“Risk and Virtue Ethics”(Word count: 13,892)

Allison Ross and Nafsika AthanassoulisIndependent Researchers

allisonjaneross@googlemail.comnafsika@komselis.gr

Abstract:

In this chapter we explain the nature of virtue ethics,differentiating it from competing moral theories -consequentialism or deontology - and arguing that it issuperior to both when it comes to the moral assessment ofrisk. We explore in detail what a virtue ethics approachto the moral evaluation of risk-taking would involve,focusing particularly upon the role played by characterin such assessments. Our main argument is that individualinstances of risk-taking are not isolated events but partof a pattern of behaviour on the part of the risk-taker.We argue, furthermore, that this pattern does not ariseas a result of arbitrary, automatic processes over whichindividual agents have no control. Rather, risk-relatedbehaviour patterns are the product of a complex set ofsettled dispositions which constitute character. We arguethat character dispositions are developed over-timethrough education which involves habituation, activereflection and reflective self-modification. They bringtogether the influences of desire, emotion and thought toprovide explanations of actions and decisions which aremulti-dimensional and profoundly sensitive to theparticularity of individual risk-involving actions andchoices. Risk-taking is both a necessary part of humanlife and a source of moral vulnerability – it is verydifficult to make good choices about risk and there are alot of different ways in which our risky choices couldprove to be morally inadequate. It is our contention thatonly virtue ethics with its emphasis on character -character-development and character-vulnerability -

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provides us with a sufficiently rich vocabulary to a)furnish satisfying explanations of the sensible moraljudgements we make about risks and risk-takers all thetime and b) facilitate effective rational reflectionabout common-sense moral evaluations of risk-taking. Weillustrate the value of the virtue ethics approach usinga hypothetical time-travel experiment in which an agentmust choose whether to take some very serious risksand/or whether to expose others to risk.

Introduction

Section 1: What is virtue ethics?

Section 2: The case for a Virtue Ethics approach to themoral evaluation of risk

Section 3: Character: the basics

Section 4: Habit, education and moral development

Section 5: Decision-making

Section 6: To time-travel or not to time-travel?

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

Imagine the following scenario. You are a researcher atthe Uber-tech Institute. A friend and colleague of yours,Bob, whose knowledge and skill you respect enormously,takes you aside and reveals that he has secretly beendesigning and building a time-machine. The machine is nowready to be tested but the process requires threeparticipants – one to stay at the controls, another toenter the machine and travel in time, and a third to be aback-up time-traveller, in case the first one needs to berescued. Bob would like you to help him test the machine.

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He has already recruited his super-bright thirteen-yearold sister and he offers to let you choose which of thethree roles you would like to play in the test. Beforeyou decide however, he does warn you that time travel hasnever happened before so there is no way of knowing whateffects it will have on traveller’s physical and mentalhealth. In addition, the testing process would entailmaking small changes to the past/future which have asmall probability of adversely affecting the present forsome unknown third parties in unpredictable ways. Whatwould you decide to do?1

There are a number of decisions you would need to make inthe above scenario – a decision about how much andwhether the kinds of risk involved are of the sort andscale that it is acceptable to subject yourself to; adecision about whether and when it is right to condoneand abet other people taking very serious risks withtheir own physical and mental well-being; and a decisionabout how much risk and what sorts of risk it isacceptable to subject unknowing third parties to, etc.These are all complex and difficult decisions and itwould be convenient if there was a formula for makinggood and right decisions about whether, when and what torisk. It will be the contention of this chapter thatthere is no such formula to be had. We will argue thatthe reason for this is that the sorts of decisionsconsidered above are intrinsically moral decisions andthat, whilst some moral theories do purport to offerformulae or rules for decision-making about risk, toattempt to do so is misguided. In place of rules andguidelines we recommend a virtue ethics approach to moraldecision-making. Virtue ethics focuses attention awayfrom rules and upon the features of decision-makingitself, supposing that good decisions are made when thebroad range of mental faculties involved function welland harmoniously. Such decisions will take into accountand give appropriate weight to the context of choice, therole of the reasoner, historical and other constraints(e.g. rights) as well as potential consequences but noneof these criteria will alone act as a hallmark or

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determiner of morally good choices or have decision-independent priority over the others.

Virtue ethics draws upon the sort of approach to moralmatters that was taken by the ancient Greeks andparticularly upon the ethical works of Aristotle. Thischapter begins with an introductory section whichpresents some basic ideas in Aristotelian virtue ethicsfor readers who would benefit from some backgroundcontext to the theory. Readers who are familiar withvirtue ethics may wish to skip to Section 2 whichoutlines the case for a virtue ethical approach to riskdecision-making. Section 3 introduces the notion of moralcharacter which plays a central role in virtue ethics andaccounts for the unique perspective to risk-takingdecisions which is afforded by a character based theory.In Section 4 we consider the long and gradual process ofcharacter development, while Section 5 considers what isinvolved in making virtuous moral judgements. Links tohow this distinctive virtue ethical perspective affectshow we should reason about risk are made through-out thechapter, but Section 6 in particular, returns toconsidering the time travelling example introduced abovein light of the claims we have made on behalf of a virtueethical approach to making decisions about risk.

Section 1 – What is virtue ethics?

The modern revival of interest in virtue ethics beganwith the work of philosophers such as Elizabeth Anscombe,Bernard Williams and Alasdair McIntyre. These authorsraised a number of different ideas, many of them criticalof the other two main alternative moral theories,deontology and consequentialism, but if there is onethought which above all others captures the spirit of thediscussion, it is this: modern virtue ethicists haveredefined the kind of question we should ask aboutethics. Ethical questions deal with practical matters andas such there is often a focus on specific problems. Whatshould I do when faced with X? If I have to choosebetween Y and Z, which one should it be? What is the

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right thing for me to do now? Deontology andconsequentialism give alternative, and in many waysincompatible, answers to these kinds of questions aboutpractical issues. The advice of consequentialism is thatdecision-making should be goal-oriented and can becaptured in one over-riding rule, e.g. do whatevermaximises the greatest consequences for the greatestnumber. The advice of deontology is that you may takeany course of action which is compatible with strictobservance of the rights of others2. Both take it that thekey question in ethics is ‘how ought I to act now?’.Virtue ethics, on the other had, holds that the rightnessor wrongness of individual actions and choices, whilstnot insignificant, is not the key moral issue. Rather ourattention ought to be focused upon questions concerningthe sort of beings/persons we are (and will be) should wechoose and behave in one way rather than another.

Virtue ethics, then, re-defines the kind of question weshould be asking in ethics. Instead of asking what is theright thing to do here, virtue ethics suggests we shouldbe concerned with what kind of person we should become,what kinds of lives we should live. Asking how one shouldlive one’s life, gives ethical enquiry a differentperspective. The object of the enquiry is now an entirelife, a long project of self-reflection and self-development which is both approached as a long-termcommitment and judged as such. Good moral judgement is aproduct of this long process of reflection anddevelopment and getting a particular ethical call righton a particular occasion has as much to do with having awell-organised, appropriately responsive and correctlystructured/balanced character as it does with actualrights or consequences.

These ideas have their roots in Aristotle, so Aristotle’sethics is a good starting point for us as well. Aristotlebegins his deliberations on ethics by considering hissubject matter. He notes that ethics is a complex andvaried subject so when we ask questions about ethics weshould expect our answers to be complex and varied too.It is no good attempting to capture a diverse and

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challenging subject in a simple and all-encompassingrule. A one-rule-fits-all might sound like a good idea ifwe wish to dispense with ethical problems with theminimum amount of hassle and reflection, but such anapproach is bound to fail as it cannot, by its verynature, capture the diversity of the subject at hand. Sowe should expect to find complex, varied and diverseanswers to ethical questions and, clearly, suchchallenging answers are not going to be easy to come by(NE1098a). Virtue ethics then offers a radicallydifferent approach, both in the kind of question it asks,i.e. how should I live my life, and in the kind of answerit expects to find, i.e. a complex, varied and impreciseanswer which cannot be captured in an overriding rule.

