1

This paper attempts two things. First it demonstrates how various virtue ethicists

might think through the morality of abortion. Second it does so by leading the reader

through an inductive argument that offers the following conclusion: the guidance offered

by virtue ethics will reflect the metaphysics/ontology held by the respective virtue

theorist. Since the argument also demonstrates that virtue ethics is capable of providing

rich moral guidance (depending on your ontology), I close by arguing that we have

strong motivation, not to abandon virtue ethics, but to double up our efforts to get our

metaphysics right.

My Motivation

I favor virtue ethics. Why then construct an argument that seems to feed it to the

lions of relativism? I don’t believe it justifies rash conclusions like, “Virtue ethics is

powerless to offer moral guidance; abandon it.” All three of the main moral theories

struggle against relativism.1 My desire is to underscore Alasdair MacIntyre’s opening

volley in After Virtue. Moral philosophy is radically affected by the underlying ontology of

the society trying to do it. Using his book’s opening analogy, I take virtue “theorizing” as

somewhat analogous to the bandying about of scientific terminology by students in

MacIntyre’s post-revolution society. They used the same terms as the “truly” scientific

society before the revolution, but they lost awareness of the real science that once

undergirded those terms.2 Analogously, moral philosophers may look longingly at

Aristotle, agreeing with MacIntyre that we need a return to teleology to ground morality.

1 Deontological views must face the question of who gets to decide what rule(s) will ground moral

decisions. Utilitarian views must admit that we differ wildly on what we think would lead to the “the greatest common good” in many situations. See. Rosalind Hursthouse, “Virtue Theory and Abortion,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 20, no. 3 (Summer 1991): 228-29.

2 Alasdair C. MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 2nd ed. (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of

Notre Dame Press, 1984), 1-2.

Jesse Gentile - 2015 - Virtue Theory & Abortion - A Boat Without a Compass

2

Many (post Anscombe) are happily pursuing a neo-aristotelian virtue theory (i.e. they’ve

put the teleology concept to work) but their feet are still planted in MacIntyre’s “post-

revolution” (i.e. post-enlightenment) world. What is grounding all of their decision

making? The specter of relativism still haunts the whole virtue theory project when one

observes the variety of moral evaluations that can emerge on a topic like abortion. I

believe my paper will illustrate why this is.

The Argument

My argument is inductive in nature. It contains four premises. Each premise

reflects a facet of what I take to be going on when virtues are utilized in a decision

making effort. Each premise teases out ways various moral agents might differ when

evaluating an act (e.g. abortion). Variation results from how they are grounding or

cashing out each of these facets of virtue theory in relation to their underlying

ontology/metaphysics. Here is the argument.

3 This opening statement should be reformulated as a principle and argued for. Due to the length of the

paper I chose to focus on the four premises below it. I assume that most readers would grant me this line anyhow.

Different worldviews/ontologies bring about moral reasoning such that….3

1. ...moral agents disagree on what constitute virtues

2. ...moral agents disagree on what grounds virtues

3. ...moral agents might “live out” a single virtue differently in different societies

4. ...moral agents disagree on which virtues take precedence in circumstances

Therefore, divergent moral “conclusions” drawn by practitioners of virtue theory

are evidence of the differences in underlying worldviews/ontologies.

3

I support each premise by listing philosophers who handle each argument

differently. I follow each premise with an application to the question of abortion. This will

illustrate just how much each point can impact moral philosophy; even within the

confines of virtue ethics.

Again, the goal is not to point out a weakness of Virtue Theory; our moral craft

sails just fine. Instead I hope to point out that the destinations we are attempting to

arrive at via moral navigation are too conflicting. The underlying ontology assumed by

the moral agent is the culprit; not virtue ethics. Let me leave that for the conclusion.

Lastly, this paper does not unpack the basics of virtue theory. It assumes the

reader is familiar with the basic concept of virtue theory and flourishing.

Premise 1: Moral agents disagree on what constitute virtues.

