Abstract
Despite revival, virtue ethics is subject to criticisms, most notably from situationism. Based on empirical findings, the situationists argue that only very few people possess virtues. Hence, virtue ethics that tells us to cultivate virtues is impractical. By referring to Zhu Xi, this chapter argues that although only few of us have robust virtues at the moment, virtue cultivation is still possible, practical, and necessary as we have a good human nature and numerous ways for cultivation.
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Notes
- 1.
For instance, some challenge the limitations of one-off studies (e.g., Fleming 2006: 26, 38; Sreenivasan 2002: 56; Doris 2002: 38). Some doubt that if the coefficient of 0.3 is really as insignificant as the philosophical situationists claim it to be (e.g., Slingerland 2011: 397). Some question the reliability of the experiments due to the quantities and the qualities of experiment subjects (e.g., Kamtekar 2004: 466, n.30; Prinz 2009: 130). Some suggest that there may be conflicting traits, thus the experiments failed to test the traits originally aimed at (e.g., Alfano 2013: 73; Doris 2002: 16). Some doubt that if the experiments were only testing for morally unimportant behavior (e.g., Sabini and Silver 2005: 540). Some doubt if the experiments can test for the traits, because the subjects and the experimenters may have different understanding of the traits in question or what traits are relevant in question (e.g., Sreenivasan 2002; Doris 2002: 76). Some are concerned with the ecological validity (e.g., Doris 2002: 35) and the replications of the experiments (e.g., Webber 2006: 653; Miller 2003: 392).
- 2.
- 3.
- 4.
For simplicity, I do not make a distinction between “behavior” and “action,” which may be important when discussing some issues on agency. Besides, I use “person” and “agent” interchangeably.
- 5.
Another famous one is Gilbert Harman. The philosophical situationists are the philosophers drawing philosophical conclusions from psychological experiments. In this context, they are the ones who argue against the broad existence of virtues and emphasize the power of situations. They are to be differentiated with the psychologists in the situationist tradition, as they may have different interpretations of the same groups of empirical data, such as Walter Mischel (1968), who develops the cognitive-affective processing system (CAPS) theory, claiming that how a person acts depends upon how she interprets the situational factors and that there may be the relevant CAPS traits, which have the potential to be global traits (see Snow 2010: 11–13).
- 6.
There has been the appeal to situationism in discussions on virtue ethics in the analytic tradition, such as Owen Flanagan (1991: 293–314), who suggests laypersons, psychologists, and moral philosophers to learn the lessons of situationist psychology (see Upton 2009: 107–8). However, the debate is on its height with the works of the philosophical situationists like Harman (1999, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2009), Doris (1998, 2002, 2010), Doris and Stich (2005) and the responses to them.
- 7.
It is worth noting that “a virtue theory is a theory of what the virtues are, whereas virtue ethics holds the virtues to be central to a theory of the ethical evaluation of action. Virtue theory thus falls under the umbrella of moral psychology, and virtue ethics under normative ethics. To be sure, every virtue ethic must build on a virtue theory, but no virtue theorist—no one with a theory about the nature of the virtues—need for that reason be a virtue ethicist” (Russell 2009: ix).
- 8.
Henceforth, I use “robust traits,” “traditional traits,” and “global traits” interchangeably. Besides, I take “virtue” or “moral character trait” as a kind of “character trait,” which belongs to the broader term of “trait.”
- 9.
Doris does not deny there are rare “pure types” or saints who really possess robust character traits (Doris 2002: 65). However, they are too rare to prevent virtue ethics from being impractical.
- 10.
Or what Harman calls “fundamental attribution error” (Harman 2003: 90).
- 11.
Doris takes this substitution as a kind of ethical revisionism, which is “conservatively revisionary—problematizing only particular, and dispensable, features of ethical thought associated with characterological moral psychology” (Doris 2002: 108; emphasis original).
- 12.
Note that this term of art of Doris does not have a hyphen before the original virtue term.
- 13.
By allowing the possibility of local traits that are “associated with important individual differences in behavior,” Doris’s situationism “does not entail an unqualified skepticism about the personological determinants of behavior” and is thereby not a Skinnerian behaviorism (see Doris 2002: 25).