Aristotle starts by noting that every action and pursuitaims at some good and that while some things are done forthe sake of others, there must be something which isdesired for its own sake, an ultimate goal for the sakeof which everything else is done; that goal is eudaimonia(NE1094a). Eudaimonia is a challenging term to translate.‘Happiness’ is a popular translation but it tends tosuggest an ephemeral, transient feeling, which is easilyaffected by external factors and which has a specifictarget, for example, ‘I am happy today because I won atthe riding competition’ – this feeling is both generatedby my win and dependent on it, as well as being likely todissipate in time. ‘Contentment’ is a slightly bettertranslation in that it captures a sense of permanent andstable satisfaction with one’s overall life, although ithas connotations of passivity and resignation and thereis nothing meek or weak about eudaimonia. Perhaps‘fulfilment’ or ‘flourishing’ is the best term, but ithas to be understood within the Aristotelian context,which we explain in what follows.

Eudaimonia is not pleasure, for that is determined by thevalue of the activity which gives rise to it and we arelooking for something which is valuable in itself. Norcan it be honour, for that depends on those who confer itand we are looking for something which is trulycharacteristic of the person and not an external

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attribute easily given and taken away. Nor can it bewealth, for that is merely a means to other things andnot an end in itself (NE1095a17-1096a15). Perhaps todiscover what eudaimonia is we need to consider ourfunction or purpose. Aristotle observes that where athing has a function, the good of that thing, i.e. whenwe say that that thing is doing well, is to perform thatfunction well. This idea is best understood by example.The knife has a function, which is to cut. The good ofthe knife, i.e. when we say that the knife is doing well,is to perform that function well, i.e. to cut well. So agood knife is a knife that cuts well (NE1096a25-33).

The same sort of argument, Aristotle suggests, can beapplied to human beings. That is to say that in order toanswer the question of how we should live our lives, weneed to consider what kind of being human beings are andto discover what human life is for or what kinds of livesare characteristic of beings such as ourselves. Humanbeings, he thinks, have a function, so when we say thathuman beings are doing well it’s because they areperforming their function well. All we need to do now isto discover the function of human beings. To discover thefunction of ‘human’ beings we need to consider what isdistinctive of human beings, what sets human beings apartfrom other beings and is peculiar to us qua human beings.The answer is the ability to reason. The function ofhuman beings is reason and the life which is distinctiveof humans is the life in accordance with reason. If thefunction of human beings is reason, then the good humanbeing is the human being who functions well, i.e. reasonswell, and reasoning well is the life of excellence forhuman beings (NE1097b21-1098a15, for a moderninterpretation of these kinds of arguments from Aristotlesee Hursthouse, 1999). Reason, according to Aristotle,takes particular forms depending upon what is beingreasoned about, one of these forms is practical reasoningwhich occupies itself with questions of value and withseeking to bring actions into accordance with values.Practical rationality is a key element of the complexpsychology of action. So part of what it takes toflourish is to exercise good practical rationality, the

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person who achieves this is called practically wise(phronimos). Aristotle famously describes two kinds ofeudaimon life, the life of contemplation and the life ofthe phronimos. The former does not lack practical wisdombut simply seldom encounters situations where it isnecessary to deploy it; the latter is fully engaged insocial and political life so that exercise of practicalwisdom is a major (perhaps primary) manifestation of hercapacity for reason (NE1102a). A person who ispractically wise will also be virtuous. This followsbecause a practically wise person makes the best possible(all things considered) decisions about how to act and(in most cases) has the confidence and self-possession toenact them. Eudaimonia, then, consists in activity inaccordance with reason and leads to fulfilment andcontentment with one’s life and the highest activity inaccordance with reason is virtue – moral goodness, moralexcellence.

Section 2: The case for a Virtue Ethics approach to themoral evaluation of risk

Actions involving risk have a particular nature, one thatmakes moral judgements about these actions particularlyproblematic. Actions involving risk are hostages tofortune, in that, by definition, the results of one’sactions are not (at least not entirely in some cases)under one’s control. Risky outcomes may or may notactualize, but whether they do so or not, is (at leastpartly) outside the control of the agent who instigatedthe risky actions3. This very nature of risky actionsposes problems for moral responsibility. We hold peoplemorally responsible and subject them to moral praise orblame because we fundamentally assume that they hadcontrol over their actions. This thought captures what isdistinctive about judgements of moral responsibility andties in with our understanding of agency. Agents are freebeings who demonstrate their agency, i.e. their wills,their choices, their reasoning, etc., in their actions,which is exactly why we hold them responsible for theseactions. Where agency and control come apart, forexample, in cases of people who are severely mentally ill

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or people who are not yet fully formed moral agents, i.e.children, we accept that there is limited scope forattributions of moral responsibility. This creates aproblem for moral judgements of risky actions, for howare we to hold agents responsible for risky outcomeswhich materialised due to the vagaries of luck ratherthan the effects of agency?

The nature of the problem is made clear by considerationof how inadequate some consequentialist theories are forassessing risk. Consequentialist theories evaluate themorality of actions based on the value of theirconsequences, so that a morally good action is one that,for example, produces the greatest utility for thegreatest number of people. However, it is exactly thisfocus on consequences that produces distorted resultswhen applied to actions involving risk. Situationsinvolving risk involve, of necessity, uncertainty;therefore the outcomes of one’s actions will beuncertain. One possible response to this problem is toevaluate an action based on the actual consequences,those consequences that come about once the risk hasactualised. However, this is clearly counter-intuitive interms of moral responsibility. Consider the vice ofrecklessness, that is, the indifferent disregard for theconsequences of one’s actions which becomes a lot moreproblematic when one’s actions affect others. A recklessaction is reckless because of the character trait itdisplays, rather than because of the actual outcomes itproduces. Suppose an agent chooses to neglect his car’sroutine maintenance out of sheer boredom, then gets drunkout of sheer self-indulgence knowing he is likely todrive himself home and then speeds on his way home out ofsheer extravagant enjoyment of fast driving. This fast,drunk driving in an unsafe car, is reckless because ofits irresponsible disregard for the safety of other road-users, the wellbeing of whom could have been bettersafeguarded had the driver in question been concernedenough to take some modest actions in that respect, e.g.service his car, remain sober and respect the speedlimit. The moral judgement concerning thereprehensibility of the drunken driving concerns the

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character trait of recklessness that led the agent tobehave in this way rather than the actual consequences ofhis action. For despite all his recklessness and theclear endangering of other people’s welfare, our drunkendriver could end up being lucky, i.e. despite the highlikelihood of him injuring someone, he could actuallyavoid this outcome. However, avoiding the consequences ofone’s recklessness does not make one any less responsiblefor it. That the driver was lucky and that the smallchance of him getting home safely actualised does notmake his risk taking any more acceptable.

One may respond here that we should not be concerned withactual consequences, but rather with expectedconsequences. For whatever the actual consequences ofsuch reckless driving may be, the expected consequencesof driving so recklessly are that someone is likely to behurt and it is this aspect of the agent’s action that weshould hold him responsible for. However, estimatingexpected consequences in situations of risk can beproblematic and even impossible in some cases (Hanson1993). Furthermore, even if we were to set such problemsof calculating expected outcomes aside, the impersonalcalculation of consequences leaves no room for partialconsiderations, especially those that allocate greaterweight to significant sacrifices by particularindividuals (Hanson 2003), or those that differentiatebetween the bearers of different risks and benefits(Athanassoulis and Ross 2010). The first concern is thatstrict calculations of expected consequences do not dojustice to the relative burdens born by differentindividuals. Consider the following example: supposethat as a result of an industrial accident at a nuclearpower plant there is a leakage of radioactive gasses. Theleakage is relatively simple to stop in that it requiresno particular expertise, anyone can enter the room tocarry out the necessary operations, however theconcentration of radioactive gasses in the room inquestion is so high that in stopping the leak the personcarrying out the repair will be exposed to high levels ofradioactivity that have a 90% chance of killing him.Alternatively, the gasses could be allowed to escape the

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building, rendering the room safe for the repair, but atthe risk of exposing 1000 people in the immediatevicinity to a risk of 0.001 of being killed byradioactive poisoning. Pure calculation of numberssuggests that the unfortunate security guard who happensto be in the vicinity of the leak should step into theroom to carry out the repairs. However, this outcome,although it makes sense numerically, clashes with oursense of fairness with respect to the equitabledistributions of the burdens of risk taking.Concentrating all the negative effects of the risk on oneunfortunate individual seems a lot less fair thandistributing a much smaller burden over larger numbers ofpeople and some disadvantages for some people cannot bejustified by the cumulative advantages conferred to alarge number of other people4.