This point may be the simplest of the four, but it is substantiated by a leading

light of virtue theory. In his article The Nature of the Virtues, Alasdair Macintyre begins

his project of uncovering what virtues have in common, by illustrating how virtue lists

from different points in history vary. Sometimes the variations are significant.

While agreeing that what Homer calls a virtue is not exactly what we mean by the

term virtue, MacIntyre makes the following statement. “It is not that Homer’s list of

virtues differs only from our own; it also notably differs from Aristotle’s. And Aristotle’s of

course also differs from our own.”4 Homer included strength, as a virtue, whereas

Aristotle includes friendship. Contemporary lists might include neither. Stan Van Hooft

makes the amusing point that, “Not all of the virtues on [Aristotle’s] list would be

recognizable in contemporary western societies. Magnificence for example is the quality

4 MacIntyre, Alisair, ed. 1997. The Nature of the Virtues. In Morality and the Good Life, ed. Thomas L.

Carson and Paul K. Moser, 272. New York: Oxford University Press.

4

of living grandly in the ancient Greek society expected from its aristocrats and rich

citizens.”5 Some poorer cultures might classify this virtue as a vice! Macintyre adds

another example, not of unrecognizable virtues, but of complete disagreement over

whether one attribute is actually a virtue or a vice.

“The New Testament not only praises virtues of which Aristotle knows nothing - faith, hope, and love - and says nothing about virtues such as phronesis which are crucial for Aristotle, but it praises at least one quality as a virtue, which Aristotle seems to count as one of the vices relative to magnanimity, namely humility.”6

Examples do not end here. Cathleen Marie Higgins introduces the Western

reader to an Asian virtue rising from the Daoist worldview; that of wuwei. In the East it is

a virtue to acknowledge the constant flux of life, and learn to navigate that ever

changing reality. Wuwei is thus the Daoist virtue of non-assertive action. This is not an

attempt to be disengaged from life, but to refrain from “attempts to direct the course of

the world (in accordance with preconceived expectations and habits) instead of flowing

with it.7 Essentially it is virtuous when one actively withholds from attempts to control the

uncontrollable. For some American’s this would certainly seem like a vice!

What do we make of all this and how would it affect a virtue theorist’s thinking

about abortion? Macintyre offers some help by explaining how we might view such

diverse virtue lists under the same light. In one sense, all the virtues can be boiled down

to excellences or qualities that help us garner the “internal goods” of a certain practice.8

5 Stan van Hooft, Understanding Virtue Ethics, Understanding Movements in Modern Thought

(Chesham U.K.: Acumen, 2006), 129

6 Macintyre, The Nature of Virtues, 273.

7 Stephen Mark Gardiner, ed., Virtue Ethics, Old and New (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2005),

128-29.

8 A practice is a complex social activity such as playing a team sport, participating in marriage, or

running a company. Virtues are those skills needed to achieve the truest rewards (i.e. internal goods) of those practices. While playing professional football may earn one money or fame (i.e external goods) the virtues of that practice, in this case sportsmanship, endurance, and strong defence, exist to help us gain

5

Homer’s virtue list makes sense from the perspective of the “practice” of the social role

of being a soldier. Aristotle was thinking about virtues needed to realize human telos.

The New Testament does the same in regards to the life to come.9

This helps, but doesn’t it defeat our simple premise that Moral agents disagree

on what constitute virtues? What it does do is to explain some of the reasons why this

is. Take abortion for example. The problem is, “What larger ‘practice’ (per MacIntyre)

should we use to think about a teenager contemplating abortion so as to identify the list

of virtues this choice would bump up against?” Is it marriage? Financial success? Being

a good citizen? Overall human flourishing? The ability to even agree on what virtues

matter most, depends on what practice or context we choose to situate the question of

abortion within. The virtue list each ethicist brings to the table differs, and it somehow

relates to this.

