Virtue Ethics Research Articles

Animals and Artificial Intelligence: Nonhumans as Moral Agents?

There is a widely debated issue regarding the status and impact of exponentially growing artificial intelligence. The article deals with the problem of the moral agency of animals, and artificial intelligence. The author addresses several criteria for moral agents and tries to find the answer to the question of whether we can treat animals and AI as moral agents. The author uses mostly method of philosophical analysis and comparative method. The author claims that moral agency is not a necessary condition for moral status and doubts the practicality of attributing full moral agency to animals and AI. Moreover, claims that moral agency comes in degrees and different kinds and therefore we have to consider the complex nature of moral agency when dealing with moral actions. For instance, even human moral agents are not all on the same level of development as suggested not just by empirical evidence but also virtue ethics.

Roger Scruton’s theory of the imagination and aesthetics as a formulation of Aristotelian virtue ethics

ABSTRACT Scholars who mention the turn to Aristotelian virtue ethics in the Mid-Twentieth Century tend to cite G. E. M. Anscombe’s famous ‘complaint’, and sometimes Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue. It is less usual to write of Roger Scruton. Placed in the context of Bernard Williams and John Casey’s works – at the intersection of moral philosophy and the philosophy of the emotions – Scruton’s theory of the imagination is shown to concern the rationality of moral attitudes. In short, it concerns virtue ethics. Of broader interest, following Scruton’s arguments, his aesthetics may be conceived as concerning stores of moral knowledge; this is by virtue of the sensuous conditioning of the thought-content of moral judgement. The centrality of imitation to Aristotelian ethics, in other words, finds its concomitant in the object of imitation as the artwork. It is my view that Scruton’s work, Art and Imagination (his PhD thesis of 1973), is an attempt to provide a framework for the judgement involved in virtue ethics, concerning both intentionality and object.

Dispositions, Virtues, and Indian Ethics

ABSTRACTAccording to Arti Dhand, it can be argued that all Indian ethics have been primarily virtue ethics. Many have indeed jumped on the virtue bandwagon, providing prima facie interpretations of Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist canons in virtue terms. Others have expressed firm skepticism, claiming that virtues are not proven to be grounded in the nature of things and that, ultimately, the appeal to virtue might just well be a mere façon de parler. In this paper, we aim to advance the discussion of Indian virtue ethics. Our intent is not to provide a catch‐all interpretation of the different Indian schools. Our goal is, more modestly, to offer a theory of virtues in Indian philosophies, as a framework for theorists and interpreters who see these diverse traditions as amenable to systematic virtue analysis. Our theory grounds virtues in the reality of genuine moral dispositions and in a system of beliefs where morality is understood as transformative in nature.

An attempt at an evaluation of Philippa Foot’s conception of naturalistic virtue ethics

In this article I present subsequent stages of the evolution of Ph. Foot’s conception. I point out that her concepts of morality, virtue and justice are detached from earlier visions of the world (ancient harmony, Christian divine order). At each stage of the evolution of her project, she is forced either to make arbitrary decisions or to make metaphysical assumptions. I emphasize that biological references in justifying the need for morality may be legitimate as long as we understand ethics as a practical science that aims to achieve practical goals (including the protection of the human species).

Development and validation of the aristotelian virtue of conscientiousness scale using Rasch methodology

AbstractIn the dominant Aristotelian view, virtues are traits that contribute to human flourishing, happiness and well-being. Although some scales in psychology are partially based on Aristotelian virtue theory, few of them operationalise all the aspects of virtues that Aristotle took to be essential. The aim of this project was to develop and validate the Aristotelian Virtue of Conscientiousness Scale (AVCS). The initial 60 scale items were developed based on Aristotelian virtue theory. This item pool was piloted and administered to a sample (n = 301) together with measures of distress, satisfaction with life and Big Five Conscientiousness. The twenty-eight most reliable items were selected based on psychometric criteria and subjected to Rasch analysis. The best model fit was achieved when items were combined into six testlets to address local dependency. The AVCS scale displayed excellent reliability (Person Separation Index = 0.88) and was invariant across gender and age. The ordinal-to-interval conversion tables were generated for the AVCS ordinal scores, which strongly correlated with life satisfaction. The AVCS is a reliable and valid measure with good psychometric properties that can be used in future happiness research. The ordinal AVCS scores can be transformed into interval level data using conversion tables published here, which improves accuracy of measurement.