The second concern with consequentialist approaches tothe moral evaluation of actions involving risk is a worrythat the strict calculation of consequences does notallow room for differentiating between the bearers ofrisks and benefits. In some cases of risky action, theperson or persons who run the risk of being harmed by theaction may be different from the person or persons whorun the risk of benefiting from the outcome and thisfeature makes these situations particularly problematic.Quite high risk of harm and even risk of death may bothbe acceptable if one and the same individual stands togain from the act. For example, a terminally ill patientmay choose to take part in a Phase III trial of apromising, but untested, drug that also runs the risk ofending the patient’s life prematurely. The background ofthe terminal illness for which all therapeutic optionshave been exhausted, coupled with the fact that thepatient willingly risks only his own well being, makethis a justifiable decision. However, the same cannot besaid for actions which risk the welfare of others tobenefit an individual. For example, an oil company maytake significant risks by drilling in deep water withmachinery which has been tested but not in the extremeconditions of the deep oceans. If the oil should spillduring drilling the impact upon the ocean and the

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inhabitants of near-by territories could be devastating(including possible death, illness, loss of livelihoodetc.). The oil company takes this risk in order to keepprofit margins high and, if successful, stands to benefitby dominating the oil industry. Say that the risk ofleakage is small and as it turns out nothing bad happens.According to the consequentialist the small risk ofleakage must be adjudged a case of acceptable risktaking. However this does not seem to be quite right, theoil company is still unfairly putting people’s lives andlivelihoods at risk. Consequentialist approaches are notsensitive to these distinctions and leave much to bedesired as they evaluate risk taking without accountingfor the integrity of the persons making the decisions.

This sense of dissatisfaction with consequentialistapproaches to risk is, however, useful because it pointstowards a different alternative. When we discussedrecklessness above, we captured what was morallyproblematic about being indifferent to the risks oneexposes other people to by referring to the character trait ofrecklessness. This notion of character gives us a differentapproach to the moral assessment of risk. Discussions ofrisk, strongly influenced by consequentialism, tend tofocus on one-off, exceptional circumstances, dramaticchoices that few individuals are ever unlucky enough tohave to make. A character-based theory of risk wouldshift the focus from such high profile, but rare andtherefore unrealistic, choices, to everyday concerns. Ifthe focus is on one’s character, then we have to examinethe patterns in choices that people make, those choicesthat are re-affirmed over time and those choices thatexpress their deeply held values and beliefs which arehardly a matter for one-off exceptional circumstances.The discussion of risk shifts from the exceptional towhat is characteristic of individuals and this makes moresense of our common reactions to risk, for the recklessperson is not likely to be reckless in a one-off,extraordinary situation, but rather to exhibit thischaracter trait of recklessness over time, consistentlyin different kinds of cases and with reliability. This isbecause recklessness is an attitude to risk which is

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underpinned by a judgement about the relativeunimportance of other people’s well being. It isessentially characterised by a disregard for the welfareof others, an entrenched attitude that is displayed overtime and in a variety of situations. A character-basedtheory of risk then would be more concerned withjudgements of agents over time and over a variety ofdifferent situations, all of which illustrate theperson’s character, than with one-off, albeitspectacular, but extraordinary occurrences. A character-based theory of risk will be less about dramatic choicesand more about the people involved in these decisions andhow all their choices, over a variety of decisions,determine and illustrate who they are.

Section 3: Character: the basics

1 We have chosen time-travel as our example of risk decision-making because of it has the advantage of being unfamiliar and challenging to readers from all disciplines and yet embodies many of the dilemmasthat will arise when making decisions concerning the use of any riskytechnology. 2 Deontologists differ over what defines moral rights and duties. Some think they are determined by divine command (Quinn 1999 p53) others by political consensus (Hobbes 1660 chapter 13, Rawls 1975 Book I). The most influential of deontological theory has been Kant’s – he argues that we can work out what our rights and duties are by appeal to ‘the categorical imperative’ which is the logical consequence of seeing ourselves as valuable because we are agents and, as a matter of consistency, seeing all other agents as equally valuable (Kant 1785). 3 Of course not all situations involving risk are instigated by an agent, e.g. many are the result of natural forces over which we exercise no control, but in this chapter we are interested in moral judgements and responsibility for one’s decisions so we have limited the discussion to these kinds of cases of risk. For more on this see Athanassoulis and Ross, 2010.4 This example is adapted from Hansson 2003, p.295. The reason for the changes is that the individual in Hansson’s original example is arepairman with the skills to effect the repair. It seems to us that selecting this person in particular raises questions about one’s obligation to expose oneself to danger when the risk of doing so is part of one’s employment obligations which were freely entered upon. Such considerations, as well as more general questions regarding the selection of the individual who runs the risk, e.g. whether he is a volunteer, whether he has any role obligations in this respect, etc. make a difference to the moral evaluation of the decision.

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The notion of ‘character’ in virtue ethics refers to aspecific and technical term. The word ‘character’ comesfrom the Ancient Greek for carving, indicating apermanent and indestructible way of preserving somethingand this gives us a good indication of the use of theword nowadays. One’s character is the set of stable,permanent and well-entrenched dispositions to act inparticular ways (Athanassoulis 2005 pp27-34). In the sameway that a carving is a permanent and reliable mark,one’s character is the collection of permanent andreliable dispositions which characterise who one is.One’s character leads one to act in a particular way, butthese actions are also an expression of who one is, andone’s behaviour is explained by one’s character. At thesame time when we speak of someone with no character wetend to mean that that person has no strength of will,yields to the wishes of others easily, is overcome bytemptation, cannot be depended upon to act in aparticular way consistently. So the notion of characteris essentially captured in the ideas of stability,reliability, predictability and permanence (Kupperman1991 esp Part I).

Character dispositions are long-term features of agents,but they are not the only long-term features of agents, soit is important to provide a more substantial account ofcharacter which can distinguish character from theseother sorts of characteristics of agents. We cannot hopeto offer a detailed comparison of character, identity andpersonality here but such an account can be found inKupperman (1991 p3-46). For our purposes a preliminarynarrowing of the definition of character can be made byspecifying that it has to do with the ways we think andact, and that moral character concerns the way we thinkand act in moral situations. Moral character will be thefocus of our discussion. Aristotle thinks of states ofcharacter (such as virtue or vice) as complex rather thansimple states of mind. Virtue, for example, involves morethan being in possession of a true or logicallyconsistent belief about how one ought to act or beingsentimentally generous to others. Indeed what is requiredby Aristotle is a state in which the faculties of

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perception, motivation, thought and reason seamlesslyinteract to bring about cogent appropriate action inindividual cases and establish the long-term possessionof a stable disposition to respond well to whateversituation is encountered. Consider his definition ofvirtue in the Nicomachean Ethics:

Virtue, then, is a state of character concernedwith choice, lying in a mean, i.e. the meanrelative to us, this being determined by arational principle, and by that principle bywhich the man of practical wisdom woulddetermine it. (NE 1107a)

For present purposes what we are interested in extractingfrom this definition is what it tells us about characterin general. What we can deduce from this definition isthat states of character are intimately linked to actionthrough choice. To possess character is to manifest it inthe form of choices about how to act. In addition, thisdefinition makes clear that choices and actions whichmanifest character are the product of the interaction ofreaction, reason and motivation. The way in which theserelationships function is not something that is evidentfrom choice or actions themselves, and it is for thisreason that virtue or states of character are frequentlydescribed as dispositions; as here in the NicomacheanEthics:

There are three kinds of disposition [that canbe constitutive of character], then, two ofthem vices, involving excess and deficiencyrespectively, and one a virtue, viz. the mean,and all are in a sense opposed to all; for theextreme states are contrary both to theintermediate state and to each other, and theintermediate to the extremes (NE 1108b)

So states of character are complex dispositions. Like allother dispositions they will have the followingcharacteristics:

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They are latent rather than manifest. We can onlyknow of their existence through experience of themanifestations with which they are associated.

They rely for their manifestation, although not fortheir existence, upon the obtaining of certainenvironmental conditions.

One’s character is a state of being encompassing one’ssettled and stable dispositions that will, under normalcircumstances, manifest themselves in action. That is,being kind will be the settled and stable disposition todisplay kindness in situations which call for a kindresponse. There is a clear connection then between one’scharacter and the actions one chooses to perform, andconversely one’s actions will manifest one’s character.

