Aspiration

 

People change over time. We become older, bigger and weaker. This posting isn’t concerned with physical changes but changes in what matters to us. We might become a professional sportsperson, a mother or even a priest. These changes often require us to adopt new values and these values help in defining the person we want to be. This posting is concerned with the way in which we acquire these new values. Agnes Callard argues that the way we change our existing values to new ones is by aspiring. In this posting I will firstly outline her idea of aspiration and will then examine an important question what motivates us to aspire.

This examination will be concerned with the choices about values which are connected to character, to the sort of person we are. Some choices are made without reflection, we simply choose the ice cream flavour we prefer. We reflect about other choices. If I want to help my grandchildren flourish I might reflect about how I might assist in this. I use reason to decide which course of action will help me achieve my aim. Now let us assume that I decide to make a major change to the way I live my life. For instance I might decide to become a vegetarian. I can do this for two reasons. I can do so because I believe it is the right thing to do or because I am attracted by the vegetarian lifestyle. If I do so for the first reason then my choice is a result of reflection based on my existing ethical values. It is possible to choose some of our values but I’m not sure that we can choose our ethical values. Let us now assume I make my choice because I’m attracted to the vegetarian lifestyle and that being a vegetarian is not something which I previously valued. In this scenario how do I make my choice? Do I simply decide as I did when choosing an ice cream?  Surely such a big decision shouldn’t be an arbitrary one? Perhaps my choice should be a reflective one based on reason. However a reflective decision is based on our values. If I decide to become a vegetarian then I am changing my values and it might be asked what values I base my decision on. It would seem that I have become dissatisfied with my old values but haven’t yet acquired new ones which could form a basis for my decision. Problems with acquiring new values have lead Agnes Callard to suggest that we acquire these values by aspiration.

What does Callard mean by aspiration? According to Callard,

“The aspirant sees that she does not have the values that she would like to have, and therefore seeks to move herself toward a better valuational condition.” (1)

The aspirant doesn’t decide on better values but tries to move himself towards these values. We usually think of someone as exercising his rational agency if he first considers his values and then decides what to do. Callard wants to reverse this order and say someone when aspiring still exercises his agency by deciding to acquire some different values and throughout the process of acquisition. I’m slightly unhappy about saying an aspirant decides to acquire new values. Aspiration is a process rather a decision perhaps it might be regarded as a smudged decision. Unfortunately there seem to be a problem with how the aspirant comes to aspire to these new values. Perhaps the aspirant glimpses these new values but if this is so what do we mean by glimpse? In the light of this difficulty I will now examine potential alternative means of acquiring new values, perhaps we might not need the idea of aspiration to explain how we acquire new values.

 

Let us accept that values are defined by what we care about. Let us further agree with Harry Frankfurt that what we care about is equivalent to what we love. Love means love in general and not just romantic love. Moreover according to Frankfurt the lover,

“is not free. On the contrary, he is in the very nature of the case captivated by his beloved and his love. The will of the lover is rigorously constrained. Love is not a matter of choice.” (2)

Let us assume that Frankfurt is correct when he asserts that the will of someone is constrained when he comes to acquiring new values. How then might he acquire these values? Perhaps he simply makes an arbitrary choice. I would be reluctant to accept this suggestion for surely acquiring new values which will form a basis for the way someone lives is different from making a choice about flavours of ice cream. It might then be suggested his choice is determined by his character which is linked to his values. This might happen in two ways. First it might be suggested the agent’s choice is determined by his existing character. However if we accept this suggestion it might be questioned whether our agent is really acquiring new values or merely maintaining his existing ones. Secondly it might be suggested that the agent glimpses some character he wants to become. Let us consider Satre’s classic example of someone choosing. He must choose between looking after an ailing mother or joining the French resistance. Did Satre really believe such a choice was completely free? If so we are back to ice cream. Perhaps Satre’s choice was really a choice about what sort of character the agent wanted to become. However the agent hadn’t become that character yet and as yet didn’t have the values of his chosen character. It appears to follow that such a person could best be described as an aspirant. 

