Theses quandaries exist, of course, to provoke moral thinking. They complicate assumptions of freshmen, they illuminate intuitions, and they serve to distinguish ethical theories at a fine level. What’s more, a moral theory that fails to answer one of these quandaries fails as a moral theory. Because it’s the hard questions that matter, right?

Not really. I’ve grown tired of quandary ethics and it’s why, in part, I find virtue ethics so compelling. The kind of ethical thinking quandaries represent, where factors and rules are weighed and examined to produce an algorithm for morality, seems as far divorced from the way we actually think about morality as the computer code underlying Adobe Photoshop is from the paintings the artist creates within it.

This divide has been particularly clear to me due to what amounts to a timing accident. Concurrent with my exploration of virtue ethics, I’m reading, for the first time, Derek Parfit’s monumental Reasons and Persons. And, while the former resonates, the latter often leaves me cold.

Pushing ethics towards quandaries and improbable scenarios moves it away from the problems all of us really encounter–the problems we need moral philosophy to address. I’ve never been in a trolly car situation and likely never will be.

Much modern moral thinking holds fast to the idea that we should imagine increasingly bizarre situations, apply our theories to those, and mark them as failures if they can’t come up with the right–or even an–answer. The method informs a great deal of Parfit’s book, particularly its early portions about self-defeating theories and whatnot.

Two things stand out this contemporary style of ethical thinking. First, its need for odd hypotheticals to expose a theory’s failures leaves open the possibility that many of these discarded theories would do quite well in every moral circumstance most of us will ever be in. Thus discarding a theory because it fails in weird setups with vanishingly small likelihoods is like discarding the West Coast offense because it’ll do you no good if the other team fields nine foot tall defensive backs who can run the 40 in half a second.

Second, the need to answer quandaries strikes me as something of a false dilemma. Isn’t it more likely that there exist moral situations with no good answer? That no matter what we do in the trolly car scenario, we’ll do wrong? That, even if we (somehow) pick the “better” answer, we’ll still have something to atone for?

This is why ethics as a set of rules to follow gets it at least partly wrong. Presumably following the rules precisely to a conclusion would mean getting the “right” answer. But it seems obvious that many moral situations have no right answer. The same applies to the consequentialist approach. Measuring utility will always point to a “right” answer–except in probably nonexistent situations where the utility gains (or losses) from the two options match exactly.

Thus hard-and-fast deontology and consequentialism don’t, I believe, get it right. They insist on “correct” answers where none exist and, more importantly, fail to match the way we actually think about ethics. Both have much to contribute, of course, but as theories meant to explain the whole of morality, I find both decidedly lacking.

But I don’t believe virtue ethics was ever presented to me as a serious alternative to consequentialism and deontology. And this is too bad. Because only recently did I “discover” virtue ethics–and my initial explorations reveal it as something far more fitting both my views of morality, descriptive and normative, and my temperament than the two big schools of moral philosophy.

Put very simply, virtue ethics differs from consequentialism and deontology in the basic way it answers the “What action is right?” question. Rosalind Hursthouse, in her excellent On Virtue Ethics, summarizes the schools as follows:

• Act Utilitarianism: “An action is right if and only if it promotes the best consequences. … The best consequences are those in which happiness is maximized…”
• Deontology: “An action is right if and only if it is in accordance with a correct moral rule or principle. … A correct moral rule (principle) is one that…”

Virtue ethics, again quoting Hursthouse, holds that

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. … A virtuous agent is one who has, and exercises, certain character traits, namely, the virtues. … A virtue is a character trait that …

Utilitarian has always troubled me for two reasons, both of which are common criticisms. First, it’s not at all easy to figure out what act will promote the best circumstances. How do we measure? Over what timeframe? Does measuring end up taking so long that, like Hamlet, we never quite get around to deciding? Second, many actions that do seem to increase overall happiness are still, well, wrong. A classic example is killing a homeless guy in the hospital–a guy with no family, no one who’d even know he died–in order to use his organs to save the lives of three people. One person dead is “happier” overall than three people dead, it seems.

Of course, utilitarians offer ways around this. But they’ve never convinced me–and they certainly haven’t convinced me about the first concern.