We wish to illustrate this by returning to our timetravel example from the beginning. Bob’s choice of hisyoung sister as one of the experiment participants whomight be exposed to unknown and possibly serious risks,tells us something about his character which, in turn,allows us to assess this decision to take risky actionirrespective of the outcomes of the experiment. Bob’ssister is both relatively young and therefore less likelyto be able to weigh up correctly the serious risksinvolved in participating in such an experiment, andrelated to Bob with family bonds that may affect thevoluntariness of her decision to participate. Theseconcerns may lead one to worry about Bob’s attempt torecruit his sister to the experiment and lead one towonder whether Bob’s judgement is clouded by any of thefollowing:

his devotion to and enthusiasm for the project oftime-travel

his anxious state of mind a particular habitual pattern of interaction between

him and his sister pressure from his sponsor to ‘get on with it’

Bob’s apparently reckless behaviour towards his sister isindicative of his character, it appears to expose asimple disposition to endanger others for his own gain.

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We need to be careful however about inferring simpledispositions from this one instance of decision-making.This particular occasion may be a one-off, a situation ofgreat temptation and difficulty, which has challengedBob’s otherwise sensible behaviour. However it may alsobe part of a pattern of such reckless actions thatmanifests itself over time. The real nature of thisrecklessness in Bob’s character, cannot really be knownwithout observing and understanding the behaviourresulting from Bob’s character over time. Observing Bobover time will help us determine whether he is habituallyreckless – a vice – or prone to recklessness when facedwith difficult or tempting situations – a case ofweakness of will. In either case, the assessment of Bob’sattitude to risk is not a matter of observing his one-offresponses, one would need to get to know Bob’s characterover time before any such judgement could be made(Athanassoulis 2000).

Given this account of character then, we would expect acharacter-based theory of risk to offer us not only adifferent answer to whether a risk should be taken in anyone particular case, but, more importantly, a differentway of approaching the question. The focus of assessmentturns from tangible consequences, probabilities orindividual intentions to produce consequences, towardsthe agent as a whole, towards her quality as a decision-maker and therefore towards the quality of the way inwhich she lives. To illustrate the value of the ‘wholeagent’ approach to moral evaluation let us consider anexample, which is slightly less complex than Bob’s.Consider the comparison of two mothers and theirresponses to the prospect of a potentially riskyvaccination that is available for their children. MotherOne informs herself by reading up on the disease, itsprevalence, its side effects, possible treatments,efficacy of the vaccine, adverse effects of the vaccine,etc. Her research suggests that whilst the risk of thevaccination is small and unlikely compared with the riskof the disease, there is nevertheless reason to fear anadverse reaction. She considers her overall commitment tomake decisions on behalf of her child based on that

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child’s best interests and despite her natural fear forher child’s well being she reasons that not to vaccinateis to leave him vulnerable to horrible diseases, and thatvaccinating also means to contribute to public health.She decides that the risks involved in vaccination areworth taking in order to protect him from suchvulnerability not purely because of the possible outcomesbut also because of the specific perspective she ought toadopt as the child’s primary care giver. That is, beingresponsible for the welfare of another human being andhaving to make important health care decisions on theirbehalf, imposes an extra burden of caution. Risks andoutcomes are then evaluated through the filter of thisperspective of ‘deciding on behalf of a vulnerable otherfor whom I have special care responsibilities’, aperspective that changes the weight one allocates topossible dangers and benefits. She vaccinates and herchild has the rare and unlikely adverse reaction. CompareMother One to Mother Two who makes an uninformed decisionnot to vaccinate, based primarily on the inconvenience ofgetting the vaccine. Fortunately, her child happens toexperience little exposure to the disease concerned andbenefits from herd immunity and so no harm results. Whichmother in this example acts well? The answer has to beMother One, but how can we explain this judgement inlight of the negative consequences? Well, the virtuetheorist would say that despite the bad consequences,despite her intentional risk of those bad consequencesMother One acts responsibly, beneficently and with somecourage. Mother Two, by contrast, fails to respondappropriately to both her child and to the normativedemand for responsible care which society makes on her,by basing her decision on her personal convenience. Shealso behaves as a free-rider, benefiting from the herdimmunity maintained because other parents vaccinate theirchildren. She is careless and callous independently ofwhether anyone is harmed by her choice and independentlyof her explicit intentions (she does not intend that herchild be harmed, she is just negligent) and therefore sheis also reckless. In this case it is fair to infer caringand carelessness/recklessness from the one examplebecause the situation has been set up as one in which

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there is no external pressure to act in a particular wayand because the decision is the sort of routine decisionthat is part of the daily responsibilities of parents. Asa result these decisions can be justly seen ascharacteristic of the way in which the women approachrisk-taking on behalf of their children. It is worthnoting, however, that the inference to characterdispositions is only possible when we understand theprocess of practical reasoning that the decision-makersundertake, the way in which they perceive, consider andrespond to facts of the situation, their attitudes, theirvalues etc. We can see from this the multi-dimensionalnature of character and this explains the comparativerichness of the virtue ethicist’s moral judgements whencompared to those of consequentialists or deontologists.

Section 4: Habit, education and moral development

It seems, then, that having the right character iscrucial in making the right decisions about risk. This,in turn, raises questions about the acquisition,development and application of one’s character. How doesone come to have the right character and how does havingthe right character help with all sorts of tendencies wehave towards risk?

A good place to start then is with whether a goodcharacter is a natural characteristic or one that isdeveloped over time. At the beginning of Book II of theNicomachean Ethics Aristotle says the following:

Virtue, then, being of twokinds, intellectual and moral, intellectual virtuein the main owes both its birth and its growthto teaching (for which reason it requiresexperience and time), while moral virtue comesabout as a result of habit, whence also itsname ethike is one that is formed by a slightvariation from the word ethos (habit). Fromthis it is also plain that none of the moralvirtues arises in us by nature for nothing that

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exists by nature can form a habit contrary toits nature. For instance the stone which bynature moves downward cannot be habituated tomove upwards, not even if one tries to train itby throwing it up ten thousand times; nor canfire be habituated to move downwards, nor cananything else that by nature behaves in one waybe trained to behave in another. Neither bynature, then, nor contrary to nature do thevirtues arise in us; rather we are adapted bynature to receive them, and made perfect byhabit. (NE1103a)

We are not born with good or bad or any other kind ofcharacter and it is not inevitable that we will developone. Indeed we do not even need one in order to produceactions (not all actions are actions from character;Butler 1988 pp218-227). This is not to say that that weare not naturally born with certain tendencies, e.g. atendency to irascibility or a tendency to mildness oftemperament, etc. Rather the claim is that naturaltendencies differ from stable dispositions. Whatever ourassigned lot from nature, we can become self-aware of ournatural tendencies, we can expose them to criticalreflection, we can affirm the positive ones that guidetowards virtue and reject the negative ones that pulltowards vice, and we can instil new tendencies inourselves, until, over time, the correct ones becomestable dispositions. A natural tendency towards kindnessmay or may not be present in particular individuals, buteveryone has the option of developing the disposition tokindness which is essential for the virtue of kindness.The tendencies with which we are born are part of whatenables us to acquire character but they do notconstitute it. Character has to be actively developed outof the raw materials with which we are born(Athanassoulis 2005).

So moral virtue is not something we have by nature but weare naturally possessed of the potential to becomevirtuous. How does the realisation of that potential comeabout? Aristotle’s answer is ‘through good education’.

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Moral education, according to Aristotle, consists, in themain, in the inculcation of good habits. Often the needfor habituation is taken as implying that morality isgoverned by the non-rational elements of the mind becauseit is these that need to be trained, being inaccessibleto reason. However a better way to think of the sort ofhabituation involved in the acquisition of good characterwould be to compare the process with what happens when ayoung person acquires a skill – playing the piano orspeaking her mother tongue. The young learner learns bybeing required to produce simple performances of music orlanguage and by watching others perform. In this way sheis exposed to the elements of language or piano playingand to the rules according to which these elements areusually combined (explicitly taught or inferred) and hermind sets to work analysing these and experimenting withthem. Her experiments are met with critical or approvingresponses by those from whom she learns as well as thoseaffected by what she says and does. She adjusts her graspof concepts, rules and practices as a result. As shedevelops she begins to be self-critical and takes anactive role in habituating herself. As with theacquisition of language or a skill the acquisition ofgood character involves the co-ordination and developmentof a wide range of intrinsic abilities or potentialitiesincluding reasoning, perception, emotion, desire etc. Allare capable of influencing and being influenced by eachother and it simply takes good training to lay out theright tracks or set up the right relationships/patternsof interaction between them. The result is asophisticated deliberator who can take into accountrelevant aspects of context and respond bothintellectually and emotionally in an appropriate mannerwhen faced with novel opportunities for choice andaction. As the piano-player becomes a composer and thelanguage-learner a poet, so the young agent becomes aphronimos – a practically wise exemplar of living well.This process of character development then involves thecritical evaluation of one’s natural tendencies, and thehabitual work required to train one’s desires to conformwith the choice of one’s reason, so that, when one’s

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character is mature, the right action is chosen, chosenfor its own sake, chosen willingly and effortlessly.

