Abstract
At the center of many ethical theories is the question ‘what we should do?’. This often goes hand in hand with a conceptual scheme in which the only thing which is morally evaluated, are the acts of the actor and their consequences. By first presenting a short analysis of two main texts in the debate on dirty hands, and secondly a swift presentation of Aristotle’s virtue ethics as developed in the Nicomachean Ethics, a suggestion is made that human beings might care about more things than just the acts and their consequences. For instance, about the whole of their lives, about the opinions of others, about who they are becoming, and about the character which accompanies the act. These concerns might help to see feelings of remorse in the way that Walzer did, namely not as mere psychological facts, but as of the highest moral importance.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Notes
- 1.
Christine Korsgaard complains that deontologists and utilitarians alike reason as if they are consequentialists (Korsgaard 2009, p. 8).
- 2.
Compare De Wijze (2007).
- 3.
Walzer (1973).
- 4.
Nielsen (2007a).
- 5.
Edition used: Aristotle (1926), Loeb Classical Library.
- 6.
Aristotle himself however, might not provide the conceptual space required to think of cases of dirty hands. This has for instance been argued by Karen M. Nielsen, who makes it convincing that Aristotle himself would not think that cases of dirty hands could exist (Nielsen 2007b).
- 7.
Walzer (1973).
- 8.
Or in the poetic way that Walzer introduces his subject: “The argument relates not only to the coherence and harmony of the moral universe, but also to the relative ease or difficulty – or impossibility – of living a moral life.” (Walzer 1973, p. 161). Compare De Wijze: “From a meta-ethical perspective, tragic-remorse confirms that we live in a world where our moral reality is nuanced and messy” (De Wijze 2005, p. 465).
- 9.
Walzer: “The notion of dirty hands derives from an effort to refuse “absolutism” without denying the reality of the moral dilemma.” (Walzer 1973, p. 162).
- 10.
Ibid., p. 165.
- 11.
Ibid., pp. 166–167.
- 12.
Ibid., p. 165. In two later works (Walzer 1978, 2004), Walzer increasingly came to think of dirty hands as both a specifically political problem and one involving analyses of catastrophes. However, many commentators in the debate, for instance De Wijze (2007), Coady and O’Neill (1990) and Nielsen (2007a) have to a great extent interpreted cases of dirty hands as also occurring outside of the domain of politics, and outside of the domain of catastrophe. Compare: “As to the narrowly political, the fact that dirty hands problems are so consistently posed in terms of it should not blind us to the possibility that such problems can arise in other areas. Machiavelli and the modern Machiavellians do not explicitly deny this possibility but their emphases are such as to obscure it. My own view is that the necessities that give rise to dirty hands problems are part of the human rather than the specifically princely condition, but that the political milieu gives a particular focus and, sometimes, urgency to them” (Coady and O’Neill 1990, p. 264) and: “Dirty work goes on in the world (and not only in politics)” (Nielsen 2007a, p. 35).
- 13.
Walzer (1973), p. 161.
- 14.
Ibid., p. 166.
- 15.
De Wijze (2005), p. 467.
- 16.
Ibid.
- 17.
Ibid.
- 18.
Walzer (1973), p. 167.
- 19.
Ibid., p. 161.
- 20.
Ibid., p. 176.
- 21.
Ibid., p. 178.
- 22.
De Wijze (2005), p. 468.
- 23.
Walzer (1973), p. 164.
- 24.
First print in 1996, South African Journal of Philosophy, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 1–7.
- 25.
Nielsen (2007a), pp. 26, 27, 34, and 35.
- 26.
Ibid., pp. 20, 21, 23, 34, and 35.
- 27.
Ibid., pp. 22, 26, 27, and 32.
- 28.
Ibid., p. 22. Compare Walzer: “it might be said that every political choice ought to be made solely in terms of its particular and immediate circumstances – in terms, that is, of the reasonable alternatives, available knowledge, likely consequences, and so on. [...] Even when he lies and tortures, his hands will be clean, for he has done what he should do as best he can, standing alone in a moment of time, forced to choose.” (Walzer 1973, p. 169).
- 29.
- 30.
Nielsen (2007a), pp. 20, 21, 22, 23, and 35; “[...] it is sometimes true that, to succeed in politics, political leaders, and frequently others as well, must get their hands dirty. That is, they will have to do things, or condone the doing of things, which in normal circumstances at least would be utterly morally impermissible” (Nielsen 2007a, p. 21).
- 31.
Nielsen (2007a), pp. 25 and 31.
- 32.
And Nielsen does care about this: “He [the one with dirty hands] should, I agree, feel pain, anguish and regret.” (Nielsen 2007a, p. 30).
- 33.