It has been suggested above that it is impossible to choose new values based on our current ones. Perhaps our new values emerge from our current ones in some way. This might happen in two ways. Firstly if we seriously reflect on our current values and new values simply emerge. Let us return to our potential vegetarian. Among his current values is not causing unnecessary harm. However he doesn’t value not eating meat. One summer’s day he has time to reflect on his values. He considers causing harm in some detail and comes to believe eating animals harms them. He is well aware that it is unnecessary to eat meat for a healthy diet. He concludes that eating animals causes them unnecessary harm. He becomes a vegetarian and now values not eating meat. It might be suggested that a new value has emerged based on his reflection on his current values. What do we mean by emerged in this scenario? Does it mean he has chosen a new value? I would suggest it doesn’t. The agent has become aware of a value entailed by his current values and becoming aware of a value isn’t the same as choosing a new one. Secondly let us assume that our agent doesn’t reflect very much on his values but that these together with experience of life lead to the emergence of another value. This scenario is similar to the first one. The agent is becoming aware of a value rather than choosing a new one. It appears to follow that it is impossible for somebody to choose new values based on his current ones. Reflection can make us aware of values but it can’t help us choose new ones. Becoming aware of is process but it seems to a different sort of process to the one involved in aspiring. It is of course possible that it is impossible to choose any values by any means because we lack free will. In the light of the above it would seem that provided we can acquire new values and our agency plays some part in this acquisition that Callard’s ideas about aspiration might be helpful in explaining the process.

Unfortunately even if we accept the above a problem remains. Clearly desires can motivate us. According to Frankfurt the things we cares about or love also naturally motivate us. If we don’t act to further what we care about when this is possible then we don’t really care. Let us assume that when we aspire we hope to care about our new beliefs. But new beliefs we have yet to acquire can’t yet motivate. If we aspire to something what motivates us to aspire? Callard suggests that aspiration is a process and that during the course of the process we have a partial grasp of the values we are trying to acquire. Let us agree with Callard that these partially acquired values can motivate us to pursue the acquisition process further. Unfortunately the above problem can be amended. If someone aspires to new values what motivates him to initiate the aspiration process? 

Let us accept that Callard is correct when she suggests that we can’t use our existing values to acquire new values and that we do so by aspiring. However if we do so we must be able to offer an explanation of what initiates the aspiration process. I will now outline two possible explanation. First we aspire because we hope to acquire these new values. What do we mean by hope? Initially someone hoping might described as simply desiring some favoured outcome. Frankfurt points out desires don’t have to have persistence. Hoping seems to have some persistence. Perhaps then if someone hopes means he ‘cares about’ some favoured outcome and ‘caring about’ means that he takes steps to achieve this outcome. Unfortunately a problem remains. Hoping isn’t a mood with no focus. Hoping must be focussed on some specific outcome. If we use hope to explain what motivates us to acquire new values then it cannot be focussed on these new values because we haven’t yet acquired them. Perhaps the above explanation might be modified. Let us accept that one of an aspirants aims is to become a better person. If it is possible to hope to be a better person then this might help to explain what motivates aspiration. It might be objected that the aim of becoming a better person is too vague to be considered as the focus of someone’s hope. Let us now consider a second way in which we might be motivated to aspire. According to John Stuart Mill “it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.” Might our dissatisfaction cause us to aspire? Let us also accept that an aspirant is dissatisfied with his current values. It might then be argued that dissatisfaction with his old values rather than these values themselves motivates him to seek new ones. His dissatisfaction motivates him to try and acquire new values. His focus is broad but some of his attempts might allow him glimpse new values which motivates him to aspire further. Aspiration is a process and sometimes as he comes to see these values more clearly he will continue with the process whilst in other cases he might end it.

