Last night I was having a lively conversation with Ben Millerabout having virtues and reflecting on virtues. My position is that (at least) certain virtues never require the virtuous agent to reflect on what makes that character trait a virtue. Below I’m going to sketch out an account of compassion that makes this clear.
Imagine two agents Ev and Ben. Both agents come upon a person who has been very badly beaten. Let us assume that both Ev and Ben have identical backgrounds with respect to ways in which they might act compassionately towards the beaten person (i.e. they have no medical training) and that acting compassionately towards the beaten person (say by calling for help and comforting the beaten person until help arrives) costs them very little. Both Ev and Ben do the compassionate thing dictated by the relevant details of the situation.
After the fact we ask both Ben and Ev “why did you help the person?” Both respond that it was the compassionate thing to do and give an account of why compassion was called for. They give similar stories about a person in need (perhaps they give non-philosophical reasons about moral status of other people) and note that there is little cost to themselves to respond compassionately. After they give this answer we then ask them both “why should you be compassionate?” Ben responds by giving an account of the role compassion plays in the life of the flourishing individual (a roughly Hursthousian or Footian account) and justifies compassion as a virtue. Ev responds that she has never really thought about why to be compassionate just that it seems an appropriate disposition to have with respect to other people.
It strikes me that we want to say that both Ev and Ben are equally virtuous (it might even be the case that Ev is more virtuous depending on the role that the Footian account plays in Ben’s acting. If it turns out that the reasons he gives for acting compassionately include the justification for compassion, we might say he isn’t acting from compassion. This is especially true if part of the justification for acting compassionately is eudaimonistic.) Ev and Ben both act in right way in the given context (compassionately) for the right reasons (they point out the relevant features of the context that demand a compassionate response), and (lets assume) they do so happily and in line with their characters. It strikes me that (at least) for compassion, no reflection on what makes that trait a virtue is neccessary. Ev’s intuition that compassion is good trait is enough to make it possible for her to be virtuous.
I should say that Ben did mention that we should distinguish between philosophical and every day reflection and perhaphs he meant by this something similar to what I am trying to push here.
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