Idem, p. 21.
- 34.
Sartre (n.d.).
- 35.
Compare the article by Nielsen (2007b).
- 36.
Christine Korsgaard: “in at least some cases an act is done for some specific purpose or end. For instance, Aristotle tells us that the courageous person who dies in battle lays down his life for the sake of his country or for his friends (EN 1169a17–31). In the same way, it seems natural to say that the liberal person who makes a donation aims to help somebody out (EN 1120b3), the magnificent person who puts on a play aims to give the city a treat (EN 1122b23), the magnanimous man aims to reap honors (EN 1123b20–21), the ready-witted man aims to amuse his audience in a tactful way (EN 4.8 1128a24–27), and so on.” Korsgaard (2009), p. 9.
- 37.
Urmson (1988), p. 12.
- 38.
Compare for instance in this volume the comments and further explanation on this in: de Matos (2018).
- 39.
Compare also Nussbaum (2001), p. 318.
- 40.
So someone with the bad luck of a bad upbringing might end up unvirtuous. I will come back to this in the paragraph on upbringing below.
- 41.
Also compare Nussbaum (2001), p. 308.
- 42.
Ibid., p. 306. Compare also Gadamer: “If man always encounters the good in the form of the particular practical situation in which he finds himself, the task of moral knowledge is to determine what the concrete situations asks of him – or to put it another way, the person acting must view the concrete situation in the light of what is asked of him in general.” (Gadamer 1989, p. 311).
- 43.
Compare Urmson: “If we are normal human beings and not naturally incapacitated by some abnormal defect, then whether we acquire a good or a bad character depends on the kind of upbringing we get. […] Before one has acquired the art or skill one acts in accordance with the instructions of a teacher, who tells us what to do, and one does it with effort. Gradually, by practice and repetition, it becomes effortless and second nature.” (Urmson 1988, p. 25).
- 44.
Many philosophers identified as ‘communitarianists’ also seem to have some appreciation for Aristotle on exactly this point, for instance, Alasdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor. It is also interesting that Walzer mentions Charles Taylor in a footnote to his article Walzer (1973), p. 160.
- 45.
Something also noted by De Wijze: “Tragic-remorse indicates recognition by an agent that she has been morally polluted by events and circumstances outside of her control” (De Wijze 2005, p. 464).
- 46.
Even if this does sound somewhat un-Aristotelian. After all, Aristotle claims that to ‘some extent’ bad circumstances can be handled in a beautiful way. For instance, military excellence is not merely reached when victory is obtained (NE 1101a3–5).
- 47.
Although it seems a hard thesis to defend, Michael Stocker claimed that Aristotle explicitly thought that doing ‘base’ deeds would decrease our eudaimonia, even if these deeds were necessary: “Base deeds are among those severe disasters that can make eudaimonia difficult if not impossible. This is obvious in the case where there is no good reason for doing what is base. For only an evil or bad person could act that way, and such a person cannot have eudaimonia. But it also holds, I suggest, where a good person is morally compelled to do what is base. We can be helped in seeing why this is so by noting these points. Aristotle’s ethics is importantly one of achievement. On his view, to be a eudaimon person, and in this sense a good person, one must have honour, pride, and self-esteem, which, in turn, require doing well at good and important activities (e.g. 4. 2–4, and Rhetoric 2. 2). Thus, again on his view, one cannot have eudaimonia, if one does what is base—even if one does it for the best.” (Stocker 2004, p. 65).
- 48.
De Wijze calls this ‘agent-regret’ (De Wijze 2005, p. 461).
- 49.
This has a lot to do with the quote from footnote 9 above. In particular the ‘standing alone in a moment of time, forced to choose’ part.
- 50.
This is something which Walzer seemed to have felt acutely: “For while any one of us may stand alone, and so on, when we make this or that decision, we are not isolated or solitary in our moral lives. Moral life is a social phenomenon, and it is constituted at least in part by rules, the knowing of which (and perhaps the making of which) we share with our fellows. The experience of coming up against these rules, challenging their prohibitions, and explaining ourselves to other men and women is so common and so obviously important that no account of moral decision-making can possibly fail to come to grips with it.” (Walzer 1973, p. 169).
- 51.
Compare the article of Saulo de Matos in this volume, in which the claim that nomological approaches to ethics only started with Christianity: de Matos (2018).
- 52.
Walzer (1973), p. 178. Stephen De Wijze points towards this passage of Walzer when he writes: “some understandings of dirty hands, the agent may need to be punished in order to emphasise the moral wrong, expiate the guilt and shame, and remove the moral pollution that adheres from certain actions. […] Just what kind of punishment is appropriate is difficult to delineate. The difficulty is to find a balance that sends the appropriate signal that a moral wrong has been done with all the appropriate opprobrium attached to moral violation yet also acknowledge that it was necessary (if not obligatory) for the appropriate moral reasons.” (footnote De Wijze 2005, p. 465).