As we age it seems that we become less concerned with becoming better persons and aspiring and this offers some evidence to support the two explanations offered above. We become more content with our existing values and seek to maintain them rather than acquiring new ones. However many will be unconvinced that the desire to be a better person could initiate the aspiring process. Indeed I am not totally convinced myself. Perhaps then we should reconsider whether it is possible to acquire new values from our existing ones. Perhaps sometimes new experience in conjunction with our existing values might allow us to glimpse new values. Glimpsing these new values doesn’t mean that they are strictly entailed by our existing ones. For instance we might glimpse these new values by the use of analogy. Analogies are never perfect so new values might be suggested by our old values rather than strictly entailed by them. Moreover once we accept these suggested new values and reflect further on them then we might have to change or modify our previous existing values. In in science we are used to the idea of a paradigm shift. Newton’s laws allowed Einstein to develop relativity but once relativity became accepted Newton’s laws had to be modified slightly. Is a paradigm shift in values possible? If so it might be possible to acquire new values which are suggested by our old ones.

What conclusions can be drawn from the above discussion?  Firstly it is at least conceivable that our old values might suggest new ones by analogy and that if we acquire these new values we will be required to amend our old ones.  Secondly we can acquire new values by aspiring. It seems possible that the acquisition process is initiated by a desire to be a better person.

1. Callard, Agnes. Aspiration. Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition, Location 192.
2. Harry Frankfurt, 1999 Necessity, Volition, and Love. Cambridge University Press. Page 135.

What do we mean by Evil?

Few people seem to actively enjoy doing evil acts yet evil seems to be widespread. In this posting I will examine what we mean by evil in order to explain this discrepancy. Evil is a word we use all the time, for instance terrorists and serial killers are often said to be evil. However if saying something or someone is evil is to be useful, to be more than condemnation, then we must be clear what we are talking about. In this posting I will attempt to define a useful definition of evil and I will argue that being evil isn’t a matter of degree, how bad we are, but is concerns with how we are motivated. I will draw a definition between someone who is actively evil and someone who is passively evil, This will lead me to conclude that someone needn’t commit any evil acts or even have a disposition to do so in order to be regarded as evil. Such a position might be regarded as an extreme one by some.

Evil is connected to harm. I will now introduce definitions of an evil act and evil person as suggested by Luke Russell. Russell defines an evil act as follows,

“An action is evil if and only if it is a wrong that is extremely harmful for at least one individual victim, where the wrongdoer is fully culpable for the harm in its extremity, or it is an action that is appropriately connected to an actual or possible extreme harm of this kind and the agent is fully culpable for that action” (1)

Russell defines an evil person as,

“You are an evil person if and only if you are strongly disposed to perform evil action and this disposition is now so firmly fixed that you ought to be treated as a write off.” (2)

These are thoughtful definitions and are a useful starting point for our examination. However accepting these definitions makes it is difficult to account for Hannah Arendt’s “banality of evil”. Moreover intuitively whether an act, however bad, is regarded as evil seems dependent on the definition of an evil person.

I now want to suggest a different account of evil. Sometimes an evil person is contrasted with a virtuous person. Very roughly speaking a virtuous person has a disposition to mostly do good. It might then be suggested that an evil person mirrors this and is someone who has a disposition to do evil. If we accept that an evil action is one which causes great harm for which the agent is culpable then we are accepting a definition akin to that of Russell. I now want to propose a different account of evil. According to David Hume

 “Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger”.

Perhaps such a person might be regarded rational, which I wouldn’t, but we would certainly regard her as evil. The above suggests that instead of having a disposition to do evil an evil person is simply someone who lacks any disposition to do good when she is capable of doing so even and when doing so would prevent extreme harm. Evil acts don’t require evil intentions but a lack of motivation to do the good. However such a definition is incomplete because using it someone who feels no moral pull because she is incapable of understanding any moral requirements would be regarded as evil. Surely we shouldn’t regard someone who is severely cognitively impaired as evil. Someone who causes great harm but cannot understand any moral requirements not to cause that harm is no more responsible for this harm than the harm caused by an earthquake. I would suggest that an evil action cannot be understood without reference to an agent understanding that the society she lives in has moral requirements even if she doesn’t feel the pull of these requirements. Moreover she must understand what these requirements entail. It is important to be clear that by the inability to feel any moral pull isn’t the same as the inability to understand moral requirements. It follows that if someone is to be regarded as evil that she must be capable of understanding some moral requirements. An evil person might be defined by the following two conditions.

