Take a science fiction movie scenario. Carl is trapped near a device set to explode, and cannot be freed until too late. However, it is possible to go and defuse the device. Unfortunately, getting to the bomb requires going through a tunnel where one will get a dose of radiation that will result in severe injury within a day.
Alice and Bob are bystanders with no special obligations to the trapped people. They also know what effects the radiation would have on them. If Alice went, she would permanently lose her eyesight. If Bob went, he would lose his eyesight and his mobility. In both cases, their life would be worth living, and both agree that the injuries would be better than dying. I assume (if not, ratchet up their prospective injuries) that it would be be praiseworthy but not obligatory for either Alice or Bob to go rescue Carl.
Alice then puts enormous effort into trying to persuade Bob to go and defuse the device, vividly describing to them the terror that Carl is feeling, the joy on the faces of Carl’s children if he are rescued, and gives an excellent account of how the exercise of heroic virtue is the most important thing in life, far more valuable than sight and mobility. All of this falls a little bit flat given that Alice has no inclination to go herself, which would be even better objectively speaking. When asked by Bob the natural question of why she doesn’t do it herself, she just says: “I am not obligated to, and while I could, I choose not to sacrifice my life for this guy I don’t know. But it would be really good if you did.”
What Alice is doing seems to be the second best of three options. The best thing would be to go defuse the device herself. The least good would be to do nothing. Persuading Bob to go is second best, since if Bob goes, instead of a person dying, a person loses sight and mobility.
Yet I feel that even though Alice isn’t doing anything wrong, her actions are a manifestation of a particularly bad character. While there is nothing immoral about trying to persuade someone else to make a greater sacrifice than one you are willing to make, there is some kind of a serious character flaw here, and that flaw is being exhibited in the action, even though the action is a good one.
Cases like this make me suspicious of virtue ethics. Manifesting character flaws is different from acting wrongly.
3 comments:
I don't think virtue ethicists generally hold that manifesting character flaws is the same as acting wrongly, any more than having a tendency to slice means that you are playing golf incorrectly. Most virtue ethicists hold that virtues can be had in greater or lesser degree or gradation and that there can be behavioral flaws arising from a lack of skills or knowledge or other dispositions needed to express virtues properly, and most virtue ethicists don't hold that every virtue directly relates to something's being right or wrong (although possibly all of them might have some indirect connection or other). Behavior can be worse or better without being wrong or right.
I think "flaw" was an understatement in my post and by "manifest" I meant something more than just "evidence"--I meant something like when a virtue ethicist says that a right action manifests the virtue.
Perhaps one of the ancients might have said that Alice was acting in a cowardly manner and that this would then be both a lack of courage (so, a lack of virtue) and also a wrong action (showing cowardice being a wrong action)?
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