Inner Virtue and Private Racist Thoughts

 

In this posting I want to consider Nicolas Bommarito’s idea of inner moral virtue. In doing so I want to examine whether our purely private thoughts matter morally. For instance someone might have private evil thoughts but never express or act on them. In order to make the idea of inner moral virtue clear I will combine my examination with considering whether someone’s purely private racist’s thoughts are wrong and if so why. The thoughts I will be considering will be purely private conscious thoughts which the thinker endorses to some degree rather than simply some unconscious bias.it might be thought that the question of private inner thoughts is interesting but of little importance. However is someone who has private evil thoughts evil even if he never expresses or acts on them perhaps because hr fears punishment? If not do we have to accept that we can force people to be good and that morality doesn’t have an inner component.

Let us start our investigation by considering Galen Strawson’s idea of weather watchers (1). Bommarito describes these as follows,

iant stone monoliths, they are living creatures with mental lives much like our own—own—they have thoughts, memories, desires, emotions, sensations, and even fantasies and dreams. These creatures care very deeply about the weather; they are filled with joy when it is sunny out and melancholy when it rains or snows. Because of their physiology, they are completely incapable of any behavioral action……However, none of their rich mental lives are externally observable and, because of the kind of creatures they are, they are unable to perform overt actions of any kind….. They will even lack the associated intentions.” (2)

It might be objected that the idea of weather watchers is of little moral relevance because they are pure fantasy. However there are human beings who share many of the characteristics of weather watchers, those suffering from locked in syndrome. Someone with locked in syndrome may be happy when he has visitors, unhappy when he hasn’t and dream about having visitors when he is alone in the night. Clearly the mental life of someone with locked in syndrome matters to him but does his purely mental life have any moral relevance

Traditionally moral virtue is linked to character and some someone can be said to be virtuous if he has a disposition or attitudes which cause him to act morally most of the time. Clearly a weather watcher cannot be virtuous in this traditional sense because traditionally being virtuous is connected to action. However Bommarito argues that an inability to act does not preclude someone from having inner moral virtue linked to character. What does Bommarito mean by an inner moral virtue or vice? He argues that whilst weather watchers are incapable of virtue in the traditional sense that nonetheless they are capable of some sort of inner virtue or vice. A Weather Watcher who took pleasure in knowing that another of his kind was experiencing pleasure in the warm sun might be said to be expressing inner virtue. However schadenfreude shows such a definition is too simplistic. Someone might takes pleasure in another’s suffering. If someone else takes pleasure in the pleasure of the person enjoying schadenfreude then he cannot be regarded as being virtuous. Bommarito sees virtuous states as mental manifestations of an underlying moral concern. This definition could be seen as one part of the more traditional definition outlined above which sees someone as virtuous provided he has dispositions or attitudes which cause him to act morally most of the time, his dispositions can be seen as mental manifestations of an underlying moral concern. Accepting such a definition makes inner virtue a possibility. If a weather watcher takes pleasure in another watcher’s pleasure in the warm sun then he is being virtuous provided his pleasure is a manifestation of caring, of moral concern for the other. Similarly someone with locked in syndrome is being virtuous if he takes pleasure when his nurse hums happily to herself, his pleasure is a manifestation of concern for her wellbeing. It might be objected that these examples aren’t really manifestations of moral concern because they are concerned with happiness and someone’s happiness isn’t a moral concern. Two responses are possible to this objection. First someone’s happiness is connected to his wellbeing and someone’s wellbeing is a moral concern. Secondly inner virtue might be defined as manifestations of an underlying caring about someone’s wellbeing rather than moral concern. In the rest of this posting I will adopt this amended definition.

