Ethical Naturalism in Hursthouse’s “On Virtue Ethics” Essay

In her works on virtue ethics, Rosalind Hursthouse claims that virtues are not always relevant to label a person as good or bad. In order to be regarded as a good man, it is not important to live with the focus on standard virtues like courage, generosity, or justice and act in accordance with them. The reason is that attention should be paid to the person’s natural or character traits that are essential to demonstrate whether a person is good or bad.

Hursthouse also uses the notion of “role-dependent” virtues that can be different depending on the person’s individuality¹. In this context, it is important to decide whether Hursthouse’s focus on character traits and dependent or individual virtues are convincing with references to ethical naturalism. It is also important to conclude whether ethical naturalism is more appropriate to be referred to by persons in their everyday life in order to explain the principles of being good.

Thus, Hursthouse’s approach to discussing the ethically relevant aspects in the life of human beings with the focus on ethical naturalism is convincing because the philosopher assumes the difference in people who can be good in relation to the fact that good people are not always characterized by traditional virtues; but they can have specific traits that make these rational beings good in a variety of situations.

In spite of focusing on social and moral aspects and trying to evaluate themselves ethically, human beings remain to be part of the natural world. Therefore, according to Hursthouse’s idea, human beings should be considered as part of the natural world, and they are influenced by the biological order and other natural aspects. Hursthouse supports this idea while stating that “ethical evaluations of ourselves ought to exhibit at least a recognizably similar structure to what we find in the botanists’ and ethologists’ evaluations of other living things.” Furthermore, people need to use ethical evaluations of ourselves “to resemble that of a sophisticated social animal with some differences necessitated by our being not only social but also rational”².

It is also important to note that there are certain criteria for an ethical evaluation in the natural world. These criteria include the focus on reactions, emotions, desires, and actions, and they are typical for social animals.³ As a result, it is relevant to evaluate human beings according to the ethical criteria proposed for the social animals in the context of ethical naturalism because all these beings are parts of the natural world.

The idea of ethical evaluation is associated with the problem of defining virtues. Following Hursthouse, it is significant to pay attention to the fact that standard virtues cannot be discussed as actual virtues that are important for characterizing people. Hursthouse also notes in her work that “to be a good human being is to be well endowed with respect to the aspects listed; to possess the human virtues is to be thus well endowed”⁴. Furthermore, not all good people can have such standard virtues as courage, justice, generosity, or honesty.

As a result, there is a question about defining them as good or bad people. However, it is necessary to state that these people can usually address the four naturalistic ends regarding their “individual survival”, “continuance of the species,” characteristic enjoyment, and the “good functioning of the social group”⁵. Hence, in order to be a good human, standard virtues are not enough, but naturalistic ethical aspects are extremely important, and they need to be taken into account in ethical evaluations.

In this case, it is possible to note that Hursthouse tries to discuss the real nature of virtues in her work. The philosopher states that virtues should be discussed in terms of character traits, and there are also specific role-dependent virtues that describe individuals’ social roles. Thus, according to Hursthouse, “a life lived in accordance with the virtues can take a great variety of forms”⁶. In this context, naturalistic criteria allow focusing on human beings as individuals with their individual character traits that make them be good.

Details related to the individuals’ character needs to be discussed during the evaluation, and ethical naturalism can be considered as more representative in this case. From this point, ethical naturalism is convincing because character traits can influence the person’s good more importantly than the relation to standard virtues.

Having focused on Hursthouse’s argument, it is important to state that people usually refer to standard virtues in order to discuss themselves as good or bad, but it is more appropriate to refer to the certain naturalistic ethical criteria identified by the philosopher because they are more related to the nature of the human being. The other argument to state that Hursthouse’s approach to and vision of ethical naturalism is convincing is that the philosopher pays much attention to the humans’ individuality in terms of their character traits.

As a result, a person can be evaluated as a good not in cases when all the standard virtues are possessed by this person, but mostly when this person demonstrates achieving four naturalistic ends. Furthermore, even in this situation, much attention should be paid to the associated factors and details in order to state whether a person is good or bad. From this perspective, Hursthouse’s vision of evaluation criteria proposed in the context of ethical naturalism seems to be complete, reasonable, and convincing.

Bibliography

Hursthouse, Rosalind. On Virtue Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Print.

Footnotes

1. Rosalind Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 14.
2. Rosalind Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics, 8.
3. Ibid., 9.
4. Ibid., 9.
5. Ibid., 10.
6. Ibid., 16.