Yes, virtue is a liability in the land of the vicious, in the sense that one can all-things-considered be prudentially harmed by one’s own virtue. This makes eudaimonistic theories of virtue ethics less plausible, and suggests that a convincing account of the value of virtue must appeal to its brute goodness, rather than benefits accruing to the possessor. In this essay, I will first disambiguate between two senses in which a trait might be a liability, and outline what a eudaimonistic and non-eudaimonistic virtue ethicist would have to say about each. I’ll then explain why I think that virtue is a liability in the land of the vicious, and evaluate what this means for both accounts of the value of virtue. Finally, I draw a parallel with other seemingly-morally-desirable traits like altruism, which also would be a liability in the land of the vicious, to conclude that this feature does not tell against virtue in particular, but indeed makes it more plausibly a moral good.
Following Aristotle, I take “virtue” to be a stable disposition towards performing the right actions (and feeling positively about them); similarly “vice” is a stable disposition towards performing actions which are in some way morally wrong, because one has wrong aims. Although one might in principle possess some virtues but not others (and likewise for vice), this does not matter much for whether virtues writ large can be liabilities – so for ease of exposition, I will assume that by virtue we mean full ethical virtue.
A character trait like (for instance) alcoholism or extraversion might be a liability in one of two ways; these readings similarly apply to the set of character traits that virtue encompasses:
(i) Weak reading: there are some respects or contexts in which that trait is detrimental to oneself (e.g., being overly outgoing on an occasion which calls for restraint).
(ii) Strong reading: all things considered, one would prudentially prefer to not have that trait (e.g., being an alcoholic is simply worse overall than not being one).
Eudaimonistic virtue ethicists such as Aristotle and Hursthouse, who hold that human flourishing consists in a life of virtue, would reject (ii): they believe that virtues are good for the possessor, and nobody could, if fully-informed, prefer to be unvirtuous. Yet they need not reject (i), because they acknowledge that external factors and chance occurrences can in particular situations affect whether the virtuous agents’ actions reach the fine and pleasant they’re aiming for. Indeed, Aristotle notes that the brave person will sometimes endure pain and suffering, and so it seems clear that their tendency to be courageous might, under unfortunate circumstances, be to their detriment.
Applying this general framework to the problem of the land of the vicious, the position of eudaimonistic virtue ethicists becomes clear: they would deny the strong claim that a virtuous agent (call her Angela) is worse-off on account of her virtue, but accept that there are some interactions in which she is harmed by being virtuous. The latter judgement here seems sensible – consider, for example the following scenario:
Hotel Room. Angela is checking in to a hotel, which Vicious Vincent also wants to stay at. Angela has been waiting in the queue for some time, but Vincent comes to her and tells an elaborate (but false) story about how he is in dire need of the room. Angela is persuaded to give her room over to Vincent, and ends up staying at much worse lodgings.
In this interaction at least, it certainly seems like Angela’s virtue has been to her detriment. But the eudaimonistic virtue ethicist does not go far enough in their concession that virtue can be a liability: in the land of the vicious, practically all of Angela’s interactions would be like Hotel Room. She would spend all day dealing with lying, selfish, unfaithful agents, and sticking by her virtuous dispositions would leave her vulnerable to constant manipulation and exploitation. Surely, then, the strong reading (ii) is also appropriate?
The eudaimonistic virtue ethicist does have one defence open to them: they might object that virtue involves practical reason, and is not merely the naïve application of rules like “be honest”, “be generous”, and suchlike – so, in the land of the vicious, Angela would adjust her behaviour to avoid manipulation of this sort. Although partly successful, it’s not clear that this strategy goes far enough. In particular, one important character trait we’d expect the virtuous person to have is that of integrity: acting in line with their values and beliefs. But one could imagine that the vicious persecute anybody with principles at all (consider, for instance, a stylised account of the persecution of Jesus and the apostles) – so either Angela would need to give up on her integrity (and thus virtue), or face the risk of persecution (i.e., take on this liability).
The non-eudaimonistic virtue ethicist is better able to explain our intuition that virtue is a liability in the land of the vicious, because they are not committed to the rather implausible view that virtue’s value is grounded in the flourishing it provides to possessors. These theorists, such as Slote, instead take virtue’s value as a primitive, similarly to how a utilitarian takes welfare as the fundamental good-making property. Apart from providing a more sensible answer to the titular question, non-eudaimonistic theories about the value of virtue have the further attractions of avoiding the circularity and egoism-or-self-effacingness objections to neo-Aristotelian views.
One might conclude that the fact virtue is a liability in the land of the vicious counts against virtue ethics in general – but this would be mistaken. We have little reason to expect that acting morally necessarily “pays” in the sense of making the moral agent better-off, particularly in highly-suboptimal worlds like the land of the vicious. As Elizabeth Ashford has noted, morality is extremely demanding in our world, precisely because of the vast number of moral catastrophes – and surely there would be at least as many in the land of the vicious. So it does not tell against virtue ethics in particular that virtue is a liability in the land of the vicious; the same would apply for practically any moral trait.
In this essay, I argued that virtue is a liability in the land of the vicious in two senses: it is a detriment to the virtuous agent in particular interactions, but also across their life as a whole. I explored how eudaimonistic and non-eudaimonistic theories would respond to this verdict, and considered whether practical wisdom might allow the virtuous agent to escape harm from their virtue. Finally, I concluded that this suggests we should reject eudaimonistic accounts of the value of virtue, but not that it counts against virtue ethics in general.
Post-Claude & examiner report notes
- Is the virtuous agent necessarily exploited in the land of the vicious?
- Can push more on practical wisdom – e.g., how honesty is to “give the truth that’s owed in the situation”, etc.
- In Hotel Room, would the virtuous person really be taken in? Especially if she knew she was in the land of the vicious?
- [I did think about this somewhat; it seems genuinely hard to answer. Cf Swanton – the virtues are admirable because they’re an appropriate response to the demands of the world, so what would the appropriate ones be in that world?]
- Is everyone there vicious? It’s bad for vicious people if they can’t coordinate at all; maybe the virtuous agent does better than others in the land of the vicious, since she at least can form alliances, etc.
- [although, the vicious could still form friendships of utility]
- Can push more on practical wisdom – e.g., how honesty is to “give the truth that’s owed in the situation”, etc.
- Could mention the connection to Plato and Glaucon’s challenge with the ring of Gyges [although, it’s not an ancient philosophy paper]
- There are two distinct eudaimonist claims:
- (i) Virtue suffices for some prudential welfare even without any external goods
- (ii) Virtue typically delivers external goods
- Maybe (if you adopt the eudaimonist conception of the flourishing life) you can sustain (i), even if (ii) fails in the land of the vicious
- There are two distinct eudaimonist claims:
- Perhaps relabel the two readings of liability as “local” vs “global”, not weak/strong
- Ashford reference might not be that valuable