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A Level RE exemplar essay on: One should focus on a person’s characters rather than their specific actions (30)
- Module
- Philosophy and ethics
- Institution
- PEARSON (PEARSON)
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"One should focus on a person's character rather than their specific actions" (30)The view that one should focus on a person's character rather than their actions comes from
virtue theory. It is an agent-centred approach to moral ethics and has been studied since the
times of Aristotle and Plato, and was later developed by modern theologians. Virtue Theory is
habitually doing what is right, by focusing on working to become a better person by improving
our good qualities and removing the bad ones. This essay will conclude that virtue theory may
promote immoral behaviour if we ignore a person's actions and focus solely on their character.
Some may argue that if we focus on a person's character that we would be able to help them
achieve the highest goodness. This concept comes from Plato, which he called Eudaimonia and
he believed was achievable by pursuing the four cardinal virtues: temperance (restraint),
prudence (wisdom), courage (strength) and justice. He argued that if people were to focus
solely on these four virtues, then they would achieve the greatest goodness, allowing them to
help others reach the same telos. However, this could easily lead to an increased amount of
immoral behaviour because it is focused on a telos where they may not actually be one. The
four virtues in themselves are outdated as they don't all fit contemporary society. Virtues such
as courage could be misinterpreted and could be used to justify wrong actions, such as having
the courage to assault someone. If we judge this person and say that they are least carrying out
one of the virtues, then we become ignorant to the fact that their behaviour is fundamentally
immoral. Therefore, it becomes absurd to only judge a person's character alone as clearly their
actions must be considered.
Aristotle argued that one should focus on a person's character because they can develop it at
any point in time. He created the idea of the Golden Mean which he says is the way to find the
virtue between the vices. For example, when it comes to courage, Aristotle would argue that
being too courageous is a problem as you will intervene in everything, in which it becomes
reckless (vice of excess). He says that the Golden mean will fix this problem, as it helps find a
balance between that and the vice of deficiency. When people focus on that balance, it shows
their willingness to grow and develop, so we can ignore the action. However, this is still
problematic because Aristotle fails to provide a way of identifying the line between the two types
of vice, which makes it hard to know how to balance it. As Sidgwick points out, Aristotle "only
indicates the whereabouts of Virtue". This means that the person by inadvertently be carrying
out immoral acts in the name of a falsely identified virtue.
Other theories such as Natural Law offer better explanations of morality as they spend greater
time focusing on the action itself. For example, Natural Law states that if we follow the primary
precepts of Aquinas, than we can achieve ultimate moral perfection as we naturally do virtuous
things. This issue with virtue theory is that you have to build yourself internally, making it harder
to determine who is actually virtuous. Therefore, we cannot focus on one's character, instead
we need to determine who is virtuous based on the actions they carry out. Natural Law offers a
much better way of doing this as we have a standard to hold all moral agents against.
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