What are the consequences of accepting the above definition for our intuitive ideas concerning virtue? Firstly if we accept the idea of inner virtue then someone can be virtuous without acting. Someone with locked in syndrome who is incapable of action can still be virtuous.  However caution is needed here. In the above definition I intentionally replaced Borramito’s ‘concern’ by ‘caring about’. I did so to exclude someone, who is supposedly concerned about another’s wellbeing and is capable of acting to promote this wellbeing but nonetheless fails to do so from being regarded as virtuous. For instance a parent who is always expressing concern for his children’s wellbeing but fails to attend parent’s evenings, sporting and other events which matter to his children without a genuine excuse. Someone cannot be said to care about the wellbeing of others if he takes no steps to promote their wellbeing when he is able to do so. Secondly it might be pointed out that inner virtue, the manifestation of an underlying caring about someone’s wellbeing, is usually manifested by pleasure and that pleasure is involuntary. It then might be argued that accepting the above definition makes it hard to praise the virtuous and blame the vicious. It might then be concluded that inner virtue isn’t a real virtue because acting virtuously is usually regarded as praiseworthy. We can’t be praised or blamed for things which are beyond our control. Two objections can be raised to this argument. Firstly is more conventionally defined virtue always praiseworthy? Consider a child from an affluent home with good loving parents who grows up to be virtuous because of his background and parental encouragement. Is his virtue praiseworthy? Perhaps we should regard virtue as something to be appreciated rather than praised. We might say someone has a better character than someone else even if he isn’t responsible for his better character and doesn’t deserve to be praised for it. Secondly we might question how we acquire our sense of pleasure. A baby just gets pleasure from certain things but do we acquire all our pleasures in the same way? Do we have any input into our acquisition of some pleasures? For instance if we enjoy classical music did we simply come to enjoy it or does our will play some part in its acquisition? Do we have any control over the maintenance of pleasures? For instance if classical music pleases us we can maintain this pleasure by going to concerts. Do we have higher pleasures based our lower pleasures? Being pleased or displeased about what pleases us. If we have some limited control of some of the pleasures we acquire then perhaps inner virtue and vice should attract some praise and blame. Accepting either of the above arguments would mean inner virtue doesn’t differ significantly from our more accepted ideas of virtue when it comes to praise and blame.

  now want to examine the broader consequences of accepting the idea of inner virtue. I will do so by considering inner virtue in conjunction with private racist thoughts. Racism is wrong but do someone’s unexpressed private racist thoughts do any harm and if so why? Clearly someone with locked in syndrome can have racist thoughts. Equally clearly these thoughts cannot be seen as manifestations of an underlying caring about someone’s wellbeing and if we accept that inner virtue is possible then these thoughts cannot be regarded as virtuous. Indeed I argue that such thoughts show a complete disregard for someone’s wellbeing and might be regarded as vicious. I now want to consider two questions. Firstly do the racist thoughts of someone with locked in syndrome do any harm? Secondly do purely private racist thoughts of someone who can act in the world do any harm?

If someone with locked in syndrome has racist thoughts then he harms no one else because he is incapable of action. It might then be argued that because his thoughts don’t harm others that these thoughts really don’t matter. However would we say that the alcoholism of a private alcoholic who drinks alone and doesn’t harms others doesn’t matter? I would suggest we wouldn’t. His alcoholism matters even if no one else becomes aware of it because he harms himself. It might be objected at this point that the analogy I’m trying to make is a false one because the alcoholic harms his physiological health whilst a racist with locked in syndrome doesn’t. In response I now want to argue that even if a racist with locked in syndrome doesn’t harm his physiological health that nonetheless his racist thoughts harm him by damaging his character. How might a private racist thoughts damage character? My argument will be based on two premises. My first premise is that caring about the welfare of others is a necessary condition for having a good character. Someone who is indifferent to the good of others might have some prudential virtues and be said to have a strong character but it cannot be said he has a good character. It might be objected that someone can have a good character and not care about the welfare of others. For instance he might believe in retributory justice and that some people deserve to suffer. In order to accommodate this objection I will amend the above premise slightly. This amended first premise holds that someone cannot be said to have a good character if he fails to care about the undeserved suffering of others. My second premise is that everyone cares about having a good character. It might be objected that my second premise is an extremely over optimistic one. Nonetheless I wish to defend it. It might now be objected that sadism shows my second premise to be unsound because a sadist clearly doesn’t care about having a good character. In response I would suggest even if a sadist happily enjoys inflicting pain on others and accepts his nature that nonetheless he still believes it would be better not to be a sadist. No one aspires to be a sadist. A sadist values having a good character even if he doesn’t value it enough to change his ways. Let us accept my second premise that everyone cares, at least to some degree, about having a good character. It follows that someone with locked in syndrome who has racist thoughts also cares about having a good character at least to some degree. If he has racist thoughts then these thoughts manifest a lack of caring for the underserved suffering of people of other races. It follows that his racist thoughts damages him, even if they don’t damage anyone else, by splitting his character even if this splitting is of no moral concern. Racist thoughts and the caring about character conflict. However even if we don’t accept my second premise I would still argue that someone who doesn’t care about having a good character damages his character. His character is damaged by a lack of aspiration to be a better person.