From applied ethics and ethical principles to virtue and narrative in AI practices

AbstractThe question of how we can use ethics and ethical frameworks to avert the negative consequences of AI through guidance on human behaviour and the design of technological systems has recently been receiving increasing attention. The appropriate response to an ethics of AI has certainly been contentious. For some years the wisdom of deontology and utilitarianism in the ethics of technology has been questioned. Today, a kind of AI ethics principlism has gained a degree of widespread acceptance, yet it still invites harsh rejections in recent scholarship. In this paper, we wish to explore the contribution to an ethics of AI made by a narrative philosophy and ethics of technology inspired by the ‘little ethics’ of Paul Ricoeur, and virtue ethics of Alasdair MacIntyre, most recently and promisingly built upon by Wessel Reijers and Mark Coeckelbergh. The objective of this paper is to examine the extent to which a narrative and virtue based ethics (or, VPD, i.e., virtuous practice design) might be a plausible candidate for the foundation of an ethics of AI, or rather ethical AI practice. This will be achieved by exploring the ways in which this approach can respond to some of the significant faults with or critiques of applied and principles and guidelines based ethical approaches to AI ethics.

Epistemic Authorities and Skilled Agents: A Pluralist Account of Moral Expertise

AbstractThis paper explores the concept of moral expertise in the contemporary philosophical debate, with a focus on three accounts discussed across moral epistemology, bioethics, and virtue ethics: an epistemic authority account, a skilled agent account, and a hybrid model sharing key features of the two. It is argued that there are no convincing reasons to defend a monistic approach that reduces moral expertise to only one of these models. A pluralist view is outlined in the attempt to reorient the discussion about moral expertise.

Cultivating Dignity in Intelligent Systems

As artificial intelligence (AI) integrates across social domains, prevailing technical paradigms often overlook human relational needs vital for cooperative resilience. Alternative pathways consciously supporting dignity and wisdom warrant consideration. Integrating seminal insights from virtue and care ethics, this article delineates the following four cardinal design principles prioritizing communal health: (1) affirming the sanctity of life; (2) nurturing healthy attachment; (3) facilitating communal wholeness; and (4) safeguarding societal resilience. Grounding my analysis in the rich traditions of moral philosophy, I argue that these principles scaffold sustainable innovation trajectories that consciously center shared welfare advancement over detached technical capabilities or efficiency benchmarks alone. Elucidating connections with pioneering initiatives demonstrates fragments of this vision taking embryonic shape, yet pervasive adoption remains largely aspirational to date. Fulfilling dignity-based artificial intelligence demands ongoing collective commitment beyond firms’ profit motives or governance proceduralism. My conclusions urge technology policies and priorities directed toward empowering the vulnerability of people rather than controlling the optimization of systems.

On the computational complexity of ethics: moral tractability for minds and machines

Why should moral philosophers, moral psychologists, and machine ethicists care about computational complexity? Debates on whether artificial intelligence (AI) can or should be used to solve problems in ethical domains have mainly been driven by what AI can or cannot do in terms of human capacities. In this paper, we tackle the problem from the other end by exploring what kind of moral machines are possible based on what computational systems can or cannot do. To do so, we analyze normative ethics through the lens of computational complexity. First, we introduce computational complexity for the uninitiated reader and discuss how the complexity of ethical problems can be framed within Marr’s three levels of analysis. We then study a range of ethical problems based on consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics, with the aim of elucidating the complexity associated with the problems themselves (e.g., due to combinatorics, uncertainty, strategic dynamics), the computational methods employed (e.g., probability, logic, learning), and the available resources (e.g., time, knowledge, learning). The results indicate that most problems the normative frameworks pose lead to tractability issues in every category analyzed. Our investigation also provides several insights about the computational nature of normative ethics, including the differences between rule- and outcome-based moral strategies, and the implementation-variance with regard to moral resources. We then discuss the consequences complexity results have for the prospect of moral machines in virtue of the trade-off between optimality and efficiency. Finally, we elucidate how computational complexity can be used to inform both philosophical and cognitive-psychological research on human morality by advancing the moral tractability thesis.

Anthropological Turn of Virtue Ethics: The Revival of Aristotelian Ethics in the Second Half of the 20th Century

Anthropological Turn of Virtue Ethics: The Revival of Aristotelian Ethics in the Second Half of the 20th Century

Care ethics in transnational healthcare: attentiveness, competence, and responsibility in medical travel facilitation

ABSTRACT Travelling abroad and seeking healthcare beyond the national healthcare system is a reality for many patients, and a whole industry has evolved around medical travel over the last decades. Transnational healthcare is highly mediated, and different sorts of facilitators contribute to making medical travel more feasible and comfortable for international patients. However, the negotiation of different options, interests, and values around care is challenging, ethically complex, and compounded by the transnational context. This paper draws on care ethics to discuss the ways in which complexities around care are being negotiated through practices of medical travel facilitation between Oman and India. To do so, the paper analyses the process of selecting a healthcare provider abroad – one of the critical moments of mediating medical travel – in detail, with special attention to the ethical virtues of attentiveness, competence, and responsibility. The empirical data illustrates some of the ethical challenges around care, which are accentuated in transnational healthcare, and builds up a care ethic that allows for negotiations to be a situational and a collaborative effort towards a ‘good enough’ compromise.