An evil person is someone who lacks any disposition to do good when she is capable of doing so even when doing so would prevent extreme harm.

An evil person is someone who is capable of understanding moral requirements even if she feels no moral pull.

If we accept this definition then it is possible to define an evil action.

An evil action is an extremely harmful act which an evil person enacts or permits to be enacted.

Accepting these definitions means that we need to be able to understand what it means to be an evil person before we can classify some act as evil. It also means that someone need not be actively evil and she can be passively evil. It is possible to differentiate between active and passive evil. Lastly it means that hatred need play no part in evildoing.

This definition is similar to that of Simon Baron Cohen. Baron Cohen wants to redefine evil as the erosion of empathy. (3) This definition refers to evil acts rather than evil persons because whilst autistic people lack empathy to some degree this lack doesn't make them evil. Indeed many high functioning autistic people are attracted by rules and strongly feel the pull of morality. This pull could be due to ‘caring about’ as the defined by Harry Frankfurt or due to emotions unconnected to empathy. The above definition is slightly different from that of Baron Cohen and might be characterised by the inability or the erosion of the ability to feel the pull of morality rather than empathy.

Let us now examine some of the consequences of accepting the above definitions. According to Arendt Adolf Eichmann was an ordinary, rather bland, bureaucrat who was neither perverted nor sadistic, but ‘terrifyingly normal. His motive according to Arendt motive was simply to advance his career in the Nazi bureaucracy. According to Arendt’s account of Eichmann he didn’t enjoy his evil deeds and didn’t have a strong disposition to perform evil actions. It follows that we must reject either Russell’s definition of an evil person or Arendt’s account of Eichmann. Is the definition of an evil person outlined above more compatible with Arendt’s account of the banality of evil? If we accept this definition then an evil person doesn’t have to like to be attracted to evil she merely has to have no motivation not to do evil, she is passively evil. Perhaps Eichmann didn’t enjoy sending Jews to extermination camps but he had no motivation not to do so. It follows that Eichmann fulfilled the first condition of an evil person. I would further suggest that Eichmann must have understood that killing millions of people contravened moral standards. Someone might object to the above and suggest that the Nazis had introduced new moral standards. She might then suggest that the situation Eichmann found himself was responsible for his evil acts rather Eichmann himself. In response I would suggest the secrecy of the final solution suggests that the Eichmann was well aware that he was breaking moral standards and that even if the situation helped determine his actions that he felt no unease at doing so. This failure to feel any moral unease made him an evil man. Much of the above could be applicable in the case of Harold Shipman the British serial killer who murdered around 250 victims. Except for one case Shipman had no motive for murder and appeared to take no pleasure in his actions. However I would suggest the above definition isn’t completely compatible with Arendt’s views. Arendt suggested Eichmann was an ordinary, rather bland, bureaucrat I would suggest that someone who lacks any motivation to prevent harm when she is capable of doing so isn’t normal. Perhaps Eichmann was a bland bureaucrat but he wasn’t ordinary, wasn’t orfinary.