Developing a good character and becoming a person ofvirtue is itself then a process with many built-inuncertainties, as many crucial elements in this processare subject to luck. Good moral education is crucial butit is also rare and dependent upon contingencies ofopportunity and resources. The long and difficult processof character development is vulnerable to circumstances,to the availability of good exemplars and goodinfluences. Furthermore, the process is as likely to beinfluenced by negative factors as it is by positive ones.Exposed to the wrong influences, the wrong peer group,the wrong examples, one’s character may well be shapedtowards vice with the same readiness that it could have,under other circumstances, been shaped towards virtue.Nussbaum points out that Aristotelian goodness ofcharacter is profoundly social and partly constituted bya capacity to interact unguardedly and generously withothers (Nussbaum 1986 pp343ff). As a result goodnessopens the person of good character to the possibility ofloss and betrayal, the experience of which is likely tobe profoundly destabilising to character. Character canbe undermined even when it is fully developed and robust(Nussbaum uses the example of Euripides ‘Hecuba’ toillustrate this claim, Nussbaum 1986 p 397), however,like a growing plant, it is most vulnerable when it isstill finding its form. Formative experience of breachesof trust, injustice and the loss or denial of socialgoods such as friendship and collective activity can allprevent character from developing well. The result may bebad or vicious character but it might equally beweakness, confusion and a state best described as ‘lackof character’ (see Kuperman 1991 p7 for what lack ofcharacter amounts to). The process of moral development,then, is like a tender, young shoot; it will grow into ahealthy, strong tree, capable of withstanding violentstorms but only if it is tended, nurtured and exposed tothe right conditions which encourage this growth. Riskand the conditions of vulnerability it creates for thedevelopment of the good character, are not only

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acknowledged and accepted by virtue ethics, but alsoembraced and welcomed by it as a deep insight into theconnection between vulnerability and the activity ofvaluing upon which moral practice is founded.

Section 5: Decision making

Thus far we have claimed that choices to take risks oughtto be morally assessed according to what those choicesreveal about the character of the chooser rather than byappeal to the extent to which she respects her own andothers rights or the extent to which that choice islikely to produce good consequences. We have pointed outthat character is a complex multi-dimensional phenomenonwhich is educable but also vulnerable to forces beyondthe control of the agent. We have emphasised the factthat virtuous activity is activity in accordance withreason. In this section of the chapter we willdemonstrate that the role played by reason in theproduction of character driven choice and action is muchbroader than the regulation of objective claims aboutwhat is an effective means to what. Virtue ethicsrecognises that reason has a role to play in subjectivevaluing and emotional response. The virtue ethicistdenies that personal values and feelings cannot berationally criticised. As a result, virtue ethicalanalysis has the potential to penetrate aspects of risk-involving choice upon which orthodox approaches toevaluating risk (such as those which rely upon expectedutitilities or stake-holder determined priorities5) cannoteven comment.

However, making decisions about risk is far from clearand unproblematic. People have natural tendencies towardsrisky or conservative behaviour, but also towardsparticular, subjective interpretations of what counts asrisky or conservative behaviour. At the same time,5 On these views ‘the passions’ which includes both desire and emotion are the product of causal processes that are little or no interest to philosophers. They take it that these elements can best be catered for by studying the patterns of reactions that people actually have and using these as a measure of value.

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reasoning about risk can become clouded with commonfallacies relating to probabilities, individualvariability in assessing the magnitude of risks and insetting acceptability thresholds. In all this there seemsto be a conflict between an ‘idealised’ approach to risk,involving an objective judgement based on transparentcalculations of fact, and a subjective, personalinterpretation of risk which is shaped by the views,desires and prejudices of individual risk takers.However, as we shall see, there need not be a conflictbetween the objective requirements of the situation andthe subjective view-point of the risk taker, and thesetwo, apparently conflicting perspectives, may turn out tobe far more compatible than at first thought.

Consider that in economic(http://homepage.newschool.edu/het//essays/uncert/aversion.htm;http://hadm.sph.sc.edu/courses/econ/Risk/Risk.html;http://moneyterms.co.uk/risk-aversion/), political(Rawls, for example, feels the need to stipulate a levelof risk aversion which he considers to be reasonable inarguing for the MAXIMIN strategy (Rawls 1971 p123-33))and even some legal/ethical (Sunstein 2002 p28-53)literature about risk, which follows a broadlyconsequentialist approach to good risk-taking, theattitude of the risk-taker plays a significant butmysterious role. For example, a community that isinherently risk-averse might ‘undervalue’ a newtechnology (say a time-machine) introduced into theirenvironment and consequently, behave in a way thateconomists consider ‘irrational’. Economists, becausethey assume an essentially consequentialist theory aboutrisk acceptability, need to know not just how somethingought to be valued but how it actually is or will bevalued. To achieve this they draw on work done inpsychology concerning heuristics and how these structurethought and action. Sunstein too makes reference topsychological heuristics in his defence of expert riskdecision makers. He develops the Tversky–Kanehemanheuristics to demonstrate the irrationality of riskperception and consequently of risk responses amongs

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‘lay-people’ and uses this to argue that risk decion-making ought to be left in the hands of the experts(Sunstein 2007 p157-168).

So it is widely accepted that ‘attitude’ is one of thevariables that has to be taken into account indetermining the value or disvalue of outcomes which, inturn, is necessary for deciding whether a particular riskis worthwhile. It is also widely acknowledged that‘attitude’ is a variable which is difficult to track orpredict. Heuristics act as correctives but on the wholetheorists tend to simplify (reducing all subjectiveresponses to degrees of risk-aversion, thereby treatingthe whole of human life as if it were a gambling game) orgeneralise (attributing feelings like ‘selfishness’ toall choosers and assuming that such feelings dominate inany given circumstances). When actual choosers choosedifferently to the ways that such theorist suggest arebest, it is often claimed that these people are just badat reasoning about risk. Because their subjectivefeelings and values fail to match those ‘arbitrarily’postulated by the theory, theorists conclude thatordinary reasoners somehow allow the irrational part ofchoice-making to overwhelm the rational part.Subjectivity is seen as a source of error, a force thatundermines reason (Lewens 2007 p15). Typically those whothink so take it that the subjective attitude to risk issomething which is simply a psychological given which isnot under much rational control and is fairly consistentacross a variety of different types of risk (although itmay vary according to the probability of bad result andthe extent to which the consequence that is hoped for isvalued). This seems to suggest a conception of riskdecision-making that is outside the agent’s control andopen to subjective and subversive influences. Someauthors think this can be overcome by removing thesubjective element from risk decision-making entirely andplacing the responsibility for risk-involving choice inthe hands of ‘experts’ (Sunstein 2002 pp28-53). However,such claims rest upon the idea that good reasoning aboutrisk at least approximates an exact science6, while at thesame time human reasoners are at the mercy of fickle

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emotions and poor reasoning. This is the sort of pictureof reasoning about risk that we wish to argue against.

In our view, good risk-taking is the product ofpractically wise decision-making and such decision-makingis not and cannot be ‘scientific’ (for the full argumentand explanation of Aristotelian ‘Non-ScientificDeliberation’ see Nussbaum 1986 p290-317.). Aristotleargues that the right moral response is ‘a mean’ betweenpossible reactions. That mean is achieved as a result ofsensitive perception, good practical reasoning, the well-sensitised emotional reactions and an ability of all ofthese to impact upon a discerning capacity to formulatedesires. The mean in each situation is different – forexample, whilst rage and violent action might bethoroughly inappropriate in the case of a football fanwhose team has lost, exactly the same reaction would bethe appropriate response (i.e. in the mean) to someonetorturing an innocent child. The variation in theAristotelian mean has the consequence that little in theway of generalisation can be made from one case toanother and the correct answer will be a matter ofconsidering the particulars of each situation. Decisionmaking is not a matter of making or applying general,descriptive rules, rather it is intensely responsive toevaluative and normative aspects of particularsituations. Specific features of the subjects involvedand the circumstances in which they are involved have acrucial role to play in reasoning about what to do andhow to act well, as do features of the historical processthat brought the agent to the point of needing to makeany specific risk-involving choice. It is also not‘scientific’ in the sense that emotional deliberation ispart of the reasoning process and the emotions arecompatible with and even constitutive of the agent’sreasoning. Decisions about risk that proceed from a goodcharacter involve emotional responses which are integralto firm and stable dispositions to virtue. In what

6 The basic idea is the consequentialist one that reasoning about risk is a matter of marrying probabilities and value/disvalue of potential outcomes and then selecting the combination that comes out with the best score.

