Liezl Van Zyl

Since the publication of Judith Thomson’s 1976 paper, solving the Trolley Problem has been a favourite preoccupation of utilitarians and deontologists: Is there a general moral principle that can explain or support our conflicting intuitions in the Bystander and Footbridge cases? Why is it permissible to divert a runaway trolley, thereby killing one person to save five others, but impermissible to push a big man onto a track to save five others? I briefly discuss the reasons why virtue ethicists tend to avoid the Trolley Debate and then, with a few reservations and qualifications in place, go on to argue that a virtue ethicist can support our common-sense intuitions in the Bystander and Footbridge cases while also offering a response to Thomson’s Loop Challenge.

In this chapter I consider two questions about action evaluation: Is it the central task of normative ethics to concern itself with action evaluation?, and When it does concern itself with action evaluation, should its focus be on developing an account of right and wrong action, as opposed to, say, good and bad action? I argue that for virtue ethicists, the task of providing an account of right action is not of central importance, and that the strength of virtue ethics lies in the fact that it allows us to evaluate actions in terms of a rich aretaic vocabulary. In the second half of the chapter I propose a “relaxed” virtue-ethical account of right action, which denies that rightness is a particular quality shared by all actions appropriately referred to as “right,” and acknowledges that the meaning of “right action” differs from one context to another.

Virtue ethics has now well and truly established itself as one of the main normative theories. It is now quite common, and indeed, expected, for virtue ethics to be included, alongside deontology and consequentialism, in any Moral Philosophy syllabus worth its salt. Students are typically introduced to virtue ethics only after studying the other two normative theories, and this often sets the scene for various sorts of misunderstandings, with students expecting virtue ethics to be based on the same set of rules and assumptions as its rivals. Or at least, that is my experience. In this paper I want to focus on one such misunderstanding, which arises when trying to apply virtue ethics to our judgments of other people’s actions and behaviour. Although there are countless ways in which a theory can be misunderstood, it is worth guarding against this one in particular, given that it can lead someone who takes virtue ethics seriously to act in ways that are not virtuous, or even vicious. I begin by making a few remarks about the role of normative theory, and then go on to give four examples of how applying virtue ethics can lead to poor behaviour. In the final section I identify the mistake in question and conclude by noting how it can be avoided.

Virtue, Narrative, and Self connects two philosophical areas of study that have long been treated as distinct: virtue theory and narrative accounts of personal identity. Chapters address several important issues and neglected themes at the intersection of these research areas. Specific examples include the role of narrative in the identification, differentiation, and cultivation of virtue, the nature of practical reasoning and moral competence, and the influence of life's narrative structure on our conceptions of what it means to live and act well. This volume demonstrates how recent work from the philosophy of mind and action concerning narrativity and our understanding of the self can shed new light on questions about the nature of virtue, practical wisdom, and human flourishing. This book will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in virtue theory, moral philosophy, philosophy of mind and action, and moral education.

Virtue ethics encourages us to judge the actions of others, not merely as right or wrong, but as virtuous or vicious. In doing so, however, we risk acting viciously ourselves. That is, our judgments of others can be unfair, unkind, insensitive, uncharitable, or hypocritical, even while being accurate. I argue that in order to make good judgments of the actions of others we should turn to virtue ethics for action guidance. That is, our primary aim should not be to make accurate judgments but to act virtuously when judging others.

The rise of the phenomenon of virtue ethics in recent years has increased at a rapid pace. Such an explosion carries with it a number of great possibilities, as well as risks. This volume has been written to contribute a multi-faceted perspective to the current conversation about virtue. Among many other thought-provoking questions, the collection addresses the following: What are the virtues, and how are they enumerated? What are the internal problems among ethicists, and what are the objections and replies to contemporary virtue ethics? Additionally, the practical implications following from the answers to these questions are discussed in new and fascinating research. Fundamental concepts such as teleology and eudaimonism are addressed from both a historical and dialectical approach. This tome will contribute not only to providing further clarity to the current horizons in virtue ethics, but also to the practical conclusion following from the study: to challenge the reader toward a greater pursuit of the virtuous life.

This volume provides a clear and accessible overview of central concepts, positions, and arguments in virtue ethics. While it focuses primarily on Aristotelian virtue ethics, it also includes discussion of alternative forms of virtue ethics and competing normative theories. The first six chapters are organized around central questions in normative ethics that are of particular concern to virtue ethicists and their critics:  What is virtue ethics?  What makes a trait a virtue?  Is there a link between virtue and happiness?  What is involved in being well-motivated?  What is practical wisdom?  What makes an action right? The last four chapters focus on important challenges or objections to virtue ethics:  Can virtue ethics be applied to particular moral problems?  Does virtue ethics ultimately rely on moral principles?  Can it withstand the situationist critique?  What are the prospects for an environmental virtue ethics? With useful Summaries and Further Reading sections at the end of each chapter, the book is written for advanced undergraduates, but should also be useful to graduate students, professional philosophers, and anyone interested in normative ethics, applied ethics, moral psychology, or moral education.

