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"Human beings are a species of social animal for which there is a characteristic way of life. An individual human being may be evaluated as good or bad according to how well that individual realizes the human way of life. This is a brief statement of the ethical theory I will defend in the following pages, a theory I call naturalized virtue ethics. I argue that there is teleology in nature ; that the fact/value gap - however we reasonably construe that
idea - is not an overriding concern; and that neo-Darwinism is
no threat to the theory. These are all by ways of defence. However, the defence I undertake suffers perhaps from an excess of
intellectual honesty, for I argue that the theory amounts to a
kind of evolutionary ethics and, in the end, is fundamentally
descriptive. These latter two claims can be understood as challenges that other proponents of such a theory should attempt to
answer, or be accepted as they are and lived with. So, then, I will
be clear on how I am and am not to be understood. The theory
herein presented is not normative - at least not normative in a
grand sense - unless one accepts the theory already. It does not
tell you how you should live your life. I will explain how the
theory works and why it works, given the kind of animals we are.
To say that the theory 'works' is not to say that it ought to work.
It just does. For good or ill, it appears to be the logic of many of
our ethical and non-ethical evaluations of one another.
Many defenders of Aristotelian ethical theory maintain explicitly that they carry out the project of ethical naturalism."
(p.1)
"By 'ethical naturalism' we mean the following:
Ethical naturalism: Cognitivist ethical theories in which important ethical norms and evaluations are grounded in natural facts." (p.2)
"Nature is, more or less, what our latest and best science tells us
it is. I make this commitment explicit from the outset. Our latest
and best science comprises physics as well as the biological,
psychological, and social sciences. Certainly, research is of varying quality, but our explanation of ethics should make use of
those entities countenanced by our latest and best science. What
comprises those entities would require a treatise on naturalistic
ontology, which I am not prepared to do: although it is not
presumptuous to assume we all have a rough and ready idea of
what counts as nature in these terms. That is the idea of nature I
have in mind." (pp.2-3)
"What does it mean to explain ethics in such terms? To explicate that notion, we need to be clear what constitutes the
explanandum. If the explanandum is how any particular individual comes to have the ethical beliefs and make the ethical
judgements he or she in fact does, we probably ought to look to
psychology and the idiosyncratic history of that person. If the
explanandum is how we as a group come to have the norms we
do, we might well look to the social sciences. For example, we
could perhaps utilize the tools of game theory to develop our
explanation: that is, we might be able to explain how it is that,
given our specific sorts of coordination problems and capabilities, we end up with the norms we have. But these are scientific answers to scientific questions. These questions might be
answerable by the scientific method, and we might call what we
have done 'explaining ethics', but there does not seem to be
anything especially philosophical about our accomplishment." (p.3)
"A philosophical explanation of ethics will explain the moral facts. A naturalistic philosophical explanation will explain the moral facts in terms of nature. To make things clearer, let us
consider what is to be explained. John says, 'Mary is a good human being.' What makes that claim true, if it is indeed true, is that Mary is a good human being. The question then is: What is it about Mary that makes her a good human being ? The answer, to be defended here, is that she is a good human being because of her traits of character, manifested in her habitual actions. And those traits of character are the ones that make a human being good because they reliably enable the realization of the characteristic ends of human beings. Put more schematically:
The explanandum:
Mary is a good human being.
The explanans.
1. Mary is courageous, kind, charitable, loyal, honest, intelligent, just, and wise, [observation]
2. Those particular traits are the ones that reliably enable the realization of the natural human ends, [observation]
3. Possession of those traits that reliably enable realization of the characteristic human ends makes a human being good, [the naturalistic ethical theory: naturalized virtue ethics]." (pp.3-4)
-Stephen R. Brown, Moral Virtue and Nature. A Defense of Ethical Naturalism, Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd, 2008, 151 pages.
idea - is not an overriding concern; and that neo-Darwinism is
no threat to the theory. These are all by ways of defence. However, the defence I undertake suffers perhaps from an excess of
intellectual honesty, for I argue that the theory amounts to a
kind of evolutionary ethics and, in the end, is fundamentally
descriptive. These latter two claims can be understood as challenges that other proponents of such a theory should attempt to
answer, or be accepted as they are and lived with. So, then, I will
be clear on how I am and am not to be understood. The theory
herein presented is not normative - at least not normative in a
grand sense - unless one accepts the theory already. It does not
tell you how you should live your life. I will explain how the
theory works and why it works, given the kind of animals we are.
To say that the theory 'works' is not to say that it ought to work.
It just does. For good or ill, it appears to be the logic of many of
our ethical and non-ethical evaluations of one another.
Many defenders of Aristotelian ethical theory maintain explicitly that they carry out the project of ethical naturalism."
(p.1)
"By 'ethical naturalism' we mean the following:
Ethical naturalism: Cognitivist ethical theories in which important ethical norms and evaluations are grounded in natural facts." (p.2)
"Nature is, more or less, what our latest and best science tells us
it is. I make this commitment explicit from the outset. Our latest
and best science comprises physics as well as the biological,
psychological, and social sciences. Certainly, research is of varying quality, but our explanation of ethics should make use of
those entities countenanced by our latest and best science. What
comprises those entities would require a treatise on naturalistic
ontology, which I am not prepared to do: although it is not
presumptuous to assume we all have a rough and ready idea of
what counts as nature in these terms. That is the idea of nature I
have in mind." (pp.2-3)
"What does it mean to explain ethics in such terms? To explicate that notion, we need to be clear what constitutes the
explanandum. If the explanandum is how any particular individual comes to have the ethical beliefs and make the ethical
judgements he or she in fact does, we probably ought to look to
psychology and the idiosyncratic history of that person. If the
explanandum is how we as a group come to have the norms we
do, we might well look to the social sciences. For example, we
could perhaps utilize the tools of game theory to develop our
explanation: that is, we might be able to explain how it is that,
given our specific sorts of coordination problems and capabilities, we end up with the norms we have. But these are scientific answers to scientific questions. These questions might be
answerable by the scientific method, and we might call what we
have done 'explaining ethics', but there does not seem to be
anything especially philosophical about our accomplishment." (p.3)
"A philosophical explanation of ethics will explain the moral facts. A naturalistic philosophical explanation will explain the moral facts in terms of nature. To make things clearer, let us
consider what is to be explained. John says, 'Mary is a good human being.' What makes that claim true, if it is indeed true, is that Mary is a good human being. The question then is: What is it about Mary that makes her a good human being ? The answer, to be defended here, is that she is a good human being because of her traits of character, manifested in her habitual actions. And those traits of character are the ones that make a human being good because they reliably enable the realization of the characteristic ends of human beings. Put more schematically:
The explanandum:
Mary is a good human being.
The explanans.
1. Mary is courageous, kind, charitable, loyal, honest, intelligent, just, and wise, [observation]
2. Those particular traits are the ones that reliably enable the realization of the natural human ends, [observation]
3. Possession of those traits that reliably enable realization of the characteristic human ends makes a human being good, [the naturalistic ethical theory: naturalized virtue ethics]." (pp.3-4)
-Stephen R. Brown, Moral Virtue and Nature. A Defense of Ethical Naturalism, Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd, 2008, 151 pages.