- 53.
The objection to this thought of course being that one is not really, for instance, doing something ‘cruel’ when one whips or otherwise hurts another human being, if it is justified by the extraction of much needed evidence.
- 54.
After all, it seems unproblematic to say that someone learns to play the harp, learns to do so by playing the harp. Even if truly playing the harp requires the ability to do so skillfully. In the same way, it seems to be no paradox for a harp playing expert to not play the harp, or skip a specific note in a piece if this is required for external reasons.
- 55.
Coady writes: “What is at stake is the moral degradation of individual character or institutions or environments and this involves the prevalence of attitudes to what is acceptable conduct which have the effect of treating behaviour that is seriously immoral as normal.” (Coady and O’Neill 1990, p. 265).
- 56.
Walzer (1973), p. 167.
- 57.
As de Silvestre notices in her contribution to this volume: “The good speaker can´t ignore the emotions because they are crucial lens through which we see the facts of the world. Emotions are cognitive even when we criticize a person’s act moved by a specific emotion” Silvestre (2018), p. 7.
- 58.
Compare again de Matos (2018) in this volume, in which he discusses the influence of the ‘nomological’ view of rights, and reviews the question whether the nomological approach leaves any room for our moral emotions.
- 59.
Walzer (1973), p. 170.
References
Aristotle. 1926. Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by H. Rackham. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Coady, C.A.J. 2014. The Problem of Dirty Hands. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta, Spring 2014 ed. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/dirty-hands/.
Coady, C.A.J., and Onora O’Neill. 1990. Messy Morality and the Art of the Possible. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes 64: 259–294.
de Matos, Saulo. 2018. Aristotle’s Functionalism and the Rise of Nominalism in Law and Politics: Law, Emotion and Language. In Aristotle on Emotions in Law and Politics, ed. Liesbeth Huppes-Cluysenaer and Nuno M.M.S. Coelho. Dordrecht: Springer.
De Wijze, Stephen. 1996. The Real Problem of Dirty Hands—Reply to Kai Nielsen. South African Journal of Philosophy 15 (4): 149–151.
———. 2005. Tragic-Remorse—The Anguish of Dirty Hands. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 7 (5): 453–471.
———. 2007. Dirty Hands: Doing Wrong to Do Right. In Politics and Morality, ed. Igor Primoratz, 3–4. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 1989. Truth and Method. 2nd ed. New York: Crossroad.
Korsgaard, Christine M. 2009. Self-Constitution: Agency, Identity, and Integrity. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
Nielsen, Kai. 1996. There Is No Dilemma of Dirty Hands. Response to Stephen de Wijze. South African Journal of Philosophy 15 (4): 155–159.
———. 2007a. There Is No Dilemma of Dirty Hands. In Politics and Morality, ed. Igor Primoratz, 20–37. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Nielsen, Karen M. 2007b. Dirtying Aristotle’s Hands? Aristotle’s Analysis of ‘Mixed Acts’ in the ‘Nicomachean Ethics’ III, 1. Phronesis 52 (3): 270–300.
Nussbaum, Martha Craven. 2001. The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy. Rev. ed. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
Sartre, Jean Paul. n.d. No Exit and Three Other Plays: Dirty Hands, The Flies, and The Respectful Prostitute. New York: Vintage.
Silvestre, Ana Carolina de Faria. 2018. Rethinking Legal Education from Aristotle’s Theory of Emotions and the Contemporary Challenges of the Practical Realization of Law. In Aristotle on Emotions in Law and Politics, ed. Liesbeth Huppes-Cluysenaer and Nuno M.M.S. Coelho. Dordrecht: Springer.
Stocker, Michael. 2004. Plural and Conflicting Values. Reprinted. Clarendon Paperbacks. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Urmson, J.O. 1988. Aristotle’s Ethics. Oxford and Malden, MA: B. Blackwell.
Walzer, Michael. 1973. Political Action: The Problem of Dirty Hands. Philosophy & Public Affairs 2 (2): 160–180.
———. 1978. Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations. London: Allen Lane.
———. 2004. Arguing About War. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. http://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=3420155.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
van Straalen, H. (2018). Remorse and Virtue Ethics. In: Huppes-Cluysenaer, L., Coelho, N. (eds) Aristotle on Emotions in Law and Politics. Law and Philosophy Library, vol 121. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66703-4_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66703-4_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-66702-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-66703-4
eBook Packages: Law and CriminologyLaw and Criminology (R0)