This book delves deeply into modern surrogacy arrangements, responding to both practical and ethical critiques by offering a radically new model for surrogate motherhood. Current practice distinguishes between two models of surrogacy – the altruistic model and the commercial model, both of which present social, ethical, and conceptual challenges. This book proposes a novel arrangement for surrogate motherhood – the professional model. Inspired by professions, such as nursing, teaching, and social work, the professional model acknowledges the caring motives that surrogate mothers have while at the same time compensating them for their work. Walker and Van Zyl adopt an evidence-based approach to explain that the professional model enables trust between intended parents and surrogates, provides professional support at every stage of the relationship, affords legal protections against exploitation and commodification, and recognizes the rights and interests of all parties, including the intended baby. The model applies to both transnational and domestic surrogacy and will be of great interest to policy makers, social researchers, bioethicists, legal scholars, fertility professionals, clinicians, and graduate students in psychology, philosophy, medicine and ethics.

In this paper I argue that the disagreement between modern moral philosophers and (some) virtue ethicists about whether motive affects rightness is a result of conceptual disagreement, and that when they develop a theory of ‘right action,’ the two parties respond to two very different questions. Whereas virtue ethicists tend to use ‘right’ as interchangeable with ‘good’ or ‘virtuous’ and as implying moral praise, modern moral philosophers use it as roughly equivalent to ‘in accordance with moral obligation.’ One implication of this is that the possibility of an act being right by accident does not pose a problem for consequentialism or deontology. A further implication is that it reveals a shortcoming in virtue ethics, namely that it does not—yet needs to—present an account of moral obligation.

Some philosophers believe that a change in motive alone is sometimes sufficient to bring about a change in the deontic status (rightness or wrongness) of an action. I refer to this position as ‘weak motivism’, and distinguish it from ‘strong’ and ‘partial motivism’. I examine a number of cases where our intuitive judgements appear to support the weak motivist’s thesis, and argue that in each case an alternative explanation can be given for why a change in motive brings about (or, in some cases, appears to bring about) a change in deontic status.

Reproductive techniques and practices, ranging from ordinary birth-control measures and artificial insemination to embryo transfer and surrogate motherhood, have greatly enhanced our range of reproductive choices. As a consequence, they pose a number of difficult moral and legal questions with regard to the formation of a family and our conception of parenthood. A view that is becoming increasingly common is that parental rights and responsibilities should not be based on genetic relationships but should instead be seen as arising from agreements or contracts between individuals. Accordingly, a man who consents to his wife's artificial insemination by donor (AID) and not the sperm donor, is the legal father of the child; in surrogacy agreements, the “intending mother,” and not the surrogate, has the right to raise the resulting child. While agreeing that biology should not form the basis for assigning legal parenthood, I argue that the theory of intentional parenthood, despite being put forward as a liberal theory, is geared toward or will have the function of protecting the nuclear family and inhibiting the formation of alternative family forms.

Surrogate motherhood is treated as a form of adoption in many countries: the birth mother and her partner are presumed to be the parents of the child, while the intended parents have to adopt the baby once it is born. Other than compensation for expenses related to the pregnancy, payment to surrogates is not permitted. We believe that the failure to compensate surrogate mothers for their labour as well as the significant risks they undertake is both unfair and exploitative. We accept that introducing payment for surrogates would create a significant tension in the adoption model. However, we recommend rejecting the adoption model altogether rather than continuing to prohibit compensation to surrogates

In ‘Against agent-based virtue ethics' (2004) Michael Brady rejects agent-based virtue ethics on the grounds that it fails to capture the commonsense distinction between an agent's doing the right thing, and her doing it for the right reason. In his view, the failure to account for this distinction has paradoxical results, making it unable to explain why an agent has a duty to perform a given action. I argue that Brady's objection relies on the assumption that an agent-based account is committed to defining obligations in terms of actual motives. If we reject this view, and instead provide a version of agent-basing that determines obligations in terms of the motives of the hypothetical virtuous agent, the paradox disappears

In this paper I outline a motive-based virtue account of right action, according to which an action is right if it expresses or exhibits virtuous motive, and which defines virtue in terms of human flourishing. I indicate how this account allows us to deal with the problem of consequential luck. By applying this account to the question of whether it is ever morally right or accept able to assist in someone's death, I demonstrate how it also allows us to deal with the problem of circumstantial luck, which arises when an agent finds himself in a situation where he is forced to choose between two reprehensible acts. S. Afr. J. Philos. Vol.23(1) 2004: 20–33

