Someone - I will not name and I will refer to as "the man with shades" - invited me one day at his home in Westmount. I attended the college at the time. He had lampshades made by the Nazis from using the skin of Jews killed in concentration camps! Seeing my astonishment and my dismay, I retorted: " What's wrong with having home lampshades that were offered to me as a gift from a friend whose father was a former Nazi? Yet I have not killed any of these Jews whose skin used to decorate these lampshades. Moreover, the kind donor has assured me that these Jews were peeled after death, not when they were still alive. Finally, note that I did not intend to expose these shades to the general public and I will show them to show you my friendship .. . " I was frozen with fear and remained speechless. Although the man with the shades was very friendly and courteous, I could condemn it as immoral as well. Certainly, the man with shades does not contravene any duty regarding compliance of human life since it was not the author of horrible crimes from which the lampshades. Strictly speaking, the man with shades does not violate an ethical duty. Apparently, it does not decrease the amount of happiness for the greatest number, nor increase any, even if we may say, not without some cynicism that the lampshades in question found some use as furniture. A utilitarian would therefore agree with the fact that the man with the shades can enjoy these pieces troubling for its furniture in the privacy of his home.
A supporter of ethics virtues remain perplexed or even angry, as I was while I was a young adult. The man with shades is inherently immoral, that is to say vicious. Why? It's a good person refused categorically abhorrent present the granddaughter of ex-Nazi, knowing their origin. Indeed, accepting the man with shades endorsed and by endorsing the unspeakable monstrosities of the Nazis. It must be either naive or hypocritical to politely accept these heinous "present". Even if the man with shades is not a criminal nor a sadist of the worst Here, one can certainly say that he is a pervert . At least, what I thought at the time, and still do.
I know it is politically incorrect to utter a "value judgments" as the previous one. The meanest was he not a citizen like everyone else with respect to the rights and freedoms from the moment it leaves the womb? If I accuse him of perverse or vicious, he could probably sue me for libel ...
One serious criticism we regularly send to virtue ethics is that good and evil seem to have an independent existence of virtue. Thus, it thinks, the person "good", that is to say, "virtuous", condemns the man with shades as vicious because the property is not to dismember skin people to make lampshades . Basically, it seems that "good person" does little more than a moral rule allowed to start setting out what is right. We must, therefore - according objection to virtue ethics - the Prior to know what is right, before determining the virtue and vice. In sum, virtue ethics presupposes a certain conception of the good that exists independently of the exercise of virtue. The objection is therefore that if virtue determines what is good is a certain conception of the good that determines virtue.
The virtue ethics says that we must act like humans would act "good". But the good man seeks what is right. Since we must seek what is good man, we seem to aim a reality independent, objective, namely, good, independent somewhat of a good man. Thus, it seems we find ourselves here in a sort of vicious circle-. Moreover, asserting that man "good" is "good", does not already assume what "good"? At best, it would be a flat tautology that presupposes virtue ethics. I will show later that this is nothing, and the objection of circularity against virtue ethics does not.
For its part, the proponent of relativism will argue that the Nazi point of view, the lampshades in question were a good way to "recycle" Jewish corpses. We who do not share Nazi ideology, we see these forms of recovery as a horror pure and simple, so unspeakable and indescribable. You just know, relativism contends that Jews were not considered by the Nazis as humans but as subhuman - a bit like vermin. Where is the good and evil, if not in the eye of the judge?, Application relativism.
The problem with the relativist position is that the Nazis were wrong about the Jews. They do not need to exterminate vermin at any price they are beings humans, like the Germans are having their share of faults and their qualities. The Nazis were wrong then what is right and wrong.
It's the same in humans with lampshades. There's something wrong with it morally. By accepting the lampshades, approve indirectly, without realizing it too, the horrible crimes the Nazis committed against Jews. It demonstrates a clear lack of trial; in short, it lacks trial blatantly. That is the main source of his vice .
In the language Aristotle, the man with shades is unwise . At best, it is not a model of sagacity . It lacks what Aristotle takes as the virtue par excellence, phronesis: the sagacity . Today we would say it is not critical thinking or discernment and finesse trial. He knows, like all of us - except the wretched "deniers" - that six million Jews died in Nazi death camps under the pretext that they were Jews.
We all agree Indeed, the Holocaust is one of the worst humanitarian disasters committed by men. So we know all that the Holocaust was evil and that those who deny it are wrong and are irrational. So we know it is wrong to do what the Nazis did to the Jews. So we know what is right and wrong - at least with regard to the Holocaust. The man with the shades knows him well. So he knows what is right. In a sense, critics of virtue ethics are right to point out that the property exists in a certain way regardless of virtue. But it's not as simple because the property does not allow itself to reduce and only a simple knowledge. Well, in fact, is especially a coordinated manner appropriate to a knowledge . That is the virtue of "phronesis" and sagacity , which is so desperately needed to man the lampshades.
When asked if the Holocaust is wrong, surely he will answer yes, it is wrong: it was a calamity, etc.. However, accepting as he made the lampshades, using them to good use its personnel, the showing off to some as it did for me, he acts like he does not know that the Holocaust is wrong. His conduct is inconsistent and therefore irrational. Despite that there is no rule explicitly stating that it is not right making lampshades of human skin with , know that this is wrong and does not act accordingly, c is missing trial is to show blindness; in short, is being, somehow, hypocritical and vile. To be honest, is to be vicious . A good man would never have accepted such a "present", or if, despite all, he accepts, he would call on the field relevant to the Jewish authorities to ensure the memory of the Holocaust.
Critics of virtue ethics argue that it is vague and offers no guidance as to what we should do in specific situations and urgent. Aristotle has constantly stated that situations in life where we meet are so varied and different that no general rule or principle can specify what to do in each case. Certainly, one can always make simple rules such as "Be brave!" or "Be fair!". However, these rules are of such generality they are frankly unhelpful. This is the great defect of virtue ethics. But this defect is also one of the great modern ethics, deontology and consequentialism. The problem is that we believe that in formulating rules stipulating what is right, we will solve all the difficulties that arise. Unfortunately, this is an illusion.
can know what is good - or good - but that is another story to know the practice in circumstances and contexts, with specific individuals, when appropriate, etc. . One problem in this regard is that posed by so-called weakness of will (a krasia ): I do know - like Socrates and Plato argued - which is good, but I am often unable to put into practice. St. Paul in the Epistle to the Romans (7, 15-21), expresses the difficulty: " What I want, I do not do it, I do not want, I do ." . For Aristotle, knowledge of the property is intimately linked to will, that would not have understood his illustrious predecessors, Socrates and Plato. Without naming him, Aristotle rejects the terms of the design ethic of his master, who prevailed in the Academy:
was therefore quite right to say that by dint perform what is right and just that one becomes strong run this is that we become temperate temperate. And without doing that, no one has the slightest chance to become good.
But voila! Most act not and seek refuge in theory, believing devote himself to philosophy and so can be virtuous. They are somewhat like those patients who listen attentively to their doctors' prescriptions, but do nothing. ( Nicomachean Ethics, Book II, 1105b7-18.)
C That is why Aristotle was led to define the property as inextricably linked to virtue. The Platonists may well believe that the Idea of the Good exists independently of men in the world intelligible. The man with the shades may know perfectly well by itself, mais cela ne fait en rien de lui un homme bon .
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