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ABSTRACT
We raise the following problem for so-called target-centred virtue ethics. An important motivation for adopting target-centred virtue ethics over other forms of virtue ethics is its supposedly distinctive account of right action: an action is right if and only if and because it is virtuous, and what makes an action virtuous is that it hits the target of the virtues. We argue that the account is not distinctive of target-centred virtue ethics, because it is an account that is widely endorsed by Neo-Aristotelians. Hence, the argument of this paper undermines a central motivation for adopting target-centred virtue ethics. As a solution, we suggest that there is theoretical room for a target-centred account that is not Neo-Aristotelian, and we draw on the work of Confucian philosopher Wáng Yángmíng to provide one. We defend the resulting account by arguing that it has the advantage of being able to offer us a more plausible response to the self-centredness objection that has long been a problem for Neo-Aristotelians.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Kai Marchal, Li Jianyun 李健芸, Karyn L. Lai and Nicholas Smith for helpful discussion. We especially thank Markos Valaris for feedback on an early iteration of the paper. Finally, we thank two anonymous referees for helpful comments.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 For a response, see Slote Citation2010, 83–106; cf. Van Zyl Citation2019, 114–115. As the agent-based account is not the focus of this paper, we do not further evaluate it here.
2 Although we acknowledge that there might be other forms of target-centred virtue ethics, we accept Smith’s claim for the sake of argument that Swanton’s version ‘remains the most prominent in the literature’ (Smith Citation2020, 1). Henceforth, whenever we mention ‘target-centred accounts’ without qualification, what we mean is the Swanton/Smith variety of it.
3 Given that Swanton defines the field of benevolence as ‘items having a good’ (Swanton Citation2021, 144) and its aim as successfully promoting the good or well-being of items within that field, we take it as plausible that the target of benevolence in our example consists of promoting the well-being of the child. See also Swanton Citation2003, 233.
4 For an argument that the recurring use of ‘right’ in this context does not make the target-centred account of right action circular, see Smith Citation2017, 320; see also Smith Citation2020, 5; Swanton Citation2021, 137–138.
5 The reason for avoiding the claim that a person performs a right action only if she fully hits the targets of all the relevant virtues is simple: such an account of right action would be implausibly demanding (see Smith Citation2018, 247–248).
6 Condition (iii) is hardly ever discussed, but it seems to us that any virtue ethical theory that comes with an account of right action can and should accommodate it (although, perhaps, not every virtue ethical theory must offer an account of right action; see Van Zyl Citation2019, 98–101). The reason why condition (iii) matters is that, for example, if your attempt to save a person from drowning ends up saving the person indirectly, namely by way of inspiring a third party (who just happens to be there) to save the person, then your action is less virtuous than if you had saved the person through your own efforts. Hence, it is plausible that an action which satisfies (i) and (ii) but not (iii) is less virtuous than one that satisfies all three conditions.
7 And that is true even though proponents of a target-centred account allow that in some cases the way an action is performed is not relevant for evaluating the action’s virtue (see, e.g., Swanton Citation2021, 140–141). We return to this point in the next section.
8 This is so not only for proponents of virtue ethics. For a general discussion, see also Bales (Citation1971) and Driver (Citation2011, 118).
9 Hursthouse herself introduces the slogan as part of her answer to how virtue ethics can provide us with action-guidance (Hursthouse Citation1999, 26). This suggests that Hursthouse might have taken the slogan to provide us primarily with a decision-making procedure rather than what she calls ‘action assessment’ (Hursthouse Citation1999., 49), i.e. a definition of virtuous actions. Although Hursthouse sometimes takes the slogan to offer us both a decision-making procedure and action assessment (Hursthouse Citation1999, 49-51), she says that, with regard to moral dilemmas, ‘[w]hen the dilemma is resolvable, this [i.e., the slogan] provides the appropriate action guidance (the morally right decision is to do what a virtuous agent would, characteristically, do in the circumstances); but if we take it as also providing the action assessment, it says the wrong thing […]. When the dilemma is irresolvable, it appropriately provides no action guidance, but still says the wrong thing if we take it as providing action assessment’. (Hursthouse Citation1999, 78). In an earlier publication, Hursthouse makes it clear that ‘virtue theory is not committed to any sort of reductionism involving defining all of our moral concepts in terms of the virtuous agent’. (Hursthouse Citation1991, 227) We thank an anonymous referee for this reference.
10 Philippa Foot advocates for a similar view when she describes three ‘sources of goodness’ that actions have: ‘Firstly, goodness can come from the nature of the action itself […]. Secondly, the end for which an action is done is an independent source of goodness or badness in it. […] A third source of goodness or badness in an action lies in its relation to the agent's judgment of whether he or she is acting badly or well’. (Foot Citation2001, 72–73) What is not a source of goodness is that a virtuous agent would characteristically perform the relevant action.