Contrast a social worker trying to help Mississippi teens escape poverty with their

pastor down the street. Each could view the “practice”, that situates a 15 year old’s

unwanted pregnancy, very differently. If so, each would list out different virtues in a

conversation about how this decision will affect her flourishing, (i.e moving towards the

“internal goods” of that practice). The pastor might talk with her about the Christian

virtue of humility (flourishing requires admitting our mistakes), faith (she will lose hope

unless she believes God’s promises to heal) and love (to relate to this baby as God

relates to her). To him, the abortion might be viewed within the “practice” of journey –

“Walking through life’s hardships with God.” From his perspective, abortion would be a

mistake. It would require abandoning these essential Christian virtues.

the true internal goods of football (i.e. winning ) rather than the external ones. Each practice has a set of virtues that make sense against it as a backdrop.

9 Macintyre, The Nature of Virtues, 275.

6

By contrast the social worker sees our 15 year old in the context/practice of living

as a successful woman in America. This requires an escape from poverty and teenage

pregnancy now stands in the way. Humility, hope, and love are not virtues in the

“practice” financial success. Contemporary virtues such as self-respect (to not surrender

to a life of welfare as a poor mother like the other women in her community) and

courage (to break out of the cycle and rise above) are used to justify an abortion as

virtuous.

Our pastor and our social worker have different virtues on their lists. Moral

agents disagree on what constitute virtues. Virtue lists differ because moral agents

disagree on what worldview or “practice” or ontology is setting the ultimate context that

the agent’s question (e.g. abortion) is to be considered within.

Premise 2: Moral agents disagree on what grounds virtues.

Our second premise is related to the first. While premises one and two may be

two sides of the same coin there remains a difference. While discordant virtue lists are

affected by what “practice” one is thinking about, in a much broader life “set” of virtues

are being grounded/justified in reference to some something more foundational. Plainly

put, “What makes the core virtues of life, virtuous?” Here the issue is not so much, what

makes which virtues useful, but what grounds them as virtuous in a life size way.

Consider these four alternative grounds for virtues: Aristotle’s concept of eudaimonia,

contemporary psychology/biology, the agent themselves (agent-basing), and of course

theological grounds.

Aristotle explains that what made certain actions the virtues/excellences that they

were, all depended on whether they helped an organism arrive at its end/telos for

7

existing. When aristotle studied people, he concluded that the one thing that made them

uniquely human, what characterized their essence, was rationality.10 He noted that

humans pursued certain things because they led to other benefits, but ultimately all

things were pursued for a sort of happiness or flourishing11 (eudaimonia) of a human

sort. Certain things would lead to a tree flourishing, similarly, the virtues are what lead to

human flourishing. Aristotles observation that certain dispositions brought people more

effectively towards this complete end12 of flourishing (based on his metaphysics of the

human as a rational being) is what earns (i.e. grounds) them the title of virtues.

Two thousand years later, moral philosophers reject Aristotle’s metaphysics

about what makes humans tick. Thriving is conceived of differently today, but we still

appreciate the concept of virtues as those things which lead to human flourishing.

Human flourishing in a contemporary sense could be cashed out as Rosalind

Husrthouse describes it; “The best available science today (including evolutionary

theory and psychology) supports rather than undermines the ancient Greek assumption

that we are social animals.”13 If we really are social animals, those virtues that enable us

flourish in society with others aren’t grounded in some social contract but in our biology

and psychology.14

10 Nicomachean Ethics, 1094a20

11

Nicomachean Ethics, 1097b1-5

12 Nicomachean Ethics, 1097b1.

13

Rosalind Hursthouse, “Virtue Ethics,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, March 8, 2012, accessed

May 11, 2015,http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-virtue/.

14 Stephen Holland suggests that if this issue of grounding can’t be resolved, then when it comes to

making decisions on bioethics questions (i.e. crafting public policy) virtue ethics will be useless in terms of adjudicating various voices about what is virtuous in a pluralistic society. He hangs the future of virtue ethics, in this regard, on “sophisticated attempts to provide suitably naturalistic and non-relativistic versions of virtue ethics” grounded in an appeal to “natural facts about human beings” that is largely independent of cultural variation. See Stephen Holland, “The Virtue Ethics Approach to Bioethics,” Bioethics 25, no. 4 (November, 4, 2011): 194

8

Michael Slote, in contrast, suggests that what makes an act virtuous is not

primarily that it realizes practices that help us thrive as humans. Instead an action is

virtuous because there is something admirable about the very motivations - in their own

right - of the agent who chose to act that way.15 This can be thought of in a “warm”

(relational) sense where motivations are viewed in their relation to compassion or

benevolence for others. Alternatively they can be thought of in a “cool” (individualistic)

sense where they are evaluated in terms of strength of character or self-reliance.

