Friday Filosophy: an analogy for virtue

Last week I wrote about the four principles of medical ethics (as described by Beauchamp and Childress): Beneficence, Non-maleficence, Autonomy, and Justice. I described that as the simple end, and over the next few posts I want to explore why they’re a bit too simple, and discuss some other frameworks.

Today, there’s just a short post, a “teaser trailer” if you will, for a discussion about Virtue, based on the thinking of Aristotle. Really I just want to suggest an analogy that came to me earlier this week – as I’m all about simple/concrete analogies for complex ideas

We’ll look at my rose garden, and my lawn. My roses are coming along beautifully: much better this year than last, but that’s not really the point. The point is how I’m approaching the care of that rose garden. I’ve read about how best to prune them ideally, when to feed them, with what, and so on. I’ve carefully pruned them, changed the mulch, fed them appropriately, sprayed for blackspot etc and carefully removed any leaves that show the beginnings of blackspot. I’m keeping on top of schedules for feeding and so on. I’ve dead-headed them neatly and thoughtfully. I’ve stake up a couple of wandering canes … Basically (and herein lies the point) I’m striving for excellence. In that, there is virtue. So however my rose garden were to end up, it is a product of virtue – particularly because I will continue to strive to make it more excellent.

By contrast, we will look at my lawns. I mow the buggers when I have to. Yes I sprayed some “weed and feed” stuff on one of them at some point – but without actually knowing what type of grass we have, that wasn’t necessarily a good thing to do. I haven’t made any real effort to identify the grass, and to manage it appropriately. There is no virtue in my lawns – and would not be even if they by chance weren’t full of weeds. I have not striven for excellence; my actions have not been virtuous, in that sense.

So, virtue lies in one’s actions and motivations, rather than being judged solely on the result of those actions. I hope the contrast with the approach discussed last Friday is clear. I will go on to explore this further in future posts – or ideally attract a guest poster who really and truly gets it (you know who you are ). I’ll also step into some other related ethical/philosophical schools of thought.

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Tags: analogy, Aristotle, ethical, ethics, excellence, moral, philosophy, strive, virtue