursthouse’s work and its distinctive voice and recurring themes. In what follows, I draw together some of these recurring themes, highlighting what these essays clarify in Hursthouse’s thought and raising several questions for further exploration.As the introduction reminds us, Hursthouse (1999: 28) is best known for articulating and defending the following account of right action:The articulation and initial defense of this account occurs in On Virtue Ethics. But as detailed as that discussion was, it inevitably left some questions unanswered. For example, Hursthouse made clear that the account of right action she defended was both intended to fill a similar role that such accounts filled in consequentialism and deontology and that she understood that role in somewhat different ways from her deontological and consequentialist interlocutors. It filled a similar role in that it was focused on the evaluation of actions and thus showed that virtue ethics was not solely focused on giving an account of good or virtuous agents. But in focusing on the evaluation of actions, virtue ethics most naturally “favours talking in terms of good action (eupraxia), of acting well (or badly), rather than in terms of right action” (Hursthouse 1999: 69).One thing this means is that Hursthouse’s account does not (and is not intended to) cleanly map onto the standard distinction of actions into the categories of the required, the permissible, and the forbidden. Of course, some actions are such that virtue requires they be performed or refrained from. But not all of them. In certain circumstances, two virtuous agents could act differently from one another, and both still act well. All of this was clear enough in On Virtue Ethics. But it did leave open an obvious question: If some virtuous actions were good but not required, were they therefore supererogatory? And if so, how were they to be distinguished from the obligatory virtuous actions? This question is never addressed; indeed, the term supererogation never occurs in On Virtue Ethics.Virtue and Action contains Hursthouse’s answer to this question, in the essay “Are the Virtues the Proper Starting Point for Morality?” Borrowing from Philippa Foot’s well-known discussion of moral worth, Hursthouse suggests that supererogatory actions are just those actions that are required by virtue but whose performance is made difficult by external circumstances that are no fault of the agent. I have argued elsewhere that this account of the supererogatory is not convincing in the end (Stangl 2023). But it is subtle and thoughtful and fills in an important lacuna in the account of right action offered in On Virtue Ethics. Nonetheless, it is has flown somewhat under the radar—possibly because neither the essay in which it appears nor the edited volume in which the essay originally appeared is devoted specifically to supererogation. Whatever the reason, it is worthy of more attention than it is has yet received, and its inclusion here contributes an important piece to our understanding of Hursthouse’s account of right action.Several of the other essays in this volume focus on how Hursthouse’s account of right action generates action-guidance in particular cases. Of these articles, “Virtue Theory and Abortion” is already justifiably well known. But this volume also includes essays devoted to environmental ethics, animal ethics, the ethics of the family, and the dilemmas that may arise in the context of role-specific virtues and duties. Read together, these essays make clear the systematicity of Hursthouse’s thinking, but they also raise questions that would benefit from further exploration.The first question concerns the role practical wisdom plays in the account. Hursthouse famously claims in “Virtue Theory and Abortion” that the two considerations commonly taken as the crux of the issue, women’s rights and fetal status, are fundamentally irrelevant to the morality of abortion (131–32). Women’s rights may be relevant to the question whether a just society could outlaw abortion, but because one can act viciously in exercising a right, this leaves open the question whether obtaining one is morally right. Fetal status, in turn, is irrelevant insofar as it requires a theory of personhood or moral status. The virtuous person, qua person of practical wisdom, need not have any such abstruse metaphysical knowledge. And hence the discernment of whether and when it is right to terminate a pregnancy cannot depend upon such abstruse metaphysical knowledge, either. The practical wisdom it requires is no more, though no less, than knowledge of the familiar biological facts about human life and reproduction.While some of these claims are specific to abortion, the underlying claim about practical wisdom is not. We would thus expect to see Hursthouse deny that abstruse metaphysical questions are relevant to normative ethics in general. And indeed, she does. Where others have taken the question of vegetarianism, for example, to turn on whether animals have moral status or rights, Hursthouse argues in the essay “Applying Virtue Ethics to our Treatment of the Other Animals” that no such knowledge is necessary for practical wisdom. Luckily, she suggests, neither is it necessary to determine the ethics of vegetarianism. Once one knows the degree of suffering imposed by our system of factory farming, one cannot deny that such practices are cruel. If I am to be or become compassionate and virtuous, I will have nothing to do with such practices. Except in very exceptional cases, then, virtuous agents will be vegetarians. And the virtuous person requires no metaphysical theory of moral status to know this.There is much wisdom in Hursthouse’s insistent focus on the practicalities of each moral problem as it confronts us. But can we cleanly distinguish practical wisdom from seemingly abstract metaphysical questions? I have my doubts. The issue of vegetarianism seems to me to cut the opposite way. Hursthouse is certainly right that factory farming is cruel, and that no one aiming to be compassionate