A second consequence of accepting the above definition is that someone might be an evil person but never actually do any evil acts, an evil person might never be an evildoer. This consequence accords well with Nicolas Bommarito’s idea of inner virtue and vice. Such a thought seems to run counter to our intuitions. However it seems possible that someone might have a generous disposition but that she has never been generous because she lives in an extremely deprived circumstances. Let us recall that an evil act must be an extremely harmful one. It seems possible then that someone might live in circumstances in which the opportunity for doing extremely harmful actions doesn’t exist. In such circumstances someone might not be an evildoer but would remain an evil person if she had a disposition to do evil even if she never acted on it. However my definition is more radical than this, Someone can be an evil person even if she never acts evilly or doesn’t have any disposition to act evilly provided she doesn’t have any disposition to do good when she is capable of doing so in order to prevent extreme harm. According to David Hume “all that is necessary for evil to flourish is that good men do nothing” but if we accept the above Hume’s ‘good men’ are actually passively evil. Consider someone who sees a frail person fall in the street and struggle to get up and has no motivation to help him then she should be regarded as an evil rather than simply heartless. Omissions can point out evil. Perhaps if Eichmann had been born in different times he would have been an ordinary bland, bureaucrat who did no evil but nonetheless he would have remained an evil person.

According to the definition of evil we have adopted an evil person feels no moral pull but must understand moral requirements. This leads to the third consequence of accepting the above definition. Someone can only be regarded as evil in reference to the moral standards they lived in. Moral standards aren’t changed easily which I have suggested is one reason for the Nazi’s secrecy about the Holocaust. Nonetheless moral standards do change over longer periods of time. Let us consider slavery. Slavery is a great wrong today and in our time anyone who kept a slave would be regarded as an evil person. Let us now consider the Bristol slave trader Edward Colston. Let us accept that he was a racist but was he also an evil person? If he felt the moral pull and understood the moral requirements of his time then perhaps he wasn’t. The question then becomes was slave trading morally acceptable in his times. This is no means clear. Let us move on to consider an easy case, let us consider Aristotle. Let us assume that Aristotle kept slaves if our assumption is correct was he an evil person? If he felt the moral pull and understood the moral requirements of his times then he wasn’t. I would suggest that keeping slaves was morally acceptable in ancient Greece. In the light of the above it would seem that we should judge people as evil or not according to how they responded to the moral requirements of their time.

The fourth consequence of accepting the above definition means that even if a good person can act badly that she cannot act evilly. Evil acts are defined as extremely harmful actions performed by evil persons. Accepting the above seems to run counter to our intuitions and appears to give us a strong reason to reject the above account of evil. In Bernard Shaw's St Joan a soldier is let out of hell for one day because he does a good thing by giving Joan a straw cross. An evil person does a good thing.  Surely if evil people can do good things then good people can do evil things. The Milligram experiment shows good people can do very bad things but is doing very bad things the same as acting evilly? Before answering this question we must provide a rough definition of what we mean by a good person. In what follows a good person will simply be defined as someone who has a disposition to do good in most situations For the sake of argument let us assume that a good person can act evilly. What reasons can be advanced for a good person acting evilly? Firstly a good person might have a failure in cognition and fail to see that she is acting evilly. Secondly her disposition to do mostly good might be overwhelmed by other forces allowing her to act evilly. Let consider the first of these explanations. Perhaps a good person feels the pull of morality in general way but fails to fully understand what a particular moral norm requires of her. For instance someone might understand the moral norm not to be cruel to others but fail to include animals among those others. Let us assume she is cruel to animals. Let us accept she acts badly but it would seem hard to describe her actions as evil. More generally it would seem hard to describe someone’s action as evil when she fails to fully understand the moral implications of the action. If this wasn’t true then it would be possible to describe the actions of someone who is severely cognitively impaired as evil. Such a description seems to run counter to our intuitions. It follows that a good person cannot act evilly because of a failure in cognition.

Let us now consider the second explanation of how a good person can act evilly. It might argued that a good person can act evilly if her moral sentiments are overwhelmed by other forces. For instance a soldier’s moral sentiments might be overwhelmed by rage at some atrocity and she in turn commits a further atrocity. According to Seneca rage is a form of madness. If so when someone’s disposition to do good is overwhelmed by rage she is cognitively disabled and we are able to use the first explanation above to show she isn’t acting evilly. However let us assume that whilst someone’s disposition to do good is completely overwhelmed that she remains aware she is acting badly. Can someone who can do no other said to be responsible for her actions? Can some act be regarded as evil if the agent cannot be held to be responsible for her actions? If the answers to these two questions are both negative then good people can act badly but it would be wrong to describe those whose disposition to do good are over whelmed by other forces as acting evilly. Such a conclusion might have satisfied Socrates. Perhaps whilst good person can act badly she can’t act evilly.