Let us turn back to our larger question. What does all of this mean for abortion

and the virtue ethicist (or theorist16)? For someone like Aristotle, an abortion is going to

be viewed as virtuous based on whether it leads a girl to experience eudaimonia as he

understood it. If a wise person, who was flourishing in life, considered the decision chain

leading to an abortion as requiring one to stray from the mean of various virtues,

perhaps because it involved things like cowardice or rashness, then abortion would not

be virtuous. However, viewed from an agent-based perspective, an abortion might be

described as a “warm” act of consideration (virtue) by avoiding the introduction of a child

into a home where nobody wanted it. Finally, a Christian, who sees virtues as grounded

in the character of God will evaluate the morality of the abortion in terms of whether or

not its etiology or execution led to a life that reflect the character of God (e.g. “Would

this involve self control, gentleness, holiness, goodness?).

15 Slote, Michael, “Agent Based Virtue Ethics”, in Ethical Theory: An Anthology, 2nd ed, (Chichester,

West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), 652.

16 Virtue ethics is viewed as a third alternative to Utilitarian ethics or Deontological ethics. Virtue theory,

by contrast, is seen as the reaction of the latter to schools to the revival of virtue ethics in which they also began to engage in virtue thinking as part of their larger utilitarian or deontological ways of viewing morality.

9

Ultimately, what we believe grounds virtues (i.e. makes the virtues “virtuous”) will

affect how we apply them to an action, not merely what we words we include in our list

of virtues.

Premise 3: Moral agents can “live out” a virtue differently in different societies.

Let us assume that we had the same list of virtues. Let us assume that we

grounded those virtues in the same way (perhaps we follow Hursthouse, MacIntyre, and

Foot and justify them against a modern scientific sense of human flourishing). It is still

possible that different agents might live out the same virtue differently, depending on

their contexts. Macintyre again, provides an illuminating illustration.

“...different societies have had different codes of truthfulness, justice and courage. Lutheran pietists brought up their children to believe that one ought to tell the truth to everybody at all times, whatever the circumstances or consequences, and Kant was one of their children. Traditional Bantu parents brought up their children not to tell the truth to unknown strangers, since they believed that this could render the family vulnerable to witchcraft. In our culture many of us have been brought up to …”17

Similarly, John Hacker-Wright attempts to make a case for what he takes to be a

“largely neglected conception of justice.”18 Here we have justice defined in two different

ways, and I take this to be different than what grounds justice (either flavor) as a virtue.

To some, justice is giving people what their rights qualify them for. Justice from a

different perspective takes into account power balance between vulnerable and strong:

“Unlike the dominant, rights-based conception justice, this alternative conception of justice applies to non-reciprocal relations among unequally situated creates, as between strong and weak, eloquent and stammering, wealthy and poor. The demands of justice, in this sense, fall exclusively on the former of each pair. The latter of each pair are defined by their vulnerability; they are, in a given situation, powerless and in the thrall of the former of each pair.”19

17 MacIntyre, The Nature of the Virtues, 280.

18

John Hacker-Wright, “Moral Status in Virtue Ethics,” Philosophy 82, no. 3 (2007): 461.

19 Ibid.

10

Turn back again to our concept of abortion. Here, it is not the virtues on our list

that affect how the moral philosopher thinks about abortion (eg.. wewei vs courage). It is

not even that abortion is deemed moral based on how virtues are being grounded. Here

the issue is different understandings of what it means to live out a single virtue – based

largely in the external world of a moral agent.

Liu, a thirty year old Chinese, woman is pregnant with a baby girl. She is married.