will want to participate in it. But suppose one could obtain their meat some other way? In my hometown, one can subscribe to a delivery service from a local farm and get eggs, beef, pork, and poultry products delivered monthly. One pays a substantial premium, but is guaranteed animal products produced in organic, humane conditions. Can a virtuous person subscribe to this service?It is hard to know what Hursthouse would say to this question. On the one hand, one isn’t participating in the obviously cruel practices of factory farming, and one is willing to make a significant financial sacrifice to avoid doing so. Animals are raised in conditions appropriate to their flourishing, and their deaths are humane. On the other hand, their lives are cut short. (Most meat intended for consumption is produced by killing animals before their natural lifespan has elapsed.) Is that cruel? It seems to me that this question turns on the kind of abstract considerations Hursthouse judges irrelevant. If they do indeed have something like moral status or a right to life, it may be cruel to raise them only to end their lives prematurely, no matter how good those short lives are. If not, not.The general point is that what seems to be an abstract metaphysical question can become practical in relatively common circumstances. In response, Hursthouse might argue that the practical wisdom required to know whether one can or cannot subscribe to the local farm’s service is, contrary to appearances, nothing like what is required for a theory of personhood or moral status. Instead, as in the case of abortion, it is no more, though no less, than familiarity with the ordinary biological facts about animals. But what facts would those be? If the familiar biological facts imply that the other animals have some kind of self-awareness that persists through time, that might be a reason to think that ending their lives prematurely would be cruel.2 But whether animals have a kind of self-awareness that persists through time is arguably itself a rather abstract metaphysical question, or at least a question with implications about abstract metaphysical questions. Keeping the requirements of practical wisdom distinct from answering abstract metaphysical questions may thus prove more difficult than Hursthouse suggests.3The second set of questions concerns Hursthouse’s treatment of moral dilemmas. Hursthouse devotes sustained attention, both in On Virtue Ethics and in several essays in Virtue and Action, to the problem of moral dilemmas. Throughout, Hursthouse consistently allows that a virtuous person can, through no fault of her own, find herself forced to choose between two seriously bad actions. When one of the actions is clearly worse, the virtuous person will do the lesser of the two evils. But she will also make amends for the harm she thereby causes (to the degree possible) and work to ensure that such dilemmas do not arise in the future. Having done all of this, we can say of her that she made the right decision. But because the lesser of two evils remains evil, it would be incorrect to describe the action decided upon as good or right. In such cases, making the morally right (correct) decision comes apart from having done a morally right (good or praiseworthy) act. In On Virtue Ethics, Hursthouse labels such situations tragic dilemmas and modifies her account of right action to accommodate them:In Virtue and Action, Hursthouse devotes two essays to the problem of moral dilemmas: “Discussing Dilemmas” and “Two Ways of Doing the Right Thing.” Much of what she says, especially in the former, echoes her earlier discussion in On Virtue Ethics. (On Virtue Ethics appeared in 1999; the two essays both appeared in 2008.) But there are some important differences. One is terminological. In the later essays, she no longer speaks of the kind of dilemmas under consideration—situations in which a virtuous person can, through no fault of her own, find herself forced to choose between two evils—as tragic dilemmas, preferring instead to call them serious dilemmas. If one reads only “Discussing Dilemmas,” it might seem that the change in her thinking is merely terminological. But her discussion of role-specific duties in “Two Ways of Doing the Right Thing” suggests something more substantive may be at stake.In “Two Ways of Doing the Right Thing,” Hursthouse considers the specific shape that moral dilemmas take when they arise from role-specific duties. Consider an otherwise virtuous person who decides to become a lawyer. Operating within our adversarial system, she will predictably encounter situations in which she may be called upon, qua lawyer, to perform actions that would be wrong were she to perform them outside of that role. She may get a guilty client acquitted on a technicality or withhold confidential information that could protect innocent third parties from serious harm or even death. But given this, how can she be virtuous, given that, qua lawyer, she will be forced to “do what, at least prima facie, is unjust, callous, or dishonest” (174)?In many ways, Hursthouse suggests, a virtuous lawyer faced with a role-specific duty to do what would otherwise be immoral is in the same position as a person faced with any other serious moral dilemma. Withholding information that may seriously harm innocent parties really is unjust and callous, and there is a genuine reason not to do it. But withholding it might be necessary for our adversarial system of justice to function, and, presuming that system to be a decent and necessary one, there is a genuine reason to do it. A virtuous lawyer facing this circumstance will do what a virtuous person facing any serious dilemma would do: if she truly cannot find a way between the horns of the dilemma, she will make the best decision she can and do the least amount of harm. In so acting, she will count as having made the right decision, but the act decided upon may be too terrible to qualify as right or good.But in at least one important respect, the virtuous lawyer is not like any other