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follows in this section we will make the case for thisinterpretation of the Aristotelian approach and show howit enriches the explanation of moral judgements of risk-taking.

Two features of Aristotelian decision-making are worthdiscussing here: situational appreciation and practicalwisdom, phronesis. Situational appreciation is a termcoined by David Wiggins (Wiggins 1978/9), to capture theAristotelian idea that the particular details of a case,which vary from one case to another, are crucial inethical deliberation and it is the role of the agent toperceive these features and their ethical significance.Crucially these particulars are situation specific, sothey cannot be captured in a one-size-fits-all rule. Atbest rules are rules of thumb (Nussbaum 1986, Roberts1991, Dancy 2004), so the agent must always be sensitiveto details of the particular case which prove theexception to the rule. Situational appreciation then isthe perception of the morally salient particulars of acase which in turn give rise to reasons to act, but thesefeatures can be difficult both to perceive and to gaugetheir importance relative to other features of the case.Such particulars might include the numbers of personsaffected, the status and needs of stakeholders, theavailability of alternative, or features of the socialcontext etc (Athanassoulis and Ross 2010). The emphasisupon attention to the particulars is in keeping withcommon sense generalisations - the common-sensegeneralization that cases where an agent decides toexpose another to risk are more problematic than caseswhere the agent decides to expose herself to risk is anexample of different ethical significances beingattributed to different cases because the ‘particulars ofthe case’ (the first/third person nature of riskexposure) differ. Similarly the reasonable claim that wehave greater obligations when making any decision onbehalf of a non-competent other such as a child, takes‘competence’ as ethically significant particular in thedecision-making procedure and this seems correct. Theabove examples demonstrate how some sorts of particularsare relevant in a reasonably stable way, allowing the

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formulation of working ‘rules of thumb’, howeverparticular considerations such as ‘competence’ and ‘1st/3rd

party exposure’ do not occur in isolation and theAristotelian must always allow that there are someparticulars which ought to weigh differently in differentsituations, that ‘rules of thumb’ are tentative and therewill be contexts in which they do not apply or are evenreversed leading to unconventional, but neverthelessappropriate, decisions.

Consider the differences between a case where a decisionhas to be made on whether to expose a child topotentially grave risk in order to avoid another graverisk, under circumstances of uncertainty and with nooption of substituting the child with another agent, andour time-travel case. The clinicians first deciding totrial ECMO machines on neonates faced such a decision.ECMO machines provide cardiac and respiratory support topatients with severely compromised heart and lungfunction. In neonates, abstaining from treatment wouldrun a very high risk of death, but the very first uses ofECMO machines also run the risk of an unconfirmedprocedure, which, once initiated, could not be reversedin favour of another course of treatment. This placedclinicians deciding whether to use ECMO for the firsttime in a very difficult situation: not only were theymaking life and death decisions on behalf of incompetentothers, they had to do so under conditions of uncertaintyas to the outcomes but with some evidence to suggest thatthe proposed treatment could avert death, their decisionswere not reversible and there was no way the child couldbe substituted with an adult who would, at least, be ableto decide for himself whether the risk was worth runningor not7. The ECMO decision is by no means clear,influenced on the one hand by the therapeutic promise toavoid a high probability of death, complicated by thelack of therapeutic alternatives once the decision ismade, and constrained by the inability to substitute the

7 Since the introduction of ECMO in neonatal medicine, the machine isnow also being used for adults, but at the time this did not appear to be a possibility. For more information on these studies and their ethical implications see Mason and Megone 2001.

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child with an adult. Now consider the contrast betweenthree instances of decision-making under uncertainty onbehalf of a minor.

Case 1: medical practitioners need to decide whetherto expose a pre-linguistic child to the risks of amechanical treatment (e.g. respirator), which hasnot been well tested. No treatment will most likelyresult in death but treatment could result in severebrain/heart/lung damage producing severe disability.Treatment is not reversible. The case takes place ina modern hospital in London.

Case 2: medical practitioners need to decide whetherto expose a pre-linguistic child to the risks of achemical (drug) treatment which has not been welltested. No treatment will most likely result indeath but treatment could result in severebrain/heart/lung damage producing severe disability.Treatment is not reversible. The case takes place inSomalia where many babies routinely die becausethere are no resources to provide them with goodprimary medical care.

Case 3: Bob is deciding whether or not to put hisnew-born baby sister in his time-machine therebyexposing her to significant and uncertain risks.

In cases 1 and 2 it matters that the situation is bleak -the alternative to risk is death – and it matters thatthe relationship between the medical practitioners andthe child is governed by the role and duty of doctors totheir patients – which places significant weight uponsaving lives. In case 3 a different kind of caringrelationship is in place and thus differentresponsibilities arise, and there is no clear benefit tothe child from participating in the experiment, in fact,there is no obvious reason why it should be a child whois exposed to the risk, an adult could have taken herplace. Cases 1 and 2 are very difficult and we probablyneed to take further particulars into considerationbefore we could decide whether exposure of a child to ahigh degree of risk is morally required or acceptable orimpermissible and we might not get the same result forboth because the wider context of the decision and thefuture life of the child are also relevant

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considerations. It is also likely that we would notarrive at the same sort of judgement in both cases. Incase 3, however, things are clearer because there is analternative which does not involve using the baby andthere are reasons for Bob to be very protective of theparticular child concerned. In this case otherparticulars fade into the background of the case and donot play a role in decision-making.

The comparison of these examples demonstrates thecomplexity of the particulars and the importance ofbecoming aware of these particulars before being able tocome to a decision. The process of gradual habituationand education described in the previous section willeventually give rise to the ability to perceive morallysalient features. Some features of a situation, e.g.“that there is a child drowning in shallow water with noone else around to help”, are very easily perceived asmorally relevant and as giving rise to obligations toact, in this case the obligation to wade into the waterand pull the child out. However, many ethical situationswill be far more complex than this, and agents will haveto have become sensitized to perceiving and appreciatinghow the particulars of the case give rise to the need toact. Often this process of sensitization will involvebecoming familiar with scientific or technical aspects ofa case which may require considerable professionalexpertise, but also engaging one’s emotional reactionsand faculties of imagination. So, for example, making adecision on the time travelling case may well involvedeveloping a better understanding of the theoreticalclaims behind Bob’s expectation that he can now travelthrough time and assessing their scientific validity atan abstract level before proceeding to a practical trial.

At the same time though, not all such reasoning processesneed to be consciously articulated to the agent herself,nor should we underestimate the role of emotions. Thereis a tendency in modern choice theory to assume thatself-interest is the only rational feeling and the onlyone whose influence upon choice deserves consideration.The Aristotelian approach to choice emphatically rejects

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this assumption (a contemporary argument for therejection of this view can be found in Roeser 2010). ForAristotle, emotions are neither inimical to reason nordisruptive forces to be viewed with suspicion. Theemotions can be trained and habituated to not only concurwith reason but also play a role in reasoning. Forexample, arriving at the conclusion that one should helpa homeless person find a bed on a very cold night is aprocess that involves both spontaneous feelings ofkindness and empathic imaginings about this person’ssituation which support the rational argument that helpis appropriate here. Fear, sympathy, love, anger,generosity etc. are an integral part of a properly humanreaction to events. The person of practical wisdom issomeone who has the appropriate emotions, to the rightdegree at the right time – and in doing so manifests theAristotelian ‘mean’. Both habituation and reason haveroles to play in ensuring that this occurs. When wedecide that an emotion is ‘not in the mean’ then what weare detecting is a failure to balance a complex set ofemotions in a way that fits the situation that one facesand recognizes the particularly morally salient featuresof it. Comparison, generalization, balancing andmodulating are all activities of reason assisted byemotion. This understood, it is easy to see why thesubjective elements of decision-making about risk areneither fundamentally irrational nor excess torequirements. In the time-machine case it matters thatwhen Bob makes his request of you, he is partly relyingon your specific relation to him as a friend, whichshould lead you to view requests for assistancepositively and to share in his enthusiasm about hisconcerns and projects. Because of this the reasons thatyou have for or against exposing yourself to risk willand ought to be different to the reasons of someone whodoes not know him at all.

