In this posting I want to examine the relationship between virtue and autonomy. In order to do so I will use Christian Miller’s ideas about the virtue of honesty. Miller suggests that sometimes the virtue of honesty seems to be inappropriate. For instance when
“where lying would
prevent severe harm, such as lying to save a Jewish family from the Nazis or to
stop a terrorist attack.” (1)
One solution to such problems according to Miller is that
one virtue outweighs another. Miller goes on to suggest that this weighting
might be carried out by the virtue of practical wisdom.
“Thus in Nazi-at-the-door cases, practical wisdom might
help decide between what honesty demands (telling the truth to the Nazi) and
what compassion demands (protecting the Jewish family).” (2)
I find Miller’s treatment of the problem quite convincing
but in what follows I will briefly outline an alternative solution before
moving on to argue that the problem might be resolved by considering the
relationship between autonomy and virtue.
First it might be suggested that our intuitive ideas of
honesty need to be refined. It might be argued that telling a Nazi where a
Jewish family isn’t acting virtuously. Telling the truth isn’t part of the
virtue in all situations. Honesty is a situationist virtue. Perhaps when we
define what actions are part of the virtue of honesty we must also define the
domain in which these actions take place. Perhaps the above suggestion might
apply to virtues more generally. Even though this might offer a possible
solution to apparent clashes in virtues I won’t pursue it further here.
It might be argued someone can still be virtuous whilst
telling white lies to children. For instance a mother might tell her child that
he can’t go to McDonalds because she’s forgotten her purse. Honesty is a
sitiationist virtue and doesn’t apply in this domain. I now want to consider h white
lies and autonomy. In Against
tact I argued that the telling of such white lies is not only
wrong because it deceives people but also because it fails to respect them. It
is respect which will concern us here. Respect in this scenario means seeing
others as the kind of creatures who can govern themselves and who should be
allowed to do so. Respecting persons means respecting their autonomy, in our example
the mother can act virtuously, she cares for her child, and there is no need to
consider respecting his autonomy as he isn’t yet autonomous.
I now want to consider the relationship, if any, between
respecting the autonomy of autonomous agents and virtue. The concept of
autonomy used here simply requires that an autonomous agent can make and
implement the decisions by which she governs herself. This is a primitive
account. For the instrumental virtues this relationship doesn’t really matter.
However for the moral virtues it does. Let us accept that for a virtuous person
acting morally matters. Acting morally isn’t simply acting, it is choosing to
act for a reason. To be able to act morally someone must be able to choose, be
able to govern herself, be autonomous. Let us accept that we can act virtuously
towards young children and animals without the need to respect their auronomy,
respecting autonomy doesn’t constrain virtue. The same isn’t true of our
dealings with creatures capable of moral decision making. If we fail to respect
the autonomy of some creature which is capable of acting virtuously then we are
failing to recognise the importance of a capacity necessary for being virtuous.
If someone believes that she is acting virtuously whilst failing to respect the
autonomy of someone capable of acting virtuously then she believes she is acting
virtuously and at the same time that the capacity to act virtuously doesn’t
matter. This isn’t an easy position to maintain. If we aren’t prepared to maintain
the above then we must accept that a virtuous person’s actions are constrained
by a need to respect autonomy.
In the light of the above let us return to our example of
the Nazi. Someone might argue that even if we accept the above that respect for
the Nazi’s autonomy means that we must tell him the truth. If we lie to him we
deprive him of the ability to make a moral decision depriving him of a chance
to act virtuously however unlikely this might be. If we ignore probabilities how
might we counter this argument? It might be suggested that if we used a
different account of autonomy that this might help. For instance we might use
Mill’s account of liberty to give us an account of autonomy
“the only purpose for which power
can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against
his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either
physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.” 3
Unfortunately if we adopt this account harm helps define
autonomy and instead of morality being constrained by respect for autonomy,
respect for autonomy is constrained by moral considerations. I would suggest
the same is true of all concept of autonomy which contains a substantive
element.
I want to argue that if we adopt a primitive account of
autonomy that we can account for our intuitions about the Nazi because autonomy
places constraints on the exercise of virtue. Let us accept that respect for
autonomy means respecting the capacity to be autonomous. If we are honest with
the Nazi then we aren’t respecting people’s capacity for autonomy because he
will destroy that of theJewish family. Respecting people’s capacity for
autonomy constrains our honesty. It might be objected that in this case we
aren’t respecting the autonomy of the Nazi. We are denying him the possibility
to make a moral decision by our lack of honesty. In response I would suggest
that in cases when we can’t respect the autonomy of all the parties involved that
we must respect the autonomy of as many people as possible and moral
considerations play no part in our decision making.
In the light of the above I now want to suggest that the
exercise of all moral virtues must be constrained by respect for autonomy if we
want to live in a virtuous society, Perhaps Aristotle would have agreed even if
his virtuous society was limited to a few men.
- Miller, Christian, Honesty (p. 10). Oxford University Press.
- Miller, Christian, Honesty (p. 118). Oxford University Press.
- Mill J S. (1974) On Liberty and Other Essays. Oxford University Press
