A quick thought that may not stand up to reflection:
Consequentialists should think of virtue ethics as a human-implementable Updateless Decision Theory. Under UDT, your focus is on being an agent whose actions maximize utility over all possibilities, even those that you know now not to be the case, as long as they were considered possible when your source code was written. Hence, in the Counterfactual Mugging, you make a choice that you know will make things worse in the actual world.
Similarly, virtue ethics requires that you focus on making yourself into the kind of agent who would make the right choices in general, even if that means making a choice that you know will make things worse in the actual world.
Similarly, virtue ethics requires that you focus on making yourself into the kind of agent who would make the right choices in general, even if that means making a choice in the actual world that you know will make things worse.
I think this may be overstating it, specifically the “even if...” clause. If the ‘choice’ is being done at the level of consciousness, then you can probably sidestep the worst failures of virtue ethics. And if it’s not, there’s no reason to expect not having good habits of action to perform better.
I think this may be overstating it, specifically the “even if...” clause. If the ‘choice’ is being done at the level of consciousness, then you can probably sidestep the worst failures of virtue ethics.
I’m not sure what you mean. Could you give an example of the kind of scenario you’re thinking of?
Sure. Let’s say you’re an honest person. So (for instance) if someone asks you what time it is, you’re predisposed to tell them the correct time rather than lying. It probably won’t even occur to you that it might be funny to lie about the time. And then the Nazis come to the door and ask about the Jews you’re hiding in the attic. Of course you’ve had time to prepare for this situation, and know what you’re going to say, and it isn’t going to be, “Yes, right through that hidden trap door”.
I’m not an expert in traditional and modern virtue ethics, so my reply might be nonstandard. But in this case, I would simply note that the notion of virtue applies to others too—and the standards of behavior that are virtuous when applied towards decent people are not necessarily virtuous when applied to those who have overstepped certain boundaries.
Thus, for example, hospitality is a virtue, but for those who grossly abuse your hospitality, the virtuous thing to do is to throw them out of your house—and it’s a matter of practical wisdom to decide when this boundary has been overstepped. Similarly, non-aggression is also a virtue when dealing with honest people, but not when you catch a burglar in flagrante. In your example, the Nazis are coming with an extremely aggressive and hostile intent, and thus clearly place themselves beyond the pale of humanity, so that the virtuous thing to do is to oppose them in the most effective manner possible—which could mean deceiving them, considering that their physical power is overwhelming.
It seems to me that the real problems with virtue ethics are not that it mandates inflexibility in principles leading to crazy results—as far as I see, it doesn’t—but due to the fact that decisions requiring judgments of practical wisdom can be hard, non-obvious, and controversial. (At what exact point does someone’s behavior overstep the boundary to the point where it becomes virtuous to open hostilities in response?)
“Beyond the pale of humanity” is dubious stuff—there’s a big range between defensive lying and torturing prisoners, and quite a few ethicists would say that there are different rules for how you treat people who are directly dangerous to you and for how you treat people who can’t defend themselves from you.
This is the way I thought about it after reading the OP—virtue ethics as time-consistent consequentialism. But maybe I don’t understand correctly what means to be a virtue ethicist. If it is “try to modify your source code¹ to consistently perform the best actions on average”, it does oppose neither consequentialism nor deontology: “best” may be evaluated using whatever standard.
¹) I dislike the epression but couldn’t find a better formulation
A quick thought that may not stand up to reflection:
Consequentialists should think of virtue ethics as a human-implementable Updateless Decision Theory. Under UDT, your focus is on being an agent whose actions maximize utility over all possibilities, even those that you know now not to be the case, as long as they were considered possible when your source code was written. Hence, in the Counterfactual Mugging, you make a choice that you know will make things worse in the actual world.
Similarly, virtue ethics requires that you focus on making yourself into the kind of agent who would make the right choices in general, even if that means making a choice that you know will make things worse in the actual world.
Edited to reorder clauses for clarity.
I think this may be overstating it, specifically the “even if...” clause. If the ‘choice’ is being done at the level of consciousness, then you can probably sidestep the worst failures of virtue ethics. And if it’s not, there’s no reason to expect not having good habits of action to perform better.
I’m not sure what you mean. Could you give an example of the kind of scenario you’re thinking of?
Sure. Let’s say you’re an honest person. So (for instance) if someone asks you what time it is, you’re predisposed to tell them the correct time rather than lying. It probably won’t even occur to you that it might be funny to lie about the time. And then the Nazis come to the door and ask about the Jews you’re hiding in the attic. Of course you’ve had time to prepare for this situation, and know what you’re going to say, and it isn’t going to be, “Yes, right through that hidden trap door”.
I’m not an expert in traditional and modern virtue ethics, so my reply might be nonstandard. But in this case, I would simply note that the notion of virtue applies to others too—and the standards of behavior that are virtuous when applied towards decent people are not necessarily virtuous when applied to those who have overstepped certain boundaries.
Thus, for example, hospitality is a virtue, but for those who grossly abuse your hospitality, the virtuous thing to do is to throw them out of your house—and it’s a matter of practical wisdom to decide when this boundary has been overstepped. Similarly, non-aggression is also a virtue when dealing with honest people, but not when you catch a burglar in flagrante. In your example, the Nazis are coming with an extremely aggressive and hostile intent, and thus clearly place themselves beyond the pale of humanity, so that the virtuous thing to do is to oppose them in the most effective manner possible—which could mean deceiving them, considering that their physical power is overwhelming.
It seems to me that the real problems with virtue ethics are not that it mandates inflexibility in principles leading to crazy results—as far as I see, it doesn’t—but due to the fact that decisions requiring judgments of practical wisdom can be hard, non-obvious, and controversial. (At what exact point does someone’s behavior overstep the boundary to the point where it becomes virtuous to open hostilities in response?)
“Beyond the pale of humanity” is dubious stuff—there’s a big range between defensive lying and torturing prisoners, and quite a few ethicists would say that there are different rules for how you treat people who are directly dangerous to you and for how you treat people who can’t defend themselves from you.
This is the way I thought about it after reading the OP—virtue ethics as time-consistent consequentialism. But maybe I don’t understand correctly what means to be a virtue ethicist. If it is “try to modify your source code¹ to consistently perform the best actions on average”, it does oppose neither consequentialism nor deontology: “best” may be evaluated using whatever standard.
¹) I dislike the epression but couldn’t find a better formulation