The other aspect of Aristotelian decision-making we wishto highlight is phronesis, or practical wisdom, the state ofbeing that underlies and underwrites all the virtues.Practical wisdom includes the ability to grasp how thedifferent features of a situation relate to each other,

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which virtues relate to each case and how the differentvirtues relate to each other. Practical wisdom allows thestudent of virtue to see not just what should be done asa matter of habit or following an example, but why isshould be done, why it should be chosen, chosen knowinglyand for its own sake (Irwin 1980). This ability to reasonmorally allows the virtuous agent to determine the rightaction in a variety of different situations, as the rightaction will depend on the circumstances and differaccording to them. This idea, that the right action willdiffer depending on the situation is captured inAristotle’s doctrine of the mean. We know from thedefinition of virtue that Aristotle believes that theachievement of activity in accordant with ‘the mean’ insome way requires the deployment of reason. However it isdifficult to clearly specify the precise role thatreasoning plays here. One role that reasoning plays isinstrumental, i.e. the selection of means appropriate toends (NE Book 7). It is now widely agreed amongstcommentators that reason has more than an instrumentalrole to play in Aristotelian decision-making. There hasalso been a great deal of discussion about the role itplays in selection of ends with some arguing thatpractical reasoning is involved in the reflectiveevaluation of ends (a book-length treatment of thesubject can be found in Richardson 1997). John McDowellhas emphasized that bringing about the integration andprioritization of morally salient particulars intodecision-making is very much part of skill of the personof practical wisdom (McDowell 1998 p21-30). Whatever theprecise details, practical reason is, above all, thecoordinator that enables complex psychological and activeresponses to match complex and demanding situations.

Section 6: To time travel or not to time travel?

We began this chapter with a fictional example of risktaking, so it would seem reasonable to offer some kind ofanswer to that question. However, as noted earlierAristotle holds that we cannot expect more precision fromthe answer than the subject matter itself affords

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(NE1098a). If the subject matter is complex, diverse andchallenging, the answer has to be sensitive to theseconsiderations and capture this complexity. If one answerdoes not fit all situations, it would be a mistake todemand one answer and if the answer for each situationturns out to be detailed and intricate, we should notseek to distil it to its bare essentials for the sake ofsimplicity. All this suggests that perhaps there is nosimple, straightforward answer to whether one shouldparticipate in such an experiment. For one thing, we lacka lot of information which would be relevant indetermining the salient particulars in this case. We lackinformation about the state of scientific progress interms of time-travel, the details of this particularattempt and their relative merits as compared to otherscientific claims. We also lack background informationthat may help us assess the participants’ actions in thiscase. Knowing Bob will involve knowing his character andthis would make it easier to judge whether, in this case,he is being reckless or cautious, appropriately ambitiousor excessive, a bold ground-breaker or a careless self-promoter. For example you might think he is lessreckless if you understand the close relationship Bob haswith his sister and the huge respect he has for herdecision-making capacity and technical skills despite herage. Similarly you might judge him to be a moderate,humble and considerate man in all other circumstances andtherefore unlikely to be driven by overweening ambition.We would also need to find out about the backgroundwithin which this project is taking place and whetherthere are any relevant checks and precautions that havebeen fulfilled prior to reaching this stage ofexperimentation. All these, as well as factors relatingto your relationship with Bob and the obligations yourfriendship may bring to bear to this decision, are allcrucially relevant details. Given the number, complexityand depth of these details, it is not possible to give aconclusive answer to whether one should assist in thistime-travelling experiment or not based on the limitedinformation provided, however we would like to continuemaking use of the case to illustrate how one might goabout reasoning about it. The reasoning will be

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incomplete in terms of arriving at a definitive answer,but it may be helpful for illustrative purposes.

In what follows we try to demonstrate how many of theconsiderations raised in this paper would go towardsdeliberating on whether one should risk time travel ornot. We will not be able to consider all the possibledifferent paths of reasoning that may be provoked, ouraim is simply to provide a practical focus for what wehave been saying about the process of virtuous choice andaction. The reasoning we consider will lay bare aspectsof the reasoner’s character and demonstrate ways in whichthat character may be flawed. It is worth emphasisinghere that any moral judgement that is made is made on thebasis of the whole character. Whilst we can point toflaws in the reasoning process which compromisecharacter, there are so many possible ways in whichcharacter can be undermined that there is no possibilityof reduction of the form: some immoral actions areassociated with ‘x’ flaw of reasoning and therefore tobehave immorally is to include ‘x’ in one’s reasoning (orother way around, might be more straightforward but alsomistaken).

The case starts with the invitation to participate in theexperiment, which must produce an action-relatedresponse, e.g. an intention to become involved or theopposite or no response at all. The virtuous person islikely, through a lifetime of training and development,to have the correct initial response, but for the rest ofus, the struggle for virtue may mean that we have anumber of different motives which will need to beexamined and endorsed or rejected as appropriate. Let ussay for the moment that, in our example, you are inclinedto participate in Bob’s experiment. There are a varietyof different reasons which might underlie thatinclination (different possible explanations of yourresponse):

REASON 1: time-travel might be your most cherishedambition, potentially the crown in your scientificachievements, and you simply jump at the chance toachieve it without consideration of the risks

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REASON 2: you might be desperate to earn Bob’sadmiration, so keen to agree to anything he proposes

REASON 3: you may be worried by the significantrisks involved in time-travel but concerned toprotect others from collaborators with less skilland understanding of the subject, so inclined tobecome involved so you can keep an eye on theproject

REASON 4: you may be strongly attracted to theopportunity of helping a friend, althoughsimultaneously unsure if the best expression of thisfriendship is to give Bob the assistance he asks foror to persuade him to reveal his plans to theacademic community for further scrutiny beforeputting them into practice.

REASON 5: you might hold the view that the risksinvolved are real but worthwhile provided the time-traveller is scrupulous in seeking not to alter theperiod to which they travel and be keen to ensurethat this is the case by travelling yourself8.

Each of the above reasons for action involves thesingling out of certain aspects of the available optionsas salient to your response e.g. the fact that it is Bobwho has asked you rather than someone else, the fact thatother potential participants are more vulnerable and lessresponsible than you, the fact that what you would bedoing is time-travel rather than something else equallyrisky but less ‘cutting edge’, the vulnerability of‘innocents’ to harm as a result of your time-travel etc.In perceiving the morally salient features of asituation, you both evaluate these features and call yourown responses and evaluations into question. In general,the way in which you represent the situation to yourselfand the extent to which aspects of it will seem to you tobe reasons for action will be the product of youreducated dispositions. You are disposed to represent thiscomplex situation to yourself in a simplified way whichemphasizes certain elements rather than others asrequiring response (Butler 1988 pp 221-227). So in thecase of Bob’s request you might see it primarily as8 This list is not intended to be exhaustive, merely illustrative.

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‘opportunity for me’ or as an instance of ‘a friend beingin need of help’ etc (Butler 1988 pp 220-1). It is worthnoting, however, that not all such representations areequally correct or equally good grounds for action. Theaccuracy or correctness of your own way of seeing thesituation is not obvious ‘in the moment’ but it can bechecked and changed on reflection. Reflection upon any ofthe above reasons for action might, reveal the followingsorts of ‘perceptual’ error:

Reasons 1 and 2: Initial considerations of personalgain, self-promotion or scientific fervour seem tobe preventing other aspects of the case such as therisk involved, the potential to harm innocents, theyoung and impressionable nature of Bob’s sisteretc., from being brought into the decision-makingprocess. On reflection, one might conclude thatalthough some concern for one’s own achievements andthe regard of others is appropriate, an excess ofthis sentiment may cloud your judgement with respectto the risks involved.

Reason 3: This response seems to attributeappropriate weight to the very significant risksinvolved and emphasizes the manipulative nature ofthe situation in which you find yourself. Reflectionmay be necessary in order to work out the extent towhich one should allow oneself to be manipulatedinto taking risks and whether ‘manipulativeness’really is the most significant consideration here.

Reason 4: This reason foregrounds the friendshipbetween yourself and Bob, but further reflectionseems to be required in order to clarify the way inwhich your choice is seen – in particular yourunderstanding of friendship, loyalty and therequirements it places on friends are unknown, andtherefore make the initial representation of thesituation too vague to allow a decisive response. Asecond crucial feature of the situation here is therecognition of the role played by the scientificcommunity in managing risk-taking – the sort ofmanagement whose absence from Bob’s project isstrikingly obvious to you, the reasoner.Recognition of this provides the reasoner with a way

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of making a conditional-answer which expressesenthusiasm for the project, but also takes seriouslythe risks involved.

