Intelligent Virtue by Julia Annas

Author:Julia Annas [Annas, Julia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-03-10T04:28:00+00:00

Goodness and Kinds of Trait

So far we have only a very general characterization of what makes virtue admirable and inspiring as an ideal, namely commitment to goodness. But we can at least see something distinctive about virtue. Virtue is committed to goodness because it is good; the brave and generous do not merely have overall aims in their lives that turn out, as a matter of fact, to be good. Rather, they have an attitude to goodness which can be described as commitment: goodness attracts them in a way that the vicious are not attracted, and the mediocre are attracted only weakly.

What of the traits which are not vicious, but not virtues either-wittiness, tidiness, cleanliness, affability, and the like? As we saw at the end of the last chapter, dispositions such as these resemble virtues they may be reliable dispositions to act, think, and feel in certain ways-but they are not virtues. We saw there that they are not integrated with the virtues: that someone is clean, hard-working, and witty is no guide as to whether he has virtues such as bravery or fairness (nor vice versa); these dispositions (as well as a range of talents) can be exercised either virtuously or viciously. We can now say something further as to why these dispositions are not virtues. A reason that wittiness, tidiness, and affability do not integrate with the virtues is because they do not express or indicate a commitment to goodness. This illuminates why they can be exercised just as well viciously as virtuously.

Wittiness, tidiness, and the like are thus not admirable in the distinctive way the virtues are. We do, of course, fairly frequently think of the person who has intelligently developed her disposition to be witty or affable as being admirable. This is, as we have seen, a recognizable sense of admirability, in which people can be found admirable just because they are amusing or agreeable to be with, or useful to others, for example, without being admirable for the kind of people they are. There is, however, a sharp as well as distinctive difference between our attitudes to virtues and these other dispositions, as emerges clearly from a brief comparison with Hume's very different account of virtues.

Hume defines a virtue as a disposition" which is useful and/or agreeable to the person whose disposition it is or to others. (On its own this is clearly inadequate, and it is supplemented elsewhere, but my point depends only on the present aspect of his account.9) The virtuous person, on this kind of account, will be the person whose dispositions (or `qualities') are useful or agreeable to himself or to others. Hume gives us a description of a person, Cleanthes, presented as a perfect son-in-law."' `Everyone, who has any intercourse with him, is sure of fair and kind treatment [qualities useful to others] . . . `[his] assiduous application to the study of the laws ... quick penetration and early knowledge both of men and business, prognosticate the greatest honours and advancement' (qualities useful to himself).

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