The fifth consequence of accepting the above means we might question whether terrorists are really evildoers. Terrorists should rightly be regarded as cruel and callous but should they also be regarded as evil? Terrorists have some sort of moral code even if we might regard it as a warped one. If being evil depends on a complete lack of any moral pull then it follows that terrorists aren’t evil. Such a conclusion might not be totally unwelcome for perhaps terrorists might be reformed by changing their moral concepts even if this change is extremely difficult bring about, such a change might not be possible with evildoers such as Eichmann.

The sixth consequence of accepting the above definitions means we can’t label any organisation as evil. This seems counterintuitive. We can’t label the Nazi party or a terrorist organisations as evil even if they foster evil. Dictators and party members may be evil but the party can’t be evil for to be evil some creature must be capable of understanding moral requirements.  Organisations can’t understand moral requirements and so can’t be evil.

Definitions should increase our understanding or be useful. Does the above definition do either of these? Firstly the fact that an evildoer doesn’t feel any moral pull doesn’t excuse her evil actions. If someone knowingly does evil and could have acted otherwise then she can be held accountable for her actions. However if the cause of evil is a failure to feel any moral pull then this might be regarded as a mitigating factor. Secondly one way to combat evil might be to look at how people fail to acquire a sense of moral pull. Children naturally acquire some feeling of morality from their parents and society. Perhaps extremely deprived or abusive childhoods erode a child’s ability to acquire moral sentiments. Good parenting and education might help children acquire these sentiments. Unfortunately some people might not acquire these sentiments for physical reasons. Perhaps a low level of these sentiments might be boosted by pharmacological means. In ‘unfit for the Future’ Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu argue that there is a need for moral enhancement in order to counter the existential dangers. (4) Perhaps more limited targeted pharmacological enhancement might be used to prevent some people from becoming evil, see psychopaths and moral enhancement. Lastly the society we should try to make our society one which decreases the likelihood of evil manifesting itself. I suggested above that whilst Eichmann might have remained an evil man but that in a better society that his evil might not have manifested itself.

1. Luke Russell, 2020 Being Evil, Oxford University Press, page 87
2. Russell, page 114
3. Simon Baron-Cohen, 2011, Zero Degrees of Empathy, Allen Lane, page 4.
4. Ingmar Persson & Julian Savulescu, 2012, UNFIT FOR THE FUTURE, Oxford University Press.

Against Tact

 Intuitively tact seems to be a virtue. I try to be tactful but recently have questioned whether I should continue to do so. Corina Stan argues that tact isn’t a social luxury and that it becomes imperative in the age we live in, see aeon . Let us agree with Stan that live in difficult times and that without too much reflection tact appears to be a virtue.  However if we reflect on the nature of tact it doesn’t seem so obvious that it really is a virtue. Often tact involves a lack of candour and candour is essential for respect. In this posting. I will attempt to convince myself and others that tact isn’t a virtue.

Before attempting to question as to whether tact is a virtue we should acknowledge that some people can't be tactful. Autistic people are concerned with the truth and tact seems to involve concealing the truth. What we mean by tact? Let us agree that acting tactfully requires paying close attention to the situation and the feelings of others. If this is all that is required for someone to act tactfully then a psychopath could be tactful. A psychopath might pay close attention to the situation and the feelings of others for his own purposes. Let us accept that if tact is to be regarded as a virtue that a psychopath acting to serve his own ends cannot be said to be acting tactfully. In the rest of this posting I will only be concerned with tact when the reason a tactful person pays close attention to the situation and the feelings of others is that he cares about them for their own sake.