agent facing a moral dilemma. Even though she faces each particular dilemma through no fault of her own, she has freely chosen a profession in which it is predictable that such serious dilemmas will arise. This fact gives rise to a justificatory burden: How can a virtuous person choose to become a lawyer knowing she will predictably face serious moral dilemmas? Hursthouse suggests she is justified if the overall system serves justice and that fact is what motivates her choice. A corollary is that she will seek, whenever possible, to reform any aspect of the system that is less than fully just. Similar things can be said of the choice to undertake other professions, such as those of “some doctors, psychiatrists, and soldiers,” whose role-specific duties also predictably give rise to moral dilemmas (188).It is thus possible to be a virtuous doctor, psychiatrist, soldier, or lawyer even when such roles predictably give rise to serious moral dilemmas. More strongly, Hursthouse suggests, facing these serious moral dilemmas need not undermine one’s flourishing or mar one’s life. This is because the virtuous occupant of a morally fraught role can correctly see the moral dilemmas they face as part and parcel of their dedication to the worthwhile ends they serve. Unlike those of us who face moral dilemmas in ordinary life, they will therefore be less distressed by such forced choices and “preserve Hume’s ‘inward peace of mind’ and pride in their job” (188).This account of how virtuous agents might occupy morally fraught roles seems to me insightful. But it does raise two questions. The first is an interpretive one. In On Virtue Ethics, Hursthouse suggests that forced choices between two evils are always tragic dilemmas that, by definition, mar the virtuous person’s life. But her discussion of role-specific duties suggests otherwise. Here a virtuous person can, in certain cases, emerge from such dilemmas with her life unmarred.One way to reconcile the tension would be to draw a distinction between serious and tragic moral dilemmas, where the latter are a subset of the former. A serious moral dilemma, on this suggestion, would be one in which an agent, through no fault of her own, may be forced to decide between two seriously bad actions. If she is virtuous, she will make the morally right decision even though the act decided upon will be too terrible to qualify as good or right. A subset of these cases, the tragic ones, will be those in which the agent cannot emerge from the serious moral dilemma without her life being marred. This leaves open the possibility that one can emerge from some serious dilemmas, such as those that arise from role-specific duties, without one’s life being marred.This suggestion requires further revising the definition of right action in On Virtue Ethics in something like the following way:It may be that Hursthouse would resist this, and instead revise her claim that virtuous occupants of morally fraught roles can emerge from serious dilemmas without having their lives marred. But two things speak in favor of resolving the tension in the way I have suggested. First, Hursthouse’s discussion of virtuous occupants of morally fraught roles occurs almost a decade after On Virtue Ethics, which suggests she may not have considered how such situations would affect the earlier definition. Second, it provides a straightforward explanation for why Hursthouse consistently speaks of ‘serious’ dilemmas in her later essays rather than ‘tragic’ ones.5 It would be surprising if such a consistent change, in such a careful philosopher, were merely a terminological whim.Interpretive questions aside, let me raise one substantive question about Hursthouse’s treatment of morally fraught roles. Suppose we agree with Hursthouse that a virtuous lawyer will do at least as much as she suggests. She will not only face serious dilemmas virtuously but also choose the profession with the intent to promote justice, and work to make the norms of the profession more closely approximate that ideal. Is that enough to justify an otherwise virtuous person’s choice to become a lawyer? I’m not sure. One can of course enter the law, or a military profession, with the best of intentions and a plan to promote justice. But if these professions genuinely involve moral dilemmas as a predictable matter, it may be hard to sustain that commitment and the relevant affective dispositions over time. Aristotle famously said that we become just by doing just actions (Nicomachean Ethics 1103b1). But the corollary to this is also true: we may become progressively corrupt by doing corrupt things, even when those corrupt actions are the lesser of two evils. Ironically, Hursthouse here seems to underestimate the power of habituation to form our character over time.I don’t think this implies that there are no virtuous lawyers. But it may imply that the picture is slightly more complicated than Hursthouse suggests. The degree to which one can sustain good character in an environment that is predictably hostile to acting well may vary from person to person and depend on both their own strength of character and their sources of ethical support external to the profession. I take it these points are compatible with the Aristotelian view, and so offer them as friendly amendment to her claim about role-specific duties and moral dilemmas rather than a fundamental objection. Even so, it suggests more caution in undertaking such morally risky professions than Hursthouse allows.I have focused my review of Virtue and Action on Hursthouse’s central claims about what it means for agents to act well, and the essays in which she clarifies and applies those claims. But there is much more of interest here, including significant papers on Hume, justice, and naturalism, which considerations of space have prevented me from addressing. Nonetheless, I hope to have conveyed something of the breadth, systematicity, and moral sensitivity of her work. I learned a great deal from reading these essays together, and I recommend the volume enthusiastically.