Reason 5: Here again we have serious appraisal ofthe risk involved and, crucially, the recognition ofthe potential for managing the level of risk towhich third parties are exposed and of you as betterpositioned than most to manage these risks. In thiscase reflection might reveal that consistencyrequires that you be as concerned about Bob’s sisteras you are about third parties and so your initialconfidence in your ability to manage all thesignificant risks might have been overblown.

In addition to being sensitive to the particulars,reasons 1-5 above cite emotions experienced by thereasoner as a rationally relevant part of his/herresponse. The real prospect of time-travel is likely tostimulate feelings of fear, concern for others andexcitement. In addition, you will probably have feelingsthat arise because of the relationship between time-travel and your personal ends – you might experience joythat a long cherished and seemingly impossible scientificadvance is close to realization, or you might bedelighted to have the opportunity to demonstrate yourloyalty and usefulness to Bob, etc. Finally, added to allof the above, will be emotions appropriate to therelationships between you (the potential risk-chooser),Bob and Bob’s sister – emotions like love, loyalty andrespect. The inclusion of emotions such as these withinreasons for action is entirely appropriate. Theappropriateness of the content and intensity ofparticular emotions will be dependent upon yourrepresentation of the situation, your stake in theoutcome, etc. We said above that emotional response mustmanifest the Aristotelian ‘mean’ and reason has a role toplay in ensuring that it does. We can see from thisexample that being ‘in the mean’ is not a simple matter –because it requires the balancing of different emotionsas well as the modulation of individual emotions. Thevirtuous person will be disposed to respond withappropriately balanced and modulated emotions in a way

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that is similar to the disposition of the excellentlanguage speaker to respond to a communication in theappropriate tone, with an appropriate degree ofseriousness, etc. The language speaker responds in a waythat is at once intuitive and underwritten by asophisticated process of comparison and adjustment etc.,and similarly the virtuous agent’s emotional reaction tothe prospect of this time-travel adventure would be‘automatic’ but nevertheless fine-tuned.

Of course this process can go wrong – the emotions inplay can get out of balance and the individual emotionsmay have more or less influence over the over-allresponse than they should. Good examples of the latterare reasons 1 and 2 above. Most of us would be tempted tosay that response 1 and 2 exhibit a little too much self-promotion and admiration of others respectively, and thisis cause for concern because these feelings render theagent improperly responsive to some significant risks andinsufficiently careful and respectful of the needs andentitlements of others. Difficulty balancing differentemotions can be seen in reason 3 above where appropriatefear finds itself in the company of strong protectivefeelings towards Bob’s sister and (at least some of) thethird parties who could be affected. In the scenario weare considering protectiveness out-balances fear but itis far from obvious that this is the right response.Similarly in reason 5 the reasoner exhibits appropriateself-confidence but we might worry that too much weightis placed upon that feeling in the over-all emotionalresponse. Of the reasons we have been considering reason4 seems to be the closest to a well-balanced andappropriate emotional response blending as it doesenthusiasm for the project, caution, concern for othersas well as care for a friend.

Finally, it is worth noting that all of the potentialreasons for participating listed above make some sort ofreference to the thing which action would be an attemptto achieve, its purpose. The ends towards which an agentstrives will range from objectives which are the productof reflection and with which she identifies, to things

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for which she simply has a non-rational taste. There is avery general sense in which all reasons are attempts toachieve ‘the best thing’. What is obvious from 1-5 aboveis that there are a lot of different conceptions of what‘the best thing’ is. Some have greater objective validitythan others; e.g. self-aggrandisement and the eternaladmiration of Bob, are ends whose importance areobjectively questionable. Whilst some concern for one’sown achievements is appropriate, it is hard to see whypersonal achievement should ought-weigh the value of theachievements of others that may be prevented or delayedby what you do. Similarly, the approval of others oneadmires is not itself an unworthy goal, but valued to anexcess it will probably compromise your ability toachieve other goods which are arguably (objectively) ofgreater value, e.g. autonomy and the well-being of others(if the person you admire is not virtuous)9. In the caseof reason 3 the goal of personal safety is potentiallysacrificed for the purpose of achieving a different goal– preservation of the well being of others. Personalsafety is a sensible objective and benevolent desires arenoble, so here the difficulty comes in working outwhether one can and should be sacrificed for the other.This is a very difficult task because good ends are notcommensurable on a single scale (Nussbaum 1986,Richardson 1997). There are no infallible rules which canhelp with this sort of discriminative task, rather, skillis acquired though practice and good teaching isnecessary here. Reason 4 includes one of the ends thatAristotle thinks is constitutive of a good human life,i.e. the aim to be a good friend, and reason 4 combinesit with something that Aristotle thinks is equallyimportant - the goal of ‘good citizenship’ which includesthe desire for justice. Reason 5 takes as key the

9 Aristotle thinks that what is valuable for its own sake is an objective matter - that the good life for a rational being has a substantive nature which requires the pursuit of particular ends – ends such as friendship, political-participation, justice, contemplation, creative achievement etc. So reason enters into ‘end-adoption’ as a criterion – x is only a good end if its pursuit in some way contributes to our living the lives of rational beings; if it is an end whose pursuit will exercise and develop our rational (asopposed to arational) natures.

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technological value of the project although it seeks tobalance this value against the genuine disvalue ofpotential harm. Probably none of the reasons we haveconsidered give appropriate weight to all the genuinelyvaluable ends that ought to be in play (friendship,citizenship, technological value, the healthy andautonomous future potential of Bob’s sister etc.),however this examination of the sorts of ends that informdecision-making and the ways in which they might bequestioned is intended only to illustrate the sort ofdiscursive process that we think a virtue ethics approachcan bring to a moral debate rather than to give acomplete and definitive answer.

Conclusion

In this chapter we have tried to give a brief account ofthe main features of virtue ethics and to illustrate howthese offer a unique perspective on thinking about risk.Due to the nature of this project, the account is farfrom fully fleshed out and only partly defended, buthopefully it offers an insight into the theory and itscontribution to making decisions about risk.

Prominent in our analysis has been the claim that theethical life is a complex and diverse enterprise, whichrequires an equally detailed, flexible and situation-specific approach. One answer does not fit all, anddiscovering these challenging and varied answers may wellbe a life long project. This life long project isunderstood in terms of gradual, long-term and vulnerablecharacter development. In terms of risk this means thatwe should shift the focus from the consequences of one-off, and often extreme, cases, to a broader view. Weshould consider the nature of the decision to take arisk, the type of character this decision reveals and thelife within which this character is displayed. Theevaluation of the decision to risk must reflect themorally salient particulars of the situation and howthese are ordered by the person who exhibits phronesis. Ifthis approach results in a less prescriptive and less

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direct answer this is no cause for complaint. For it isthe nature of ethical judgements that they are difficultto arrive at and require thought and effort. We shouldn’texpect anything less of ethical judgements involvingrisk.

Further Research

In this paper we have examined the essential role of character in good decision making about risk. In a previous paper we have considered the way in which aspects of context influence decision-making about risk (Athanassoulis and Ross, 2010). These two papers set up a framework for a virtue approach to risk-taking. There is much work to be done to fill out this framework. In particular, we have emphasized that a virtue approach would need to consider particular issues on a case by case basis and there is work to be done looking at individual risk problems in particular disciplines. For example questions about the circumstances in which it is acceptable to expose research subjects to risk or questions concerning what sort of risk-taking in businessis ethical etc. In addition, this paper has emphasized the role of education for virtue and more work is needed to fill out an account of what it takes to educate virtuous risk-takers and to look at how such education can be incorporated into the professions.

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INDEX

Page 2: Aristotle

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Page 3: character, Anscombe E., Williams B., McIntryreA., Aristotle, consequentialism, deontologyPage 4: Aristotle, eudaimoniaPage 5: Aristotle, eudaimonia, phronimos, consequentialismPage 7: consequentialism, characterPage 8: character, AristotlePage 9: characterPage 10: characterPage 11: character, AristotlePage 12: character, Aristotle, phronimosPage 13: Nussbaum M., characterPage 14: consequentialism, Sunstein C.Page 15: Aristotle, phronesisPage 17: emotions, AristotlePage 18: phronesis, McDowell J., AristotlePage 22: AristotlePage 23: phronesis

Endnotes

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