Deontology sounds better at first. But in order for it to work, we have to know what the rules are and how to apply them. And even simple rules–“Don’t kill.”–get complicated rather quickly. What about self-defense? War? Euthanasia? We can construct more rules and sub-rules to handle these situations, but it strains credulity to think we can have rules covering all situations.

Virtue ethics says simply, “Do what the best of us would do.” In fact, in the form of “What would Jesus do?” it’s probably the most common moral framework among those who don’t think much about moral frameworks.

What’s more, I believe this is the way we actually deal with moral conundrums. It’s not that I shouldn’t deceive because deceiving creates unhappiness or because it violates a rule I was taught. Rather, I don’t deceive because I don’t want to be a deceitful person.

So from the descriptive standpoint–i.e., how we in fact think about morality–virtue ethics sounds more plausible. It also, to my mind, works better normatively. When teaching children to be moral, we don’t tell them to measure utility and we don’t give them exhaustive lists of rules covering every imaginable situation. Instead, we teach them the value of honesty. Of kindness. Of courage and temperance and compassion. We instill in them character traits and then let them apply those traits to situations. What would a courageous person do? What would a kind person do?

Virtue ethics may turn out to be wrong, to be flawed beyond repair. I’m reading an essay now arguing that much of it is from the perspective of modern psychology, for instance.

But virtue ethics has clicked for me in a way no other moral theory to date has. Which makes me wish I’d been given a whole lot more of it back in school.

My new short story collection, Animus: Six Tales of Crime and Terror, is now available on the Kindle for just 99 cents. And if you’re an Amazon Prime member, you can get it for free from the Kindle Lending Library.

The collection’s pretty diverse, with some long stories and some quite short. The common theme is bad people up to bad things–hence the title. Here’s the cover blurb:

Three people with secrets to hide meet at a roadside bar during a storm–a meeting that quickly turns deadly. In the very near future, a detective takes a case that leads him into the twisted world of genetic modification and artificial intelligence. An ex-cop is asked to investigate the odd old lady who lives across the street–and discovers truths far weirder than he could’ve imagined. These stories an more can be found in Animus: Six Tales of Crime and Terror.

Grab it while it’s hot!

My awesome publisher, Permuted Press, is having a Black December Sale. You can get tons of great horror titles for super cheap–or free.

Including my novel, THE HOLE, which is just $2.99 as an ebook all this month.

So check it out. And download some free books.

I’m super thrilled to announce that THE HOLE is now available as a wonderfully narrated audiobook from Audible! What’s more, you can get it completely free!

To get the book for free, all you need to do is sign up for an Audible trial membership. That comes with one free book (which rather obviously ought to be THE HOLE). Download your book, cancel the membership, and keep the book. Easy and you don’t pay a thing. (Though if you like Audible–and you should because they’re great–then keep the membership and support them so they can do more of my books in the future.)

My novel benefits greatly from the terrific narration of Mark Boyett. I was completely out of the loop when it came to production, so I had no idea who’d be reading it until the finish product popped up on Audible’s site.

Lucky for me, Boyett is perfect. He nails the book’s tone and brings Elliot and Evajean to life. Interestingly–to me, at least–he brings them to life every-so-slightly differently than I imagined them. Elliot is less sure of himself by a tad than I’d thought him. Evajean is quieter. But it works. Really well.

In fact, my only complaint (and it’s the kind that’ll bother me and probably nobody else) is that Boyett pronounces her name “Eve-a-jean.” In my head, she’s “Eh-vah-jean.” So there you go.

Anyway, I love it. And I’m sure you will, too. Given how much better Boyett’s reading makes my prose sound, I now consider the audiobook the definitive version of THE HOLE.

So what are you waiting for? Go get it.

(It’s free.)

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The Hole
Check out this great listen on Audible.com. The world, as Elliot Bishop and Evajean Rhodes know it, is gone. Destroyed. In just two weeks, a horrific plague raged across the planet – driving its vi…

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Morality and Its Discontents
Since Miles has launched an ongoing discussion of Jan Narveson’s excellent The Libertarian Idea—which along with David Gauthier’s Morals by Agreement I’d encourage everyone to read—I thought I’d inte…

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