Virtue Ethics

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Virtue ethics is the ethical paradigm that judges the morality of an action based on the character of the agent performing an action.

A virtuous agent is one who possesses virtues.

An action is right if and only if it is what a virtuous agent would characteristically (i.e., acting in character) do in the circumstances.

On Virtue Ethics by Rosalind Hursthouse

Discussion

The paradigm of virtue ethics focuses on character traits that make up a good life, eudaimonia, and lead to appropriate, optimal behavior. Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics explains the nature of virtue well. Christine Swanton’s target-centered virtue ethics is a modern approach that aims to specify the domains to which virtues are dispositions1Another word for a character trait. to act adequately.

Virtue ethics relies on the virtues2Some core virtues include: intelligence, practical wisdom, and compassion. of people to respond to tricky situations. For example, by deontology, one must follow the rule to “never lie” unless there is an exception, whereas an honest person will wish to tell the truth and generally do so, carefully weighing factors as to when and how to respond in exceptional circumstances. A utilitarian will calculate the benefits and harms of telling the truth in each case3Which is impractical, so the utilitarian will probably conclude that it’s likely best to develop the disposition toward honesty or to follow heuristic rules most of the time..

The virtues can be defined as trait attributes. For the time being, they’re a subclass of moral attributes, such as good and bad, which are normative attributes4The primary reason to do this is to avoid over-determining the high-level theory. Traits could generally suffice..

The definitional challenge is in defining what a virtuous person would do in similar circumstances. The notion of a situation is not defined in SUMO5The WordNet term is mapped to subjective assessment attribute, basically implying that the user must determine what the situation is.. The notion of similarity is also missing. There is some subjectivity to the choice of similarity measures6Including whether the similarity judgments are measures, mathematically speaking. and how to characterize what a generic agent with a virtue is likely to do. Philosophically, this isn’t a problem. Practically, this renders formalization more difficult.

In the case that an entity is virtuous, then it’s easy to say that what ey do is right. I opted to say that if an virtuous agent is likely to take an action [in a situation] and the agent’s virtue refers to this class of actions, then the action class is likely morally good [in similar situations], following the spirit of target-centered virtue ethics7This seems justified because if, e.g., a brave person acts in a domain where bravery is required, then they will probably act rightly. However, if the situation calls for honesty and they’re only brave, then it is irrelevant. Adding in likelihood is my own philosophical hunch to weaken the statement from one of certainty..

The other direction was difficult to figure out. My best attempt is to say that if an action is morally good [in a given situation], then if an agent is virtuous with virtues that refer to this class of actions, the agent will likely take this action [in similar situations]. The main challenge is how to frame an action being good to take in a given situation8This is probably a topic that modal logic for commonsense reasoning researchers have invested a lot of thought in investigating.. My best attempt is to say that it’s good for an agent who can take a given action in a situation to take it.

SUMO

(documentation VirtueEthics EnglishLanguage "Virtue ethics is the ethical paradigm that judges the morality of an action 
based on the character of the agent performing an action.  A virtuous agent is one who possesses virtues.  
'An action is right if and only if it is what a virtuous agent would characteristically (i.e., acting in character) 
do in the circumstances' (On Virtue Ethics -- Right Action).")
(subclass VirtueEthics Ethics)

(documentation VirtueEthicsTheory EnglishLanguage "A set of sentences assigning virtue or vice attributes.")
(subclass VirtueEthicsTheory MoralTheory)

(theoryPhilosophyPair VirtueEthics ValueJudgmentTheory)

(documentation VirtueEthicsSentence EnglishLanguage "A sentence of a virtue ethics language/theory.")      
(subclass VirtueEthicsSentence MoralSentence)

(<=>
  (instance ?V VirtueEthicsTheory)
  (forall (?S)
    (=>
      (element ?S ?V)
      (instance ?S VirtueSentence))))

Virtue Ethics is defined as a proposition, a subclass of Ethics. Virtue Ethics theory is defined as a set of virtue ethics sentences.

(documentation MoralVirtueAttribute EnglishLanguage "Moral Virtue Attributes are a subclass of Moral Attributes dealing with the virtues and vices.")
(subclass MoralVirtueAttribute MoralAttribute)

(subclass VirtueAttribute MoralVirtueAttribute)
(subclass ViceAttribute MoralVirtueAttribute)

(subclass VirtueAttribute PsychologicalAttribute)
(subclass ViceAttribute PsychologicalAttribute)

(documentation SimpleVirtueSentence EnglishLanguage "A sentence that describes an virtue/vice attribute assignment to an agent.")      
(subclass SimpleVirtueSentence VirtueEthicsSentence)    

(<=>
  (instance ?SENTENCE SimpleVirtueSentence)
  (exists (?AGENT ?VIRTUEATTRIBUTE)
    (and
      (equal ?SENTENCE (attribute ?AGENT ?VIRTUEATTRIBUTE))
      (instance ?AGENT AutonomousAgent)
      (instance ?VIRTUEATTRIBUTE MoralVirtueAttribute))))

(<=>
  (insance ?SENTENCE VirtueEthicsSentence)
  (exists (?SVS)
    (and
      (instance ?SVS SimpleVirtueSentence)
      (part ?SVS ?SENTENCE))))

Virtue Ethics theories are deal with moral virtue attributes: virtues and vice. A simple virtue sentence attributes a virtue or vice to an agent, e.g., “Gandhi is honest.” Generic virtue ethics sentences are those that contain a simple value judgment sentence as a part.