According to qualified-agent virtue ethics, an action is right if and only if it is what a virtuous agent would characteristically do in the circumstances. I discuss two closely related objections to this view, both of which concern the actions of the non-virtuous. The first is that this criterion sometimes gives the wrong result, for in some cases a non-virtuous agent should not do what a virtuous person would characteristically do. A second objection is it altogether fails to apply whenever the agent, through previous wrongdoing, finds herself in circumstances that a virtuous person cannot be in. I focus on Rosalind Hursthouse's account of right action, and argue that it can provide a satisfactory response to both these objections. I do so by drawing attention to the distinction between action guidance and action assessment, and arguing that while the above criterion is adequate as a means of action assessment, we should turn to the virtue- and vice-rules (v-rules) for action guidance.

Agent-based accounts of virtue ethics, such as the one provided by Michael Slote, base the rightness of action in the motive from which it proceeds. A frequent objection to agent-basing is that it does not allow us to draw the commonsense distinction between doing the right thing and doing it for the right reasons, that is, between act-evaluation and agent-appraisal. I defend agent-basing against this objection, but argue that a more fundamental problem for this account is its apparent failure to provide adequate argue action guidance. I then show that this problem can be solved by supplementing an agent-based criterion of right action with a hypothetical-agent criterion of action guidance

Some philosophers believe that a change in motive alone is sometimes sufficient to bring about a change in the deontic status (rightness or wrongness) of an action. I refer to this position as ‘weak motivism’, and distinguish it from ‘strong’ and ‘partial motivism’. I examine a number of cases where our intuitive judgements appear to support the weak motivist’s thesis, and argue that in each case an alternative explanation can be given for why a change in motive brings about (or, in some cases, appears to bring about) a change in deontic status.

In recent years, a number of writers dealingwith questions over parenthood that arisein the context of reproductive technologies andsurrogate motherhood, have appealed to thenotion of ``intentional parenthood''. Basingtheir argument on liberal values such asindividual autonomy, the freedom to entercontracts, the right to privacy, and individualself-fulfilment, they argue that contractuallystated intentions, rather than genetic orgestational relationships, should form thebasis of parental rights. Against this I arguethat parental rights do not derive fromcontractual agreements, but are based in theirobligations towards the child. I then examinethe nature of the obligations that the variousparties have towards the child both pre- andpostnatally

Reproductive techniques and practices, ranging from ordinary birth-control measures and artificial insemination to embryo transfer and surrogate motherhood, have greatly enhanced our range of reproductive choices. As a consequence, they pose a number of difficult moral and legal questions with regard to the formation of a family and our conception of parenthood. A view that is becoming increasingly common is that parental rights and responsibilities should not be based on genetic relationships but should instead be seen as arising from agreements or contracts between individuals. Accordingly, a man who consents to his wife's artificial insemination by donor (AID) and not the sperm donor, is the legal father of the child; in surrogacy agreements, the intending mother, and not the surrogate, has the right to raise the resulting child. While agreeing that biology should not form the basis for assigning legal parenthood, I argue that the theory of intentional parenthood, despite being put forward as a liberal theory, is geared toward or will have the function of protecting the nuclear family and inhibiting the formation of alternative family forms

Critics of virtue ethics have argued that its focus on character rather than action, as well as its rejection of universal rules of right action renders virtue ethics unable to shed much light on the question of what ought and ought not to be done in specific situations. According to them, this explains why so few attempts have been made to apply virtue theory to specific moral questions. In this paper I aim to go some way towards developing a version of virtue theory that satisfies four constraints that applied ethics places upon moral theory, namely that it should: (1) present standards of right action; (2) show a sensitivity to the complexity of moral life in multicultural and pluralistic societies; (3) accept the principle of universalisability as a necessary property of an ethical theory, and (4) provide a non-egoistic justification and explanation of universal rules and principles. S. Afr. J. Philos. Vol.21(2) 2002: 133-143

It has become common to distinguish between altruistic and commercial contract motherhood (or ‘surrogacy’). Altruistic arrangements are based on the ‘gift relationship’: a woman is motivated by altruism to have a baby for an infertile couple, who are free to reciprocate as they see fit. By contrast, in commercial arrangements both parties are motivated by personal gain to enter a legally enforceable agreement, which stipulates that the contract mother or ‘surrogate’ is to bear a child for the intending parents in exchange for a fee. She is required to undergo medical examinations and to refrain from behaviour that could harm the foetus. The intending parents are the child's legal parents from the outset. The parties to the contract can, but are not expected to, maintain contact after the transaction is completed. We argue that contract motherhood should not be organized according to the norms of the gift relationship, and that contract mothers should be compensated for their labour. However, we accept that there are good reasons for rejecting the commercial model as a suitable framework for contract pregnancy, and argue, instead, in favour of viewing it as a profession

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.