Before proceeding I now want to introduce an example which I will use in the rest of this posting. Any definition of tact must be able to account for this example. Consider someone who is overweight and says to a friend “do you think I’m fat”. Intuitively the tactful response would be to say no. The tactful thing to do would be to lie. By saying no we are paying attention to the feelings of the overweight person because we care about him, but do we respect him?

The Cambridge dictionary defines tact as “the ability to say or do the right thing without making anyone unhappy or angry”. Can this definition account for our example of tact. I would suggest it can’t. Clearly if we told the overweight person he wasn’t fat we wouldn’t be making him unhappy or angry but would we be doing the right thing? Provided doing the right thing only means not making someone unhappy or angry then we are. However if we accept this then we have no need to include doing the right thing in our definition. It follows doing the right thing involves more than simply not making someone unhappy or angry. In the above example we tell a lie. Can lying be doing the right thing? The answer to this question depends on what we mean by doing the right thing. More generally if doing the right thing means doing the right thing morally then we would severely restrict the domain in which we can act tactfully. We would exclude many minor situations in which tact seems appropriate such as saying nothing about parking infringements. Perhaps then doing the right thing in the definition of tact means helping or allowing someone to flourish. In most cases helping someone to flourish displays empathy and is a good thing to do. Let us recall that the tact we are concerned with is tact which requires ‘caring about’ the person we are treating tactfully. Unfortunately the above raises two questions. First can we really help someone to flourish by contravening moral norms? If we can’t then doing the right thing requires doing the right thing morally. Secondly let us return to our example if I tell the overweight person that he isn’t fat and I’m not annoying or upsetting him but it might be questioned whether I’m really helping him to flourish? Perhaps telling him that he is indeed overweight might encourage him to diet and flourish better in the future. If we accept this definition then we must be able to do the right thing whilst at the same time not make someone unhappy or angry. This is a big ask and perhaps we should search for a slightly different definition.  

The Oxford dictionary defines tact as “the ability to deal with difficult or embarrassing situations carefully and without doing or saying anything that will annoy or upset other people.” This definition drops the need to do the right thing. Can this second definition account for our example of tact. Clearly if we tell an overweight person that he isn’t fat it would appear we won’t upset or annoy him. In these circumstances this definition permits us to lie. Let us adopt this definition and accept that it permits the telling of white lies. It follows that accepting this definition means someone acting tactfully must be prepared to act in a less than fully candid manner.

I now want to examine whether acting tactfully can be virtuous when doing so involve a lack of candour. For the purposes of this posting acting virtuously will be roughly defined as acting in a manner which usually produces good consequences. I will now present four arguments which attempt to show that because acting tactfully involves a loss of candour that tact should not be regarded as a virtue. Firstly according to Amy Olberding any well-mannered, polite, discourse must involve respect, consideration and toleration. (1) Acting respectfully seems to be incompatible with a lack of candour including the telling of white lies. It follows that if we value both acting politely and acting tactfully we must decide which is the most valuable. Which is the most valuable might depend on the situation involved. However we are social animals and I would suggest we can decide in which situations it would be best to act tactfully and in which to act politely. It follows that tact might be regarded as a situationist virtue unlike justice which is always a virtue. Tact might be a virtue in some situations and not in others. Secondly let us consider our motives for acting tactfully. It might be argued that we sometimes act tactfully from mixed motives. Sometimes we act tactfully partly to benefit ourselves. For instance we might act tactfully simply because we are lazy and just want to bring any discussion to an end. Or perhaps by acting tactfully we are virtue signalling. If others are present we might be preening ourselves in front of them or if others aren't present patting ourselves on the back. However even if our motives aren’t all good ones this doesn’t mean our behaviour can’t have good consequences for others. It follows even if our motives for acting tactfully are mixed that tact might still be regarded as a virtue. Thirdly I want to consider whether acting tactfully has good long term consequences. Does telling an overweight person that he isn’t fat have good consequences in the long term? Clearly telling him that he isn’t fat won’t upset or annoy him has good short term consequences. However if we politely told him that he was indeed fat this might be better in the long term. Perhaps our white lie might assist in giving him a false impression of himself which is damaging in the long term. Accepting the above means that whilst being tactful isn’t always a virtue it can still be a situationst virtue.

