Two Approaches On Practical Justification Of Virtue Ethics

Recently, the practicality of Virtue Ethics has been hotly debated and discussed. The practicality of Virtue Ethics mainly refers to the normativity of action. That is to say, how does Virtue Ethics offer the action guidance in a normative approach? Virtue Ethics claims they mainly focus on the character of people (what kind of person one should be) or what kind of life one should live, in other words, they don't focus on normativity of action or at least don't focus on it directly. Therefore, how can the virtue ethics which claims focusing on moral character and focusing on how we should be and how we should live offer specific guide or normativity for the action has became the hot argumentative issue in this domain.This dissertation will investigate this debated issue and justify in which meaning the virtue ethics can guide moral life. Since the conception of virtue in virtue ethics are not only the norm to be a person, but also the norm of action. However the norm in virtue ethics are not mandatory strong norm, but oriented weak norm. This oriented weak norm can be justified on the ground of two reasons. First, the conception of virtue can be the primitive conception of virtue ethics. Second, this kind of primitive conception could provide a weak normativity foe our action guidance. So the practicality of virtue ethics is not the problem. In order to give specific explanation to this issue, this paper provides two examples. The first one is Neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics, the second one is Confucian ethics.Neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics emphasizes semantic analyses of weak normativity following an anti-codified perspective. This route of thinking promotes the importance of perceived and highly-contextual moral requirements rather than stereotyped and universal moral principles. As advocated by supporters of moral particularism when they investigate universal and particular epistemologies via lenses of holism of reason and self-evident obligations, the application of moral knowledge can only be achieved by instinctive perceptions. Following this way of thinking, moral issues are disassembled in semantic analyses and presented in sematic normativity.Being different from Neo-Aristotelian answers to the question of "how one should live", weak normativity in the perspective of Confucian existentialism conceptualizes virtue as Junzi's way of living their daily lives. In this way of living, good virtues, such as benevolence, righteousness, etiquettes, wisdom, and trustworthiness are not simple written principles. Instead, to live a worthing life requires practices in a persistent manner, or say "Gongfu" or "FaMen" in Chinese. This way of thinking emphasizes the importance of moral education, practical guidelines, and nurture of personal characteristics in daily social activities, all of which imply applications of existentialist weak normativity.Regardless of aforementioned clear differences, this research attempts to address two essential questions shared by virtue ethics of Neo-Aristotelian and Confucian existentialism. The first question is a validity issue of the assumed precondition of virtue-ethics practicality. Both types of virtue ethics share an assumed human nature of pursuing life of affluence and prosperity. In this pursuance, is it possible to achieve a harmonic coexistence of objectivity and normativity in human nature? Another equally important issue is the application of derived answers to "how one should live". Both approaches suggest that applied virtue ethics should retreat to the basic concept of "moral person". Such retreatment means that the key question to virtue ethics is how to retain the priority of good virtues over strategic choices of ethic rules.Five chapters of this dissertation are organized into three logically interrelated parts to fully address these important issues shared by two types of virtue ethics. The first part of this dissertation, containing Chapter 1 and 2, introduces the main points of virtue-ethic practicality. Then, discussions move to the second part, including Chapter 3 and 4, to contrast solutions to the issue of practicality provided by Neo-Aristotelian and Confucian approaches. Finally, Chapter 5 acts as the last part of this research and focuses on comparisons of practical strategies implied by two competing approaches. At the end of this part, further discussions clarify other related critical problems of these two virtue ethics.Chapter 1 introduces the problem of practicality in virtue ethics. Also in this chapter, feasibility and significance of comparing Neo-Aristotelian and Confucian virtue ethics in modern linguistic context will be justified via literature reviews. This introduction is followed by detailed discussions in Chapter 2 where the author clarifies concept and connotation of practicality, summarizes basic theories of virtue ethics, and draws the difference between the classic practicality based on answering "how one should live" and its modern counterpart derived from solving the question of "how one should act". These discussions set up the independent structure of virtue ethics and bring forward the primitive conception's justification.Chapter 3 summarizes the Neo-Aristotelian justification of practicality. This chapter begins with the Neo-Aristotelian mitigation of a gap between "be" and "ought to be" in human nature via functional analysis and teleology. Further developing arguments of R. Hursthouse, this chapter responses to challenges of virtue ethics from its normative competitor by falsifying universal efficiency of moral rules and advocating retreatment to the concept of "moral person". At the end of this chapter, McDowell's anti-codifiability and Dancy's elaboration of holism of reason are carefully reviewed before the author derives semantic weak normality from a comparison of universal and particular epistemologies.Chapter 4 focuses on the justification of practicality in the perspective of Confucian virtue ethics. Confucian virtue ethics is nothing but education. Via education, as advocated by Confucius and his followers, people internalize moral rules, tamethe dark side of human nature, live a moral life, and eventually obtain the ultimate truth and satisfaction in the spiritual world, in Chinese words "Dao".Good virtues of a noble man defined by Confucius, such as benevolence, righteousness, etiquettes, wisdom, and trustworthiness are not simple written principles but required practices in a persistent manner, or say "Gongfu" or "FaMen" in Chinese. This chapter starts with featuresof Confucian practicality and its presumptions of human nature. And this chapter regards etiquettes as virtue as well as social regulation. Finally, using Confucian concepts of righteousness and ritual as examples this chapter explores the application of anti-codifying Confucian Ethics and the origin of existentialist weak normativity.Chapter 5 summarizesthe similarities and differences between Neo-Aristotelian and Confucian virtue ethics. The similarities are that they both admire virtue as the way to flourish life or Dao, encourage everyone to be virtue agent, living a meaningful life not a stereotyped life, and similarlydemonstrate a weak normativity. The difference is that Neo-Aristotelian Virtue Ethics regards virtue agent in a personal aspect but Confucian is with a ralational agent, who is in a net of family-nation-heaven (?).At last, I conclude the whole dissertation and prospect the future of virtue ethics.