인간 행위에서 정념의 위상과 기능: 중세 그리스도교적 맥락

This article is a study to explore the theory of passion in Thomas Aquinas’s Moral Theology from a pedagogical perspective. Aquinas’s discussion on the passions is an advantageous position in examining how the philosophical discussion on the passions that started in ancient times developed in the medieval Christian context. As a matter of fact, on the one hand, his discussion can be seen as representing the tradition of medieval Christianity as it is based on the Bible and the thoughts of the Church Fathers, and on the other hand, it can be seen as reflecting discussion of ancient philosophy as it is based on Aristotle’s discussions of metaphysics and ethics. 
 To this end, first, the view on human nature was confirmed through the doctrine of original sin regarding the origin of sins as the context in which passion was dealt with in medieval Christianity. Next, the study attempted to examine the practical impact of the theoretical discussion on passion through the doctrine of capital sins regarding the aspects of sins on the moral life of medieval people, especially through the ascetic life of the monastic system. According to Aquinas, original sin corresponds to the sin of human nature, and it is not simply due to the disorderly action of a single element called passion. The privation of original justice, whereby the will was made subject to God, is the formal element in original sin; while every other disorder of the soul’s powers, is a kind of material element in respect of original sin. On the other hand, cardinal sins correspond to the sin of an individual personality, and it can be defined as a disorder that appears in relation to the good pursued by certain areas of human nature. These doctrines can be seen not only as an understanding and explanation of human existence, but also as directing educational practice regarding moral life, and rather, they can be seen as being justified by educational practice. Passion can become materials for sin and vice but at the same time, it can also become materials for ethical virtues through its interaction with reason. We are given educational tasks to continuously ethically explore the meaning of goodness and to form habits of virtue.

Technology and the Situationist Challenge to Virtue Ethics

In this paper, I introduce a “promises and perils” framework for understanding the “soft” impacts of emerging technology, and argue for a eudaimonic conception of well-being. This eudaimonic conception of well-being, however, presupposes that we have something like stable character traits. I therefore defend this view from the “situationist challenge” and show that instead of viewing this challenge as a threat to well-being, we can incorporate it into how we think about living well with technology. Human beings are susceptible to situational influences and are often unaware of the ways that their social and technological environment influence not only their ability to do well, but even their ability to know whether they are doing well. Any theory that attempts to describe what it means for us to be doing well, then, needs to take these contextual features into account and bake them into a theory of human flourishing. By paying careful attention to these contextual factors, we can design systems that promote human flourishing.

Leibniz as a virtue ethicist

AbstractIn this paper I argue that Leibniz's ethics is a kind of virtue ethics where virtues of the agent are explanatorily primary. I first examine how Leibniz obtained his conception of justice as a kind of love in an early text, Elements of Natural Law. I show that in this text Leibniz's goal was to find a satisfactory definition of justice that could reconcile egoism with altruism, and that this was achieved through the Aristotelian virtue of friendship where friends treat each other as “other selves.” Following this decisive moment, Leibniz adopted an Aristotle‐inspired ethical framework where the virtuous agent is central for moral evaluations. I then show that, despite certain developments, Leibniz's ethics retained this essential feature throughout his career. In Leibniz's later writings, God constitutes the foundation of the moral realm, and the fundamental moral endeavor of human beings consists in the imitation of God.

The Homo Economicus as a Prototype of a Psychopath? A Conceptual Analysis and Implications for Business Research and Teaching

AbstractSince the beginning of business research and teaching, the basic assumptions of the discipline have been intensely debated. One of these basic assumptions concerns the behavioral aspects of human beings, which are traditionally represented in the construct of homo economicus. These assumptions have been increasingly challenged in light of findings from social, ethnological, psychological, and ethical research. Some publications from an integrative perspective have suggested that homo economicus embodies to a high degree dark character traits, particularly related to the construct of psychopathy, representing individuals who are extremely self-centered and ruthless, without feelings of remorse or compassion. While a growing body of research notes such a similarity on a more or less anecdotal basis, this article aims to explore this connection from a more rigorous perspective, bridging insights from psychological, economic, and business research to better understand the potentially dark traits of homo economicus. The analysis shows that homo economicus is not simply some kind of psychopath, but specifically a so-called subclinical or Factor 1 psychopath, who is also referred to as a “corporate psychopath” in business research. With such an analysis, the paper adds an additional perspective and a deeper psychological level of understanding as to why homo economicus is often controversially debated. Based on these insights, several implications for academic research and teaching are discussed and reflected upon in light of an ethics of virtue and care.

