A Virtue‐Ethical Account of Right Action

Swanton, Christine

doi:10.1093/0199253889.003.0012

Cited by 8 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 92 publications

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“…On this prospectus, an act is right 'if it is overall virtuous (OV), and that entails that it is the (or a) best possible act in the circumstances' [5,45].…”

Section: Virtue Ethics and The Researcher Liementioning

confidence: 99%

Unwarranted Participant Questions and Virtuous Researcher Lies

Davis

2011

Research Ethics

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Most writing on research ethics is about researcher treatment of participants. This essay considers a participant threat to researcher privacy and integrity. It is based partly upon a real-life sport research case, and discusses a participant request to know if the researcher supports a particular and popular football team. The researcher does support this team, but felt disinclined to answer truthfully, and so lied. It is argued, with the help of analogous cases, that the participant question is what Borge calls 'unwarranted', despite the football fan culture of allegiance disclosure. It is further argued, again following Borge, that refusal of the question would have generated a conversational admitture, resulting in the participant truly believing what the researcher correctly believes he has no right to know. The researcher is therefore justified in lying. This justification is buttressed by Swanton's virtue ethical account of right action, according to which an action is right if it is 'overall virtuous' (OV), and that entails that it is the (a) best possible action in the circumstances.Here, actions which are typically right, such as truth-telling, are sometimes not, and may even on occasion be wrong-making qualities of actions. It is argued, however, that honesty retains a positive moral value and dishonesty a positive moral disvalue, and it is therefore to be regretted that the OV course of action involves lying. The researcher should therefore regret the OV lie, should ponder if he could have done anything to prevent the situation, and should consider what he can do to prevent its recurrence. A global prescription to protect researchers is probably out of reach, but one suggestion for this sort of case is that the researcher tells the participant at the outset, in appropriately hospitable tones, that he is unable to disclose anything of his own affections.

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“…On this prospectus, an act is right 'if it is overall virtuous (OV), and that entails that it is the (or a) best possible act in the circumstances' [5,45].…”

Section: Virtue Ethics and The Researcher Liementioning

confidence: 99%

Unwarranted Participant Questions and Virtuous Researcher Lies

Davis

2011

Research Ethics

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“…2) for a fuller discussion of Hume's position. 51 Swanton, 2001, p. 43, citing Driver 1996. 52 Swanton, 2001, p. 43, citing Driver, 1999.…”

Section: Humiliation and Humblingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…I discuss Sidgwick's more complicated view above. 53 Swanton, 2001, p. 44. 54 Snow 1995 Ross used that term) and, even if it is, following Linda Zagzebski's appealing suggestion that something is intrinsically good when its goodness derives from the goodness of nothing else, this still yields the result that no virtue is intrinsically good.…”

Section: Humiliation and Humblingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Being Unimpressed with Ourselves: Reconceiving Humility

Garcia

2006

Philosophia

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I first sketch an account of humility as a character trait in which we are unimpressed with our good, envied, or admired features, achievements, etc., where these lack significant salience for our image of ourselves, because of the greater prominence of our limitations and flaws. I situate this view among several other recent conceptions of humility (also called modesty), dividing them between the inward-directed and outwarddirected, distinguish mine from them, pose problems for each alternative account, and show how my understanding of humility captures truths present but exaggerated in several of them. Responding to some problems for my view, including what I call "Driver's Paradox" (i.e., the strangeness of someone's proclaiming 'I'm humble!'), I suggest that some over-ambitious claims about our moral responsibilities may indicate a lack of proper humility. I discuss the relationship of the character trait of humility both to what humiliates and to what humbles, concluding with consideration of the background assumptions against which, and the circumstances in which, humility may reasonably be classified as a moral virtue.

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“…35 For a more detailed response to this concern see Sandler (2003b). 36 Hursthouse (1999Hursthouse ( , 1996Hursthouse ( , 1991, Swanton (2001Swanton ( , 2003 and Slote (1992). 37 For discussion of this point see Hursthouse (1996), pp.…”

Section: T Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards an Adequate Environmental Virtue Ethic

Sandler¹

2004

Environmental Values

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In this article I consider four concerns regarding the possibility of an environmental virtue ethic functioning as an alternative-rather than a supplement-to more conventional approaches to environmental ethics. The concerns are: (1) it is not possible to provide an objective specification of environmental virtue, (2) an environmental virtue ethic will lack the resources to provide critique of obtaining cultural practices and policies, (3) an environmental virtue ethic will not provide sufficient action-guidance, (4) an environmental virtue ethic cannot ground constraints on human activities regarding the natural environment. Each of these concerns makes a claim about the poverty of normative resources at the disposal of environmental virtue ethics. I defend a conception of environmental virtue-as a character virtue with the same normative standing as the conventional personal and interpersonal virtues-that enables an environmental virtue ethic with the wherewithal to address each of the concerns.

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A Virtue‐Ethical Account of Right Action

Abstract: This chapter provides a new target‐centred virtue ethical account of right action.

Cited by 8 publications

References 92 publications

Unwarranted Participant Questions and Virtuous Researcher Lies

Unwarranted Participant Questions and Virtuous Researcher Lies

Being Unimpressed with Ourselves: Reconceiving Humility

Towards an Adequate Environmental Virtue Ethic

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