(documentation SimpleVirtueToValueJudgmentSentenceFn EnglishLanguage "A UnaryFunction that maps simple virtue ethics sentences into value judgment sentences.")
(domain SimpleVirtueToValueJudgmentSentenceFn 1 SimpleVirtueEthicsSentence)
(range SimpleVirtueToValueJudgmentSentenceFn ValueJudgmentSentence)
(instance SimpleVirtueToValueJudgmentSentenceFn TotalValuedRelation)
(instance SimpleVirtueToValueJudgmentSentenceFn UnaryFunction)

(=>
  (and
    (equal (SimpleVirtueToValueJudgmentSentenceFn ?SVS) ?VJS)
    (equal ?SVS (attribute ?AGENT ?VIRTUEATTRIBUTE))
    (instance ?AGENT AutonomousAgent)
    (=> 
      (equal ?VIRTUEATTRIBUTE VirtueAttribute)
      (equal ?MORALATTRIBUTE MorallyGood))
    (=>
      (equal ?VIRTUEATTRIBUTE ViceAtribute)
      (equal ?MORALATTRIBUTE MorallyBad)))
  (equal ?VJS 
    (forall (?CLASS ?SITUATION)
      (=> 
        (and
          (subclass ?CLASS AutonomousAgentProcess)
          (refers ?VIRTUEATTRIBUTE (ClassToSetFn ?CLASS))
          (refers ?VIRTUEATTRIBUTE Situation)
          (instance ?SIUATION Situation)
          (capableInSituation ?CLASS agent ?AGENT ?SITUATION)
          (modalAttribute
            (exists (?PROC)
              (and 
                (agent ?PROC ?AGENT)
                (instance ?PROC ?PROC)
                (equal ?SITUATION (SituationFn ?PROC)))) Likely))
        (modalAttribute 
          (modalAttribute
            (forall (?AGENT ?SITUATION1)
              (=> 
                (and
                  (equal ?SITUATION1 (SituationFn ?AGENT)
                  (similar ?AGENT ?SITUATION ?SITUATION1)
                  (capableInSituation ?CLASS agent ?AGENT ?SITUATION1)))
                (exists (?PROC)
                  (and
                    (agent ?PROC ?AGENT)
                    (instance ?PROC CLASS)
                    (equal ?SITUATION1 (SituationFn ?PROC)))))) ?MORALATTRIBUTE) Likely)))))

One way to interpret simple virtue sentences in the moral value judgment language is to say that, “if an agent possesses a virtue/vice, then for all behaviors and situations where the virtue/vice is relevant to the situation and the behavior is possible for the agent, if the virtuous/vicious agent is likely to take the behavior, then it’s likely morally good/bad for agents in similar situations to take this action.”9It may be best to simplify the core meaning postulate to remove the situational aspect because I can imagine many conditions on when and how something is good. How to integrate these may depend on the precise modal logics used.

(documentation SimpleSituationalActionValueJudgmentToVirtueSentenceFn EnglishLanguage "A UnaryFunction that maps simple situational action value judgment sentences into simple virtue ethics sentences.")
(domain SimpleSituationalActionValueJudgmentToVirtueSentenceFn 1 SimpleSituationalActionValueJudgmentSentence)
(range SimpleSituationalActionValueJudgmentToVirtueSentenceFn VirtueEthicsSentence)
(instance SimpleSituationalActionValueJudgmentToVirtueSentenceFn TotalValuedRelation)
(instance SimpleSituationalActionValueJudgmentToVirtueSentenceFn UnaryFunction)

(=>
  (and 
    (equal (SimpleSituationalActionValueJudgmentToVirtueSentenceFn ?SSAVJ) ?VES)
    (subclass ?CLASS AutonomousAgentProcess)
    (equal ?SSAVJ 
      (and 
        ?DESCRIPTION
        (modalAttribute 
          (forall (?AGENT ?SITUATION1)
            (=> 
              (and
                (equal ?SITUATION (SituationFn ?AGENT)
                (similar ?AGENT ?SITUATION (SituationFormulaFn ?DESCRIPTION))
                (capableInSituation ?CLASS agent ?AGENT ?SITUATION1)))
              (exists (?PROC)
                (and
                  (agent ?PROC ?AGENT)
                  (instance ?PROC CLASS))))) ?MORALATTRIBUTE)))
    (=> 
      (equal ?MORALATTRIBUTE MorallyGood)
      (and 
        (equal ?VIRTUETYPE VirtueAttribute)
        (equal ?AGENTTYPE VirtuousAgent)))
    (=> 
      (equal ?MORALATTRIBUTE MorallyBad)
      (and
        (equal ?VIRTUETYPE ViceAttribute)
        (equal ?AGENTTYPE ViciousAgent))))
  (equal ?VES
        (forall (?AGENT ?SITUATION)
          (=> 
            (and
              (instance ?AGENT ?AGENTTYPE)
              (equal ?SITUATION (SituationFn ?AGENT))
              (similar ?AGENT ?SITUATION (SituationFormulaFn ?DESCRIPTION))
              (capableInSituation ?CLASS agent ?AGENT ?SITUATION)
              (exists (?VIRTUE)
                (and
                  (instance ?VIRTUE ?VIRTUETYPE)
                  (attribute ?AGENT ?VIRTUE)
                  (refers ?VIRTUE (ClassToSetFn ?CLASS))
                  (refers ?VIRTUE (SituationFormulaFn ?DESCRIPTION)))))
            (modalAttribute 
              (exists (?PROC)
                (and
                  (agent ?PROC ?AGENT)
                  (instance ?PROC ?CLASS)
                  (equal ?SITUATION (SituationFn ?PROC)))) Likely)))))

This function translates from the subclass of value judgment sentences that describe a situation in which it is good/bad for agents capable of taking a class of actions to take one of the actions. In such cases, the virtue ethics sentence states that for all virtuous/vicious agents in similar situations with the capability to take one of the actions and who possess a relevant virtue/vice to the class of actions and the described situation, it is likely that they will take one of the actions.