Is the exercise of virtue constrained by respect for autonomy?

 

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.

 

1. Miller, Christian, Honesty (p. 10). Oxford University Press.
2. Miller, Christian, Honesty (p. 118). Oxford University Press.
3. Mill J S. (1974) On Liberty and Other Essays. Oxford University Press