(In an effort to keep this discussion relatively reasonable, I shall start a new post...)
Here's an example (taken from Matt's final exam for logic): "I think we can safely conclude that our late neighbor Fred was a really good guy. He was kind to his neighbors, co-workers, and family, he volunteered at the local soup kitchen, nobody ever said anything bad about him, and he even went out of his way to rescue turtles on the highway"
Socially, Fred is considered a good person. Socially, he is considered (at least to some degree) virtuous. This tells us *nothing* about his home life, work life, or inner life. Virtue cannot be determined solely by society...
There's a difference between doing things so that other people think you're good, and doing something because you know it's right -- regardless of what the consequences are, or what others think.
If Virtue is completely socially determined, then my intentions (doing an action *because* it is the right thing to do, or doing an action because others will note that it was a good action and my reputation will increase) have little to no say in the determination of my virtue... Surely if I am doing good actions with a selfish purpose (even if I have the biggest grin plastered on my face and allow nothing but kind words to slip through my lips), my action is not _truly_ good...
Society cannot see my intention, and so I may easily be (falsely) deemed a virtuous person, even hailed in the history books as a hero. So we cannot leave Virtue to be determined solely by society...
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5 comments:
Even when we act privately in secret, we are social beings, through and through.
Okay, I'll agree that we are social creatures -- the very language with which we think was created and given to us by society.
Fine.
I would willingly consent to have my virtue determined by, say, a small group of philosophers who have studied virtue and morality and ethics and KNOW what it means when someone says 'so-and-so is a virtuous person'... (Read: Those who embody virtue, or, at the very least, have studied it, are worthy of determining virtue.)
Frankly, I'm gonna hafta call upon the Fallacy of Unqualified Authority if society determines virtue.
Let's say Joe acts virtuously when he chooses to do x. Could he be the sole judge of x's qualities? In the extreme, if alone in the world, he could neither generate the necessary linguistic or cognitive talents to make that, or any, judgment. Moreover, he would be, by hypothesis, acting virtuously in the absence of anyone who -- save himself -- might be affected one way or the other by his actions. (Robinson Crusoe was a thoughtful, moral agent because transplanted from Victorian England.) Virtuous acts -- along with vicious ones -- have their source in and apply only to social conditions that allow individual agents to emerge and flourish. The sole remaining concerrn is accounting for innovation or creativity in the genesis and application of these virtues.
So, Joe could never truly be the sole judge of x's qualities _because_ he was raised in society? (Any judgement that he'd make would have its roots in society -- whether or not X is a social norm or not?)
I, as an individual, am only capable of judging the rightness or wrongness of an action because I am a member of (raised by, etc.) society?
I shall have to ponder this more... (It's truly amazing just how many tangled balls of yarn there are...)
You write:
"So, Joe could never truly be the sole judge of x's qualities _because_ he was raised in society? (Any judgement that he'd make would have its roots in society -- whether or not X is a social norm or not?)"
Joe's capacity to judge has its roots in society. So, in that sense at least, his judgment does as well (though it may differ from the majoritarian viewpoint).
You write:
"I, as an individual, am only capable of judging the rightness or wrongness of an action because I am a member of (raised by, etc.) society?"
Yes. And the rightness or wrongness necessarily involves those others. (In a solipsistic universe, there is no call for morality.)
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