Chapter 3. Irresolvable and Tragic Dilemmas. In particular a normative ethics should not aim to provide a decision procedure which resolves every dilemma in advance of deciding whether or not there are any irresolvable dilemmas. If there are any, then action guidance, in such cases, is not possible. However, action assessment is still not only possible, but needed-and virtue ethics can provide a particularly satisfying account of the differences between unworrying, distressing, and genuinely tragic dilemmas, and latter being those from which even the most virtuous agent cannot emerge with her life unmarried.
These three chapters are all concerned with virtue ethics in relation to action, and conclude them by reconsidering some of the standard theses used to sum up virtue ethics’ position in this area.
Part II. Emotion and Motivation
Chapter 4. Aristotle and Kant. The decision of dilemmas brought in mention of the emotions the virtuous would feel on certain occasions, in particular, regret and even extreme grief as reactions to what ‘had to be done’ . Virtue ethics is often praised, especially at the expense of Kant’s deontology, for giving a better account of the moral significance of the emotions than the other ethical approaches, and, in particular, for giving a more attractive account than Kant of ‘moral motivation’. However, a careful consideration of Aristotle’s enkrateialarete distinction (the distinction between strength of will or ‘continence’ and full virtue) and the famous passage in Kant’s Groundwork in which he discuss moral worth, reveals that, in many ways, Aristotle and Kant are much closer than is usually supposed. Insofar as Aristotle has a notion of ‘motivation’, the continent and the fully virtuous agent have the same motivation-they both act from reason (logos) in the form of ‘choice’ (prohairesis).
Chapter 5. Virtue and the Emotions. Where Aristotle is arguably superior is in his account of human rationality, an account that allows the emotions to participate in reason, rather than being mere animal, non-rational, impulses, and thereby play their proper role in the specification of full virtue. The virtues are concerned with actions and feelings, and the moral education needed to develop them involves the education of the emotions. The full significance of this fact can be fruitfully illustrated through an example of moral diseducation, namely, the inculcation of racism.
Chapter 6. The Virtuous Agent’s Reasons for Action. We noted in Chapter 4 that the fully virtuous act from reason, in the form of ‘choice’. Do they, thereby, act ‘out of a sense of duty’ or ‘because they think it’s right?’ When we consider careful what is involved in the attribution of such a reason, we can see that the answer is ‘Yes’ (thus brining Kant and Aristotle even closer together). The virtuous, when acting virtuously, act for a great variety of different reasons. These form certain ranges, characteristic of particular virtues such as honesty, friendship, justice, courage, temperance, etc. When children and people who are in a transitory emotional state act for such reasons, they do not count as ‘acting out of a sense of duty’, but when the virtuous, who act from a settled state of character, act for such reasons, they do. Acting from virtue is sufficient for acting from duty.
Chapter 7. Moral Motivation. Moreover, acting from virtue, from a settled state of character, sets the standard for acting from duty, or because one thinks it’s right. Whatever their sincerely avowed reason for acting, people act ‘from duty’ to the extent that their character resembles that of the ideally virtuous agent. Hence moral motivation can be a matter of degree, and is not introspectible.