I have presented three arguments to show tact isn’t a virtue. None of these arguments should prevent us from regarding tact as acting virtuously in some situations. Tact can be a situationist virtue. I will now argue that if tact involves a lack of candour it isn’t a virtue in any situation. My argument will again be based on a lack of respect. Of course being less than candid with someone doesn’t automatically mean that we aren’t concerned with and don’t care about him. Perhaps in some situations our lack of candour might be seen as an act of kindness. But acting kindly towards someone isn’t the same as respecting him. Colonialists can act kindly towards subject peoples, patriarchs kindly towards women and pet owners towards their pets but this kindness doesn’t involve respect. Even loving needn’t involve respect. I have previously argued that most people don’t want to be treated like as subjected people never mind as pets, they want to be recognised as the sort of creatures who can make their own decisions, see Lying and autonomy . Let us accept that respect matters to people. It might be objected that even if we accept the above it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t act tactfully. My objector might argue we can respect someone for his physical strength but not for his wisdom. He might then suggest that we can act tactfully towards someone some of the time and still respect him the rest of the time. He might conclude that acting tactfully is compatible with part time respect. In response I would suggest that the idea of part time respect is nonsensical. In my objectors example he respected someone’s strength but this respect isn’t part time, she doesn’t believe that he is strong some of the time and is weak the rest of the time. Let us accept that it is impossible to respect someone part time. In spite of the above it might be suggested that acting tactfully can be more important than acting respectfully. If we fail to be candid with people by telling them white lies in order to prevent them becoming annoyed or unhappy. We are failing to respect them as persons and are treating them as children. If people values not being annoyed or unhappy more than being respected then acting tactfully can be regarded as acting virtuously. However if people value not being treated as children more than being annoyed or made unhappy then tact isn’t a virtue in any situation.

In response to the above it might be suggested that not all cases of acting tactfully involve a lack of candour. In might be further suggested that acting tactfully in such a way should be regarded as acting virtuously. However if we accept these suggestions is there any difference between acting tactfully and acting politely? If there isn’t does tact remain a useful concept? Perhaps instead of being tactful we should simply be polite and candid. I have previously argued that politeness matters, see the philosophy of rudeness. 

What are the implications of the above? Should we stop trying to be tactful and accept that tact isn't a virtue? Tonight I complemented someone on the taste of her chutney which was unexceptional. In the light of the above ir might appear I was wrong to do so. It has been assumed in the above that the sole purpose of language is truthful communication. Robin Dunbar argues that another purpose of language is to bond ourselves with others. If Dunbar is correct then perhaps tact plays an essential part in this bonding and I was right to complement someone about her chutney. Perhaps Corina Stan is correct when she argues that tact isn’t a social luxury but an imperative in the age we live in. Maybe the above only means we should approach tact with caution and regard it as a situationist virtue as suggested above. I am somewhat reluctant to accept this conclusion. I have argued tact involves a lack of candour and this involves a lack of respect. Bonding requires solidarity but can we truly bond with someone we don’t fully respect? If we can’t then being tactful might actually damage bonding However not all cases of acting tactfully involve bonding. For instance doctors often act tactfully towards patients and should be careful because even if being tactful is a caring thing to do it still involves a lack of respect. Lastly we shouldn’t confuse tact with toleration. I have based my case against tact on respect, respect for someone’s autonomy. Respect for someone’s autonomy means we sometimes have to accept what we regard as bad choices. However respect for autonomy doesn’t mean we have to respect these actual choices or say we do so provided this is done politely. Perhaps then tact isn’t really a virtue in any situation and instead of trying to be tactful we should be polite but candid.

1. Amy Olberding, 2019, The Wrongness of Rudeness, Oxford University Press, page 28
2. Robin Dunbar, 2021, FRIENS, Little Bown, chapter 9