11 As Smith rightly points out, it is often the case that, ‘[f]ully hitting the target of a virtue involves success or correctness in respect to multiple dimensions. […] One may, for example, help the right people (those in need) and to the right extent but not in the right manner (begrudgingly)’. (Smith Citation2020, 4) That it might not be always the case that conditions (ii.)–(iii.) are constitutive of the target of a virtue need not concern us here. The important point is that there can be dispute about (ii.)–(iii.) and that (ii.)–(iii.) can be constitutive of hitting the target.
12 Since our goal in this section is not exegetical, we confine ourselves to providing only a rough outline of Wáng Yángmíng’s views. However, we believe that the following sketch is supported by much of the scholarly work that has been done on Wáng Yángmíng. That being said, providing a fully detailed interpretation would bring us too far afield.
13 Angle prefers to translate lǐ as ‘coherence’. As he stresses, coherence should not be understood as ‘merely being-patterned’, but as ‘the valuable and intelligible way that things fit together’. (Angle Citation2009, 32–34) The reason is that things can exhibit patterns without being valuable or intelligible. Other scholars prefer to render lǐ as ‘pattern’ or ‘principle’ (Ivanhoe Citation2002, 22). Although scholars diverge when it comes to translating lǐ, most seem to agree that lǐ has normative connotations. Hence, we take following Tien’s rendition to be justified. We thank an anonymous referee for pressing this point and helping us clarify it.
14 The printed version of the Chuánxílù that we refer to is Wang (Citation2011).
15 ‘Right’ and ‘wrong’ are rendered as shì 是 and fēi 非. See, for example, Chuánxílù, §206, §208, or §265.
16 All translations of Wáng Yángmíng’s works come, with slight modifications, from Wang (Citation1963). The ‘Way’ (dào 道) is described in this passage as ‘innate knowledge [of lǐ]’ (liángzhī 良知) (see the following footnote and Chuánxílù, §265). To fully hear the Way means to fully grasp lǐ.
17 To be more exact, the passage says that students can ‘steep themselves in equilibrium and harmony [and thus instantiate lǐ] without knowing how they achieved it’ (入於中和而不知其故). According to Wáng, we humans come to know lǐ (i.e. what is appropriate) through our ‘heart-mind’ (xīn 心). As an aside, on Wáng’s view, this knowledge consists of ‘innate knowledge [of lǐ]’ (liángzhī 良知) (Chuánxílù, §206; see also §10) that is provided by our ‘heart-mind’ (Chuánxílù, §318, §165). For this knowledge to become effective and, hence, for us to do ‘what is appropriate’, the heart-mind has to be in a state undisturbed by self-regarding desires (yù 欲), which basically is the state alluded to in the above quote as ‘equilibrium and harmony’ (see also Chuánxílù, §88, §92, §162, §202, §207). The relation between being in such a state and instantiating lǐ we take to be a causal relation, rather than a constitutive one. That is, the former disposes the agent to instantiate lǐ, rather than constituting (or being a part of) what it means to instantiate lǐ. We return to this point in the next paragraph.
18 Wáng Yángmíng is not clear on what exactly it means for an act of righteousness to be ‘incidental’, but given the context of the passage, we suspect that a person incidentally performs a virtuous action if she performs a virtuous action without performing it virtuously (e.g. if she acts for the wrong reasons).
19 See also footnote 17. Our take on liángzhī 良知 follows Chen (Citation2019, Ch. 7), and Lederman (Citation2022).
20 See also Chen Lai’s discussion of this passage (Chen Citation[1991] 2005, 191–193). We cannot go into further detail here on the relationship between ‘innate knowledge [of lǐ]’ (liángzhī 良知) and the emotions (qíng 情).
21 Although Wáng Yángmíng does not mention character traits in §290, we can safely assume that they too are to be distinguished from ‘innate knowledge [of lǐ]’: innate knowledge is not a character trait.
22 To illustrate, suppose that the target of archery is the performance of successful shots, and suppose that a shot is successful iff it hits the bullseye from competence. It follows that an archer who aims at the target of archery thereby aims to hit the bullseye from competence. Hence, as Miracchi puts it, the fundamental aim of the archer is not that the target be hit, but that the archer hits the target qua manifestation of her competence (Miracchi Citation2014, 356).
23 That difference is suggested by Wáng Yángmíng’s distinction between a fully virtuous person, a person who reliably hits lǐ and thus exemplifies the ‘highest good’ (zhìshàn 至善), and someone who is merely ‘dressing like an actor and acting out the details [of the appropriate action] correctly’ (扮戲子, 扮得許多溫清奉養的儀節是當) (Chuánxílù, §4). The difference between them is not that the latter does something wrong. It is that the former is far more reliable at performing virtuous actions. Wáng stresses the importance of reliability more explicitly in Chuánxílù, §76. See also Angle Citation2009, 56–60; Chen Citation[1991] 2005, 73–74, and the discussion in Yu Citation2014, 33–37.