The Role of Games in the Moral Education of Children from an Islamic Perspective

In this article, we will examine moral education through games from an Islamic perspective. To this end, we will first present a discussion of virtue ethics as the theoretical framework of our discussion since a major part of Islamic moral education can be explained through it. As we will explain, virtue ethics emphasizes the effect of following moral patterns in character formation. Then, we will discuss the place of games in the moral education method of the Prophet of Islam and the Shia Imams and show how they paid attention to the moral education of children through games. We will then look at some new games designed by Islamic education experts for this purpose. Finally, we will discuss some theoretical mechanisms to explain the efficacy of these games and examine an empirical case study conducted in this field. Research Objectives: To explore the role of games in the moral education method of the Prophet of Islam and the Shia Imams. Research Methods: A qualitative documentary method to study the place of games in Islamic moral teachings and methods. Research Results: A major part of Islamic moral education can be explained through the virtue ethics framework, which emphasizes the effect of following moral patterns in character formation.

The ethical wisdom of AI developers

AbstractThis paper explores ethical wisdom in the artificial intelligence (AI) developer community. Despite robust literature about the need for virtue ethics approaches in AI development, little research has directly engaged with the developer community about their progress in this regard. We have thus conducted semi-structured interviews with a worldwide cohort of 40 developers, which focused on their awareness of ethics issues, how they navigate ethical challenges, and the barriers they encounter in developing ethical wisdom. We find developers are largely aware of the ethical territories they must navigate and the moral dilemmas they personally encounter, but they face limited and inconsistent resources for ethical guidance or training. Furthermore, there are significant barriers inhibiting the development of ethical wisdom in the AI developer community, including the industry’s fixation on innovation, the narrow scope of technical practice, limited provisions for reflection and dialogue, and incentive structures that prioritize profits and prestige. The paper concludes by emphasizing the need to address the gap in domain-specific ethical skill and provides recommendations for organizations, educators, and the AI developer community.

Why Aristotle Isn’t a Virtue Ethicist. Living Well and Virtuously in Aristotelian and Contemporary Aretaic Ethics

AbstractDrawing on Anscombe, in this essay I argue that we should not take Aristotle to be a moral philosopher, nor a virtue ethicist. This is because contemporary virtue ethics has little to do with Aristotelian ethics. While contemporary virtue ethics (or aretaic moral theory, as one may call it) operates on the level of moral and thus categorical norms, Aristotelian ethics—an aretaic life ethics—is primarily concerned with pragmatic norms. The main question for Aristotle is what a good general conduct of life is. The major concern of aretaic moral theory, on the other hand, is to provide a criterion of morally right action and hence to define the concepts of the morally right, the impermissible and moral duty in aretaic terms. This shows that contemporary authors assume a primacy of virtue, while Aristotle assumes a primacy of eudaimonia. I illustrate this distinction by addressing the question of how the virtues benefit their possessor.

Why Practical Wisdom Cannot be Eliminated

AbstractPractical wisdom eliminativism has recently been proposed in both philosophy and psychology, on the grounds of the alleged redundancy of practical wisdom (Miller 2021) and its purported developmental/psychological implausibility (Lapsley 2021). Here we respond to these challenges by drawing on an improved version of a view of practical wisdom, the “Aretai model”, that we have presented elsewhere (De Caro et al. 2021; Vaccarezza et al. 2023; De Caro et al. forthcoming). According to this model, practical wisdom is conceptualized: (i) as virtuousness tout court, i.e., as the ratio essendi of the virtues, and (ii) as a form of ethical expertise. By appealing to the first thesis, we counter the charge of psychological implausibility, while we rely on the second thesis to address the accusation of redundancy. In conclusion we argue that the Aretai model implies a significant paradigm shift in virtue ethics. Practical wisdom emerges as both necessary and sufficient for virtuousness, thereby downsizing – without eliminating entirely – the role that individual virtues play in our ethical lives.

Public Opinion Through Art: Exploring Chinese University Students' Perspectives on COVID-19 Mass Nucleic Acid Testing.

In the context of the global COVID-19 pandemic, this study focuses on Chinese university students, employing graphic elicitation as a qualitative research method to analyze their hand-drawn paintings and related descriptions. Augmented by A/r/tography and metacognitive methods, the research aims to unveil the participants' collective memory, as well as the perspectives and responses of these students to policies related to the pandemic. By specifically examining this particular demographic, the study incorporates Fairclough's ethical theory, applying deontological ethics, consequentialist ethics, and virtue ethics to establish a comprehensive framework for evaluating adjustments to pandemic response policies. This research not only enhances our understanding of how these university students perceive and adapt to COVID-19 policies but also provides valuable insights for decision-makers. The particular methodology, combining graphic elicitation and metacognitive research, contributes to policy assessment and ethical analysis, offering a nuanced perspective on the interplay between individual perceptions, policy responses, and ethical considerations amid the complexities of a public health crisis.