- 14.
It is my elaboration following Doris’s train of thought.
- 15.
Another example that Doris provide is that one can be “sailing-in-rough-weather-with-one’s-friends courageous” but not (robustly or globally) “courageous” (Doris 2002: 115).
- 16.
- 17.
See also Xiaomei Yang’s comment: “Local traits are not what we would admire and be aspired to develop if they are only situation-sensitive and insensitive to what we truly value. It is not clear whether local traits are reason- and value-based inner dispositions” (Yang 2016: 152).
- 18.
Doris may reply that as it is so difficult to acquire virtues, it is not worth risking bad consequences of moral failure to broaden our local traits.
- 19.
Most of the quotations in this chapter are from The Topically Arranged Conversations of Master Zhu (Zhuzi Yulei 朱子語類) (Zhu 1986). I include the year, the volume (juan 卷) number (in the ancient sense), and the page number when I quote it. For instance, Zhu 1986: [16] 896 stands for Zhuzi Yulei, volume 16, page 896. For other Zhu’s texts, I just quote as usual. The translations are my own unless otherwise specified.
- 20.
- 21.
Indeed, as Eric Hutton points out, “although Confucians take robust character traits such as ren as their ethical ideal, they also clearly do not expect that many people have achieved or will achieve this ideal” (Hutton 2006: 43). Zhu is no exception.
- 22.
It is not clear if the King had shown empathy for the ox, since he did not mention that he felt the ox’s pain apart from being unbearable to that pain.
- 23.
Concerning this second point, there can be two implications in this example. In a more direct reading, seeing certain groups of objects or not will affect the King’s being compassionate to them or not. One of the Zhu’s comments seems to express this: “The only thing is that seeing the ox in front of him, the [King’s] heart-mind [of compassion] was triggered; whereas it is not so when it came to those that were not seen” (Zhu 1986: [53] 1292). However, there can be another reading which is with a reasonable qualification. Originally, in order to test for the variable, i.e., “(the subject’s) seeing (the object) or not” in this case, the object(s) should remain the same so as to set up the control. In the above example, the objects of the King’s not seeing were different (i.e., ox and lamb). Nevertheless, the King declared that his substitution of the ox with a lamb was not because of the latter’s being cheaper but because he was unbearable to the ox’s suffering (see Mencius 1A.7 in Lau 2003: 16). If it was true, then the object could be taken as an animal in general. Then, whether the King’s being compassionate to the same object was merely affected by the variable of the King’s seeing and not seeing the object. In other words, the second reading fixes the object while the first reading does not.
- 24.
Here, it is not clear how Doris’s seek/avoid strategy can help facilitate moral behavior. Following the seek/avoid strategy, then, what the King should do will strangely involve these: Concerning the “seek” side, he was to see more often the suffering of the oxen so as to be able to have his compassion aroused and thus to act morally (to save them; let us leave aside the aftermath). This seems difficult and meaningless, as Badhwar suggests that the occasions for practicing the dime-finding-paper-dropped compassion are rare and such a narrow trait is not significant in life (see Badhwar 2009: 226–27). Concerning the “avoid” side, it is not useful to remind the King that his compassion was so limited and he should then not overestimate his compassion. Besides, it is puzzling that how he could prevent from being indifferent by avoiding “not-seeing” (weijian 未見) the lamb, the officials, and the people (that is, by “seeing so”), although it was precisely the “not-seeing” that Mencius used to explain King’s indifference to the lamb. In fact, the globalness of compassion is what Mencius wants the King to have and he is trying to persuade the King that he did have it. However, Mencius’s analogy of the King’s ability to feel compassion for the ox and the ability to do so for the lamb is precisely challenged by the situationists and awaits proving. Another consideration is that, perhaps fundamentally, “not-seeing” is a dubious predicate of the trait. In any case, the seek/avoid strategy has a limited use.
- 25.
This term appears in the Great Learning.
- 26.
For instance, the “Record of Music” in the Book of Rites reads “virtue means attainment” (dezhe deye 德者, 得也) (Sun 1989: 982).