She evaluates the morality of an abortion in relation to the virtue of responsibility. If Liu

lives in China, she makes her decision against the backdrop of China’s One Child

policy. If she aborts the child, in keeping with the laws of the land, she is exhibiting the

virtue of responsibility. Her community can regard her as a virtuous thirty year old in that

regard. If Liu lives in Palo Alto, and works for Google, having an abortion is not

responsible. Killing a growing baby in one’s womb, when you have all the resources to

care for it, even knowing the complications parenthood brings, would be to exhibit ir-

responsibility. Liu puts the thought of abortion out of her mind. Her friends admire her

sense of responsibility and maturity in that act.

In both situations Liu “steps up to the plate”. The same action, evaluated in

relation to the same virtue, is judged as blameworthy in one case and commendable in

another. What makes the difference (at least ostensibly) is external to Liu: China versus

Palo Alto. Moral agents can “live out” a single virtue differently in different societies.

At this point we might be tempted collapse premise three back into premise one

or two. Is the emperor wearing clothes? In this case, it seems he is. We are not dealing

with a different virtue list. Both versions of Liu’s life were evaluated solely in terms of

responsibility. Nor are we dealing with different grounding sources. One who grounded

11

the virtuousness of responsibility solely in terms of the Liu’s inner fortitude (agent-based

virtues) could evaluate the scenario with the same outcomes. It seems that the

grounding issue doesn’t get at what is going on here. Something different is at play in

premise three. It cannot be collapsed into premises one or two.

This difference turns on what Christine Swanton describes as a virtue’s “field”. A

virtue has a field made up of those items which fall within the sphere of concern of the

virtue, “And to which the agent should respond in line with the virtue's demands. These

items may be within the agent, for example, the bodily pleasures which are the focus of

temperance, or outside the agent, for example, human beings, property, money, or

honours.”20 In at least one of the cases above, the virtue list and its grounding could be

held constant, but something else (e.g. the Chinese government) cast its sphere of

influence across the virtue’s “field” and overshadowed other items in its field (e.g. the

human fetus) causing opposite actions to be both deemed virtuous. This prioritizing task

introduces our final premise.

Premise 4: Moral agents disagree on which virtues take precedence

in various circumstances.

Nearly all contemporary discussions on virtue ethics and abortion tip their hats to

a 1991 article by Rosalind Hursthouse’s entitled Virtue Theory and Abortion. One writer

calls the article a sort of touchstone in this discussion. It opens by contrasting virtue

theory with utilitarianism and deontological ethics. It then answers nine criticisms of

virtue theory. The heart of the article walks the reader through how a virtue theorist (i.e.

Hursthouse) might evaluate the morality of various women contemplating abortion.

20

Christine Swanton, Virtue Ethics: A Pluralistic View (New York: Oxford University Press, ©2003), 20.

12

What got many readers attention was Hursthouse’s claim that virtue theory was

able to completely set aside the Scylla and Charybdis of the abortion debate. The moral

status of the fetus, and the issue of a woman’s rights had dominated the abortion

debate. Yet Hursthouse made refreshing claims like, “Whether women have a moral

right to terminate their pregnancies is irrelevant within virtue theory for it is irrelevant to

the question ‘In having an abortion in these circumstances would the agent be acting

virtuously or viciously or neither?’”21 Hursthouse made the claim that to act virtuously

should not depend upon a woman’s ability to follow philosophers through the deep

underbrush of the metaphysics of personhood, or to “wait on the discoveries of

academic philosophers.”22 What really determines morality, she claimed, was the

attitude of the mother towards the basic facts of human life, fertility, and valuable

institute of motherhood.

Fetal status, according to her was also ‘not relevant’. After acknowledging that

this was just too radical of a claim Hursthouse suggested that one's knowledge about

“the familiar biological facts”23 are really what is relevant to deciding if a person's

decision making process (in regards to abortion) is moral.

Anyone contemplating abortion should be aware enough that they are dealing

with morally weighty issues like family relationships, life, death and parenthood. Their

attitudes towards these substantial issues are all we need to evaluate an agent’s

decisions in regards to the abortion question. A poor woman who hauls coal through

tunnels, but values family and children (but does not wish to bring a baby into such a

21 Hursthouse, Virtue Theory and Abortion, 235.

22

Ibid.

