Topics Ethics

Question How would virtue ethics view terrorism? I don't doubt the terrorists were evil, but it seems hard to deny they possessed some of Aristotle's virtues (courageousness, for example). Don't we have to consider the consequences of their actions if we are to call their actions unethical? I'm sure the virtue-ethicists here have thought about the issue. What conclusions have you come to?

Accepted:
March 11, 2006

Comments

Virtue theorists of various stripes have the resources to deny that a terrorist need be displaying virtues, such as courage, if they are doing something unjust. Classical virtue theorists (including Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, among others) thought the virtues had to be admirable and praiseworthy. So they reasoned that traditional assumptions about the virtues and their the extension were mistaken. Standing firm in battle is not courageous if one's cause is not just. Indeed, on some classical views, the virtuous action must always be morally best. This assumption tends to make some version of the unity of the virtues -- according to which the virtues are inseparable and one -- attractive. But then if the terrorist's act is unjust it cannot be brave, because this would violate the unity of the virtues.

Many modern conceptions of the virtues would also have the resources to condemn terrorism. Julia Driver is a consequentialist about virtue who sees virtues as dispositions with largely beneficial consequences. But such a consequentialist about virtue need not treat the terrorist as virtuous. Hurka treats virtue as loving the good. But if the terrorist's loyalties do not track the good (but perhaps only an apparent good), then the terrorist need not display virtue no matter how much she is willing to risk harm.

Of course, a virtue theorist could treat the unjust terrorist as courageous. If one rejects the unity of the virtues and denies that all virtues must track genuine goods, one could recognize some virtue in the terrorist (some treat this sort of courage as a "structural" virtue). But it would still be open to this sort of virtue theorist to think that though such a terrorist embodies some virtue her virtue is swamped in our overall assessment of her by her vice (injustice, inhumanity, cowardice, etc).