Virtue Ethics in the Global Virtual Village

PROBLEMATIC ASPECTS OF ARISTOTLE’S VIRTUE ETHICS

I recently read Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Much of what Aristotle advocates is admirable. However, there are some gaping omissions from his discussion: he writes, 'But not every action or feeling admits of the mean...because they themselves, not their excesses or deficiencies, are base.' Here, in this passage of not even a whole page, Aristotle manages to create an opt-out category for those who have as their agenda labeling an action wrong; for who is to determine which actions or feelings are of this kind? For example, here in Canada, our government has decided euthanasia is illegal (which many people, rightly or wrongly, equate with vice). However, there are countries (the Netherlands comes to mind) where euthanasia is considered a virtue, an act of compassion. (For the record, when the time comes, I'm going to have a stockpile of morphine and Gravol.) So in this tiny little passage Aristotle has managed to avoid having to deal with some of the thorniest moral issues.



It seems to me that his virtue ethics is very much a product of his times as well. Living in Athens, appearances accorded pretty well with roles and one could enjoy the fruits of his labour, at least in part. However, with the advent of the Industrial Revolution and the Information Age, such straightforward associations have been almost obliterated. Because in Aristotle's day one had a few well-defined roles that changed little and there was an immediacy to one's actions, reinforcing the notion of responsibility, virtue ethics, a morality revolving around the agent, made sense. However, things have changed (I wish there was an emoticon for understatement:|) Now longer are the fruits of many farmers self-evident. Instead of enjoying their crop, it is often sold and transported thousands of miles, far removed from the agent. Furthermore, a farmer today may have a PhD in neuroscience or be cooking crank in his barn (or both!) My point is that our roles in society are never completely obvious, and we see our identities as fluid, something I imagine would be anathema to Aristotle. A fixed identity and being responsible for action undertaken when that identity has been assumed leads, in a seemingly natural progression to virtue ethics since they help delineate that identity and holds people accountable for their actions. For example, potters in ancient Greece often used to make jugs and cups from which people would drink. Now because the potter is on speaking terms with his customers, when he makes a cup with a jagged rim, the customer knows that the cup is the result of the potter's labour and that the cut on his lip from the jagged edge is the potter's responsibility, a situation with a straightforward remedy. Now consider a plastic cup manufactured today in a factory in China. The factory produces hundreds of thousands of cups a day due to large scale automation.