[Xmca-l] Re: Appeal for help

[Andy Blunden]

This is taking us into questions I didn't want to get 
involved in on this list, Rob. But "who decides?" is not a 
relevant question really. We are not issuing scores. In the 
fullness of time, who exercised good moral judgment and who 
failed to may become clear. But maybe it won't. There is no 
"criterion", otherwise we wouldn't have a virtue ethics, 
we'd have a consequentialist ethics, and the thing is that 
we never actually know the consequences of what we are about 
to do.

Andy

------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden
http://home.mira.net/~andy
http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making 

On 5/07/2016 8:38 PM, R.J.S.Parsons wrote:
> Hi Andy - good point about people expressing the virtues. I must think
> further about that.
>
> The next question instantly gives me pause for thought - the idea of a
> natural virtue that allows people to do bad things. The immediate
> question, I suppose, is who decides. Is anger never a virtuous act? if
> it is, who decides when it is and when it isn't? I could conceive of a
> Leave voter who was justifiably angry about political manipulation, but
> who would genuinely disassociate themselves from the manifestations of
> racism we have seen recently.
>
> Rob
>
> On 05/07/2016 11:15, Andy Blunden wrote:
>> Rob, yes, you are talking about my topic here. But instead of saying:
>> "the project has very definitely shaped the virtues its proponents
>> hold," I say the individuals express the virtues (or lack thereof) of
>> the project. And in virtue ethics, a natural virtue which allows
>> people to do bad things, which they would not do if they could
>> exercise moral wisdom to control their actions, are imperfect, they
>> are not really virtues. "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread" for
>> example.