23 These facts include that “pregnancy occurs as the result of sexual intercourse, that it lasts about nine

months, during which time the fetus grows and developes, that it standardly terminates in the birth of having a baby, and that this is how we all come to bee. Ibid., 236.

13

hard life) could abort a baby without being blameworthy. Her heart and attitude toward

the weighty issues (parenthood, life, childbearing) were commendable. She is acting

virtuously in aborting her baby. By contrast, a woman who glibly goes in for an abortion

because it complicates next summer’s trip to Europe, is guilty of a moral failure.

Motherhood is a worthwhile aspect of life; an aspect of eudiamonia for some women.

This woman fails to grasp the reality of what her life might be as a flourishing mother.

Instead she is, “childish, or grossly materialistic, or shortsighted or shallow.”24

This summary of concepts of Hursthouse article is unfairly brief. We must return

to our argument. How does this apply to our fourth premise? I submit that Hursthouse

has chosen to prioritize the virtue of (and here I supply my own term) respectfulness or

care-about-life over the virtue of truth seeking25. If we define “justice” in terms of harm

done to the vulnerable (as John Hacker Wright does above) we could alternatively claim

she was prioritizing respectfulness over justice.

R. Jo Kornegay points out that rather than accept her assertion that fetal status

(i.e metaphysics) is irrelevant, we should recognize that Hursthouse as simply

smuggled her own metaphysics into the decision process. Fetal status is very relevant.

“Clearly for Hursthouse, the status of the fetus is lower than that of a typical adult or an

infant…. These claims seem to imply that [for her] the fetus’s status grows in

significance as it develops.”26 Hursthouse makes it clear that she still believes that a

death is occurring during abortion, and the larger the “fetus” grows the more significant

24 Ibid., 241.

25

Hursthouse herself has substantial knowledge about these things. Her 1987 book on these issue Beginning Lives is 368 pages in length. The claim is not that she has not sought truth as a moral agent, but that mothers need not prioritize truth seeking to be virtuous in their approach to abortion.

26 R. Jo Kornegay, “Hursthouse's Virtue Ethics and Abortion; Abortion Ethics Without Metaphysics?,”

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 14, no. 1 (2011): 55.

14

the abortion becomes.27 Contrary to her claims, her virtue based evaluation of abortions

is based squarely on a specific sense of fetal status. In short, she approaches the fetus

as we might approach shooting a horse. If times are tough, one could put down a horse

virtuously provided they were decently respectful during the process, maturely aware of

what they were really engaged in. How one prioritizes the virtues will affect the moral

evaluation of an act.

A second example, in support of premise four, comes to us from Aristotle’s own

thoughts on abortion. In contrast to Hursthouse (who tries to sideline “metaphysics”),

Aristotle overtly anchors his abortion views on his understanding of embryology. In his

fascinating article, Aristotle on Abortion and Infanticide, Matthew Lu unpacks the

metaphysics underlying Aristotle’s views on embryology.28 Aristotle held that abortion

was permissible for up to 40 days after conception. Human’s had a rational soul, and it

would be wrong to kill (abort) a human with a rational soul. During the development of

the fetus, it grows through three soul types/stages. At conception the human embryo

possesses a nutritive or generative soul like plants. It being non-sentient, this would be

the appropriate time to induce abortion.

The body structure of males was thought to be discernable at 40 days. Since

body parts are for movement and sensation, this change in structure required a different

type of soul. Visible presence of body parts signaled that a shift had occurred to an

animal soul. Finally, at an indiscernible point thereafter the animal soul was replaced by

the rational soul, required for full human functioning. Since rationality is not evidenced

27 Hursthouse, Virtue Theory and Abortion, 239.

28

The above summary is spelled out clearly by Mathew Lu in his helpful article on this topic. See Mathew Lu, “Aristotle On Abortion and Infanticide,” International Philosophical Quarterly 53, no. 1 (March 2013): 48-53.

15

by body structure, Aristotle was unable to say when the shift occurred between an

animal and rational soul. Therefore abortion was to be avoided at any point after 40

days.

