Liezl Van Zyl

In Morals from Motives (2001) Michael Slote puts forward an agent-based virtue ethics that purports to derive an account of deontic terms from aretaic evaluations of motives or character traits. In this view, an action is right if and only if it proceeds from a good or virtuous motive or at least does not come from a bad motive, and wrong if it comes from a bad motive. I argue that Slote does not provide an account of right action at all, that is, if ‘right action’ is understood in the strict deontic sense of an act that is either permissible or obligatory. An examination of Slote’s treatment of the problem of moral luck shows that he presupposes a conceptual link between what is morally wrong and what is blameworthy. I conclude by suggesting that agent-based virtue ethics may do better as an attempt to eliminate deontic notions altogether.

Virtue ethics has emerged as a distinct field within moral theory - whether as an alternative account of right action or as a conception of normativity which departs entirely from the obligatoriness of morality - and has proved itself invaluable to many aspects of contemporary applied ethics. Virtue ethics now flourishes in philosophy, sociology and theology and its applications extend to law, politics and bioethics. 'The handbook of virtue ethics' brings together leading international scholars to provide an overview of the field. Each chapter summarizes and assesses the most important work on a particular topic and sets this work in the context of historical developments. Taking a global approach by embracing a variety of major cultural traditions along with the Western, the handbook maps the emergence of virtue ethics and provides a framework for future developments.

In this paper we examine the questions “What does it mean to be a surrogate mother?” and “What would be an appropriate perspective for a surrogate mother to have on her pregnancy?” In response to the objection that such contracts are alienating or dehumanising since they require women to suppress their evolving perspective on their pregnancies, liberal supporters of surrogate motherhood argue that the freedom to contract includes the freedom to enter a contract to bear a child for an infertile couple. After entering the contract the surrogate may not be free to interpret her pregnancy as that of a non-surrogate mother, but there is more than one appropriate way of interpreting one's pregnancy. To restrict or ban surrogacy contracts would be to prohibit women from making other particular interpretations of their pregnancies they may wish to make, requiring them to live up to a culturally constituted image of ideal motherhood. We examine three interpretations of a “surrogate pregnancy” that are implicit in the views and arguments put forward by ethicists, surrogacy agencies, and surrogate mothers themselves. We hope to show that our concern in this regard goes beyond the view that surrogacy contracts deny or suppress the natural, instinctive or conventional interpretation of pregnancy

A diagnosis of fetal abnormality presents parents with a difficult – even tragic – moral dilemma. Where this diagnosis is made in the context of surrogate motherhood there is an added difficulty, namely that it is not obvious who should be involved in making decisions about abortion, for the person who would normally have the right to decide – the pregnant woman – does not intend to raise the child. This raises the question: To what extent, if at all, should the intended parents be involved in decision-making? In commercial surrogacy it is thought that as part of the contractual agreement the intended parents acquire the right to make this decision. By contrast, in altruistic surrogacy the pregnant woman retains the right to make these decisions, but the intended parents are free to decide not to adopt the child. We argue that both these strategies are morally unsound, and that the problems encountered serve to highlight more fundamental defects within the commercial and altruistic models, as well as in the legal and institutional frameworks that support them. We argue in favour of the professional model, which acknowledges the rights and responsibilities of both parties and provides a legal and institutional framework that supports good decision-making. In particular, the professional model acknowledges the surrogate's right to decide whether to undergo an abortion, and the intended parents' obligation to accept legal custody of the child. While not solving all the problems that arise in surrogacy, the model provides a framework that supports good decision-making

In Morals from Motives (2001) Michael Slote puts forward an agent-based virtue ethics that purports to derive an account of deontic terms from aretaic evaluations of motives or character traits. In this view, an action is right if and only if it proceeds from a good or virtuous motive or at least does not come from a bad motive, and wrong if it comes from a bad motive. I argue that Slote does not provide an account of right action at all, that is, if ‘right action’ is understood in the strict deontic sense of an act that is either permissible or obligatory. An examination of Slote’s treatment of the problem of moral luck shows that he presupposes a conceptual link between what is morally wrong and what is blameworthy. I conclude by suggesting that agent-based virtue ethics may do better as an attempt to eliminate deontic notions altogether.

A tragic dilemma is thought to arise when an agent, through no fault of her own, finds herself in a situation where she must choose between two courses of action, both of which it would be wrong to undertake. I focus on tragic dilemmas that are resolvable, that is, where a reason can be given in favour of one course of action over another, and my aim is to examine whether Hursthouse's virtue-ethical account of right action succeeds in avoiding two problems presented by tragic dilemmas. The first of these is that they produce the seemingly contradictory conclusion that an agent, in doing what she ought to do, acts wrongly, making it appropriate for her to feel guilt. The second is the paradox of moral luck, which consists in the conflict between the intuition that an agent cannot be held responsible for actions that are not fully voluntary, and the fact that she may nevertheless believe that she has done something morally reprehensible. I argue that if we accept Hursthouse's separation of action guidance and action assessment, her account succeeds in solving the problem of contradiction. However, it does not completely avoid the problem of moral luck. I argue, against Hursthouse, that the virtuous agent can emerge from a tragic dilemma having acted well, and that this is the conclusion we must arrive at if we want to avoid the problem of contradiction and of moral luck.

Qualified-agent virtue ethics provides an account of right action in terms of the virtuous agent. It has become one of the most popular, but also most frequently criticized versions of virtue ethics. Many of the objections rest on the mistaken assumption that proponents of qualified-agent virtue ethics share the same view when it comes to fundamental questions about the meaning of the term ‘right action’ and the function of an account of right action. My aim in this paper is not to defend qualified-agent virtue ethics but to correct this misunderstanding, and this will hopefully leave us in a better position to evaluate it