- 27.
- 28.
This translation is adapted from JeeLoo Liu’s “principle is one but things have different dues” (J. Liu 2017: 91).
- 29.
- 30.
Zhu emphasizes that benevolence has the life-giving vitality (e.g., Zhu 1986: [5] 85). Unfortunately, I cannot go into detail here.
- 31.
Liu Shu-hsien 劉述先 takes the heart-mind as the pivot of Zhu’s philosophy (see Liu S. 1995: 230–68).
- 32.
While some render it as “the heart/mind controls the nature and feeling” (Berthrong 2010: 162); “heart-mind unites nature and emotions” (Angle and Tiwald 2017: 83), I adopt this translation from Liu (2017: 132), for I think the verb “encompass” for tong 統 has a higher potential to include the meanings of “to include both...” (jian 兼) (see Zhu 1986: [98] 2513) and “control or command” (zuzai 主宰) (see Zhu 1986: [98] 2513).
- 33.
Apart from selfish desires, Zhu also talks about “material desires” (see Zhu 1986: [12] 202, [37] 982). As Kwong-loi Shun notes, “Presumably the two notions refer to the same psychological elements but with different emphases, the latter emphasizing the attractive force of external things and the former the lack of regulation of one’s likes and dislikes on the part of humans” (Shun 2013: 81). Besides, while Zhu uses “human desires” (renyu 人欲) to mean the desire for food when hungry and for clothing when cold, which can be morally neutral (see Zhu 1986: [78] 2009), more often he uses it in a pejorative sense as selfish desires, especially when he contrasts it with heavenly li (see Zhu 1986: [12] 207, [13] 224).
- 34.
肎 ken is equivalent to 肯 ken.
- 35.
I take tui 推 and kuochong 擴充 to be equivalent and they can be rendered as “to extend” or “to push.”
- 36.
Given the aforementioned Zhu’s picture of human nature and virtue, “extending the virtues,” “extending the heart-mind of compassion,” “extending the compassion,” and “extending the benevolence” are denoting the different aspects of the same thing.
- 37.
That is why Philip J. Ivanhoe classifies Zhu’s cultivation as the recovery model: Zhu comes to see self-cultivation “as the recovery or release of this ‘original nature’ by refining one’s imperfect and obscuring ‘material nature’” (Ivanhoe 2000: 46; emphasis original).
- 38.
Daniel K. Gardner render it as “attentiveness” (see e.g., Gardner 1990: 89).
- 39.
This translation is by Liu (2017: 235).
- 40.
Some may ask whether seriousness is a global trait; and if yes, whether it is also subject to the situationist critique and cannot serve as a solution to the critique. It is true that Zhu sometimes takes it as a virtue. For instance, he says, “benevolence and seriousness can be called virtues, but cannot be called the way” (Zhu 1986: [6] 101). But even if it is a virtue, global or not, it can still serve as a boost to the recovery of the “bright virtue,” that is, the extension of the local virtues to the less local virtues, for it is a state of heart-mind that is not subject to situational factors all the time. More pertinently, it is rather a state of heart-mind that one is committed to maintain before entering situations. With this state of heart-mind, one’s virtue can be extended.
- 41.
Translation adapted from Shun (2010: 187).
- 42.
Singular form is used here as I take xuling as one thing, even though I use two terms to denote its two qualities.
- 43.
This may sound problematic and mysterious. As Liu Shu-hsien comments, “In fairness to Zhu, however, he surely did not mean that one can know everything or that an accumulation of empirical knowledge can bring about moral enlightenment. What he firmly believed was that there are principles [i.e., li] in all the things in the world, and that through the investigation of things one would somehow recognize all principles in the world as having the same origin—as manifestations of the same principle.... Evidently, Zhu’s problem was not realizing that without a leap of faith, a gradual accumulation of knowledge will not necessarily lead to seeing a single principle in the universe” (Liu S. 2003: 901). Lao Sze-kwang 勞思光 also points out that Zhu does not offer an explanation on how the grasp of the particular li in various things can lead to the grasp of the common li (see Lao 2005: 292). However, we cannot afford to go into details.