How does this relate to moral agents disagreeing on what virtues take

precedence in moral decisions (e.g. abortion)? Pro-life advocates have postulated that if

Aristotle was familiar with modern embryology he would be pro-life.29 The assumption

here is that Aristotle shares their virtue priorities. This move is premature argues Lu.

Many are unaware that Aristotle probably endorsed infanticide for population control,

and exposure of deformed babies die in the elements. He even felt that parents’ desires

to save a deformed child from exposure should be resisted!30

The point is that Aristotle, per Lu’s interpretation, would have prioritized virtues

relating to obeying the polis above virtues supporting natural parental affection for a

brephos. Others (from his same culture), based on Aristotle's attitudes towards parents

who wanted to save handicapped children from exposure, would shift these virtue

priorities. More clearly, Hursthouse has prioritized general respectfulness for family

above truth seeking. Others, from her same culture would take an exactly opposite

priority. Moral agents disagree on what virtues take precedence in evaluating the

morality of an action.31

29 A human fetus never had a plant soul. There is essential continuity from conception to full adulthood.

See Lu, Aristotle on Abortion and Infanticide, 48.

30 Lu also argues that Aristotle seems to accepted the normal Greek distinction between a brephos and

pais. A brephos (fetus/baby) was not a pais (legitimate child member of the family with rights recognized by the polis) until the father accepted him into the family through the amphidromia ceremony (“walking around the hearth”). Thus killing an brephos after birth, was not the same as killing a pais.

31 I realize there is a strong similarity between Liu and the One Child policy and Aristotle's views on

population control. I would need more space tease out distinctions between these two cases. I would take the primary distinction between premise three and four to pivot on strong external cultural pressures (premise three) and more flexible internal preferences (premise four) Even if we shift Aristotle up as an example of premise three, Hursthouse’s thinking still justifies premise four.

16

Drawing a Conclusion

Based on our four premises, I conclude that virtue ethics can offer rich moral

guidance on the abortion issue. Our stand in virtue ethicists had no problem thinking

through how abortion would affect the mothers. The point is that their evaluations

strongly reflect the underlying ontology held by each of them. The decision on whether

an abortion evidences virtues or vices in the agent's life will be based on what the virtue

ethicist (a) understand the virtues to be, (b) what they think grounds virtues, (c) what

items culture places in one’s particular virtue “field” and (d) how they choose to

personally prioritize virtues. Like a driver deciding which way to exit a roundabout, each

of these points are engaged any time one attempts to evaluate the actions (e.g.

abortion) of an agent, how that action affects them, and others in their life.

Implications for Virtue Ethics

What does this mean for virtue ethics? Have I not just argued in support of the

idea that virtue theory vanishes beneath the waves of relativism? Not really. I wish to

cash out my conclusion in support of the idea that virtue theory lets us ride the waves

life, but only in whatever direction our moral compass points. Virtue theory and virtue

ethics work. There is no question that they help clarify the impact that decisions have on

our voyage through life. Awareness of such impacts means that changes can be made,

like trimming the sails and adjusting the rudder on a boat. Morally speaking, virtue

ethics equips us with a boat, not a life vest. We can go places, not just float! Why not

set out for the shores of eudaimonia? Answer; because we don’t agree on what

direction it lies in. MacIntyre has argued (by means of a different analogy) that we have

lost our compass. The point of this paper is not to argue, that virtue theory doesn’t work;

17

it does. The goal is to demonstrate that it takes us in the direction we aim for. Each

premise of our argument substantiated the idea that our underlying ontology, how we

view what is “real”, effects our moral evaluation process (and by extension the decisions

an agent makes in life). This provides strong motivation to get on the same page with

our metaphysics. The fact that we can’t agree on the moral direction to head in is

neither proof that our boat (virtue theory) is useless or that distant shores (eudaimonia)

do not lie before us.

1

Biography

Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. 2nd ed. Translated by Terence Irwin. Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett Pub. Co., ©1999.

Gardiner, Stephen Mark, ed. Virtue Ethics, Old and New. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2005.

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