I now want to consider more practical matters. Does someone who doesn’t have locked in syndrome but has purely private racist thoughts do any real harm. Clearly as I have argued above he damages himself but are these private thoughts of any moral concern provided that he doesn’t harm others? Clearly a smoker damages his health but his smoking shouldn’t be of concern to others if he is an adult and smokes in a field. It might then be argued by analogy that if someone has private racist thoughts that these thoughts shouldn’t be of concern to others. It might then be concluded that someone could still act virtuously even if he has vicious private racist thoughts. What does it mean to act virtuously?  A behaviourist account of virtue might suggest that someone acts virtuously provided he acts in accordance with moral norms. If we accept such an account then someone could act virtuously if his motive was purely to signal virtue or even if his actions were the result of luck. If we aren’t prepared to accept that actions based on virtue signalling or due to luck are truly virtuous ones then we can’t accept a behaviourist account of virtue. Virtue isn’t a shallow concept but has roots. These roots lie in someone’s disposition to act virtuously most of the time. These dispositions are a result of, or form part of someone’s character. It follows that acting virtuously is rooted in character. We have defined inner virtue above as a manifestation of an underlying caring about someone’s wellbeing. Let us accept that what we care about is linked to our character. It follows that acting virtuously and inner virtue are connected by character. I now want to argue that having private racist thoughts harms someone by damaging his ability to act virtuously. Let us assume that someone wants to act virtuously. I have argued above that if someone wants to act virtuously that he must care about other people unless his motive is purely to virtue signal in which case his actions aren’t virtuous. Let us also assume that he has private racist thoughts. These thoughts manifest a lack of concern for someone’s wellbeing. It follows that his character is divided. This division matters because his purely private racist thoughts make it harder for him to act virtuously. Even if someone’s purely private thoughts are never made explicit they leak out into the world by making behaving virtuously harder. This division matters for another reason. A racist might have purely private racist thoughts which he never expresses but these thoughts might leak out into the world by the way he acts, for instance in the way he votes. It follows purely private racist thoughts should be of moral concern. However accepting the above doesn’t make virtuous action completely impossible. For instance someone might care about being slim and enjoy eating junk food. His divided desires makes it harder for him to diet but not impossible.

 What conclusions can be drawn from the above? I have argued that our purely private thoughts matter. They matter because some of them are connected to inner virtue. Inner virtue is connected to acting virtuously because it is linked to character which in turn is determined by the things we care about. If the things we care about form a consistent set then it is easier to act virtuously. However it is harder to act virtuously if the things we care about form an inconsistent set and we are unable to rank our priorities. Acting virtuous isn’t just a matter of luck, it has roots which are connected to inner virtue. If morality has no roots then mimicking morality is the same as acting morally. Lastly if we are capable of acting in the world our inner virtues or vices are of moral concern because they leak out into the world by making it easier or more difficult it to act virtuously.

1. Strawson, Galen. 1994. Mental Reality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
2. Bommarito, Nicolas. 2017. Inner Virtue (Oxford Moral Theory) (pp. 13-14). Oxford University Press.

Afterthought, It night be objected to the above that any moral system concerned with character is too complicated and that any practical morality should solely be concerned with actions. Intuitively this objection seems sound but can character and actions be easily separate?