- 44.
The ideas of “genuine knowledge” and “knowledge of virtue” are developed by the contemporary scholar Tu Weiming 杜維明 as “embodied knowledge” (tizhi 體知), which can be rendered as “the sensibility and awareness of the human heart-mind” (Tu 2014: 117). It is knowledge experienced personally (Tu 2002: 358) and has the function of creative transformation (Tu 2002: 358). Actions will naturally follow.
- 45.
Appears in Chapter 1 of Xunzi: “Therefore, the gentleman is sure to select carefully the village where he dwells, and he is sure to associate with well-bred men when he travels. This is how he avoids corruption and draws near to what is correct” (Hutton 2014: 3).
- 46.
Appears in the Analects 8.13 in Lau (2000: 72)
- 47.
Although the situationist findings emphasize that even in non-extreme situations, people’s behavior is more susceptible to situational factors more than inner, personal factors, Doris’s train of thought on situation management should imply the consideration of situational effects in a comprehensive sense. That is also why Doris suggests that the recovering alcoholic “cultivates relationships with sober people and stays out of bars” (Doris 2002: 120).
- 48.
A passage in the Book of Rites.
- 49.
See the discussion on the nature of vital forces in our next section.
- 50.
Thus, I think that the advice model in Zhu’s view will be different from the one of Nancy E. Snow on advice-following, which suggests that “through the repeated performance of virtuous actions associated with roles or needed for the attainment of desired goals.... [People] can develop virtuous dispositions” (Snow 2016: 138–39), for such a virtuous disposition is not or is not formed by an unrooted habit but is a result of the recognition and the embracement of li.
- 51.
The predicate “global” is important here, as Doris’s account may not deny a kind of moral or virtuous personhood that is fragmented or local.
- 52.
In my understanding, it is in a similar sense that McGavin and Hunter (2014) criticize Doris for his derogation of the emulation model. For them, who take Aristotle’s ethics as the representative of virtue ethics in their paper, “Aristotle gives a motive for emulation—that is, the state of eudaimonia” (McGavin and Hunter 2014: 290). Emulation is not just for morally desirable behavior, but for a more ultimate ethical ideal or status, although the ones for Aristotle and Zhu may be different.
- 53.
This is what the scholars call the “rarity response” to the situationist critique. In Christian B. Miller’s words, this response “is to deny that any reasonable form of virtue ethics is committed on descriptive grounds to the widespread possession of virtues” (Miller 2014: 202). Similarly, Nafsika Athanassoulis says, “Virtue ethics presumably requires that moral behavior, in the form of possessing virtuous character traits, is a possibility, rather than an actuality for the majority of people. Indeed, the virtuous agent is often discussed as an ideal which we aim towards, but do not necessarily ever achieve” (Athanassoulis 2000: 217).
- 54.
The pair seems to be begging the question. But in the context, it should be stating the content of, not providing justification for, the li, which is understood in advance.
- 55.
Practical necessity refers to the necessity for action, which is not limited to moral actions. Under practical necessity, “the course of action that [the normative reasons] dictate forces itself upon the agent with such authority that alternative courses of action are rendered practically impossible” (Bauer et al. 2017: 1). In Bernard Williams’s words, “some notion of impossibility of the alternatives, or of the agent’s incapacity, is at work” (Williams 1981: 126–27).
- 56.
See the idea of “li is one but things have different dues” discussed in Sect. 5.
- 57.
JeeLoo Liu is correct to say that “Zhu Xi’s view of nature is thus the fusion of what is and what ought to be: a person’s nature is its function which it ought to fulfill in order to meet its name; a person’s nature is the normative duty which he or she ought to carry out in order to be deemed human” (J. Liu 2017: 128; emphasis original; see also Ivanhoe 2000: 46).
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Leung, Yh. (2020). Zhu Xi and the Debate between Virtue Ethicists and Situationists: Virtue Cultivation as a Possible, Practical, and Necessary Enterprise. In: Ng, Kc., Huang, Y. (eds) Dao Companion to ZHUXi’s Philosophy. Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy, vol 13. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29175-4_38
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