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Show Chapter V. A Refutation of Anscombe's Thesis 196 perform. Here the result would be a value theory of right action the practical prescriptions of which enjoin those actions that maximally effect the performance of the morally required actions, rather than those morally required actions themselves. In some cases, the prescribed action might then be one the description of which coincides with the favored description of the morally required action. For example, if the value theory makes telling the truth morally right, the practically prescribed action might consist in uttering a particular set of true sentences under certain circumstances. Here the desired consequence of the action - telling the truth - would be identical with the performance of the action itself, and therefore with that morally right action prescribed by the theory.11 Under other circumstances, however, the goal of telling the truth might necessitate a period of prolonged psychological self-scrutiny and intensive behavioral conditioning designed to negatively reinforce the tendency to lie compulsively. Or it might necessitate the uttering of a set of sentences some of which are true and some of which merely express favorable or unfavorable emotions and therefore have no truth value, together with those unambiguous behavioral attitudes that are often crucial to the distinction between uttering true sentences and telling the truth. In these cases the practically prescribed actions would not be identical with those specified as morally right by the value theory. There is much in Aristotle's moral theory to suggest such a reading. Aristotle's claim that the good for human beings consists in the performance of that function proper to them, i.e. "an activity of the soul in conformity with excellence or virtue," 12 is fleshed out in Books II, III-IX of the Nicomachean Ethics to refer to the development and practice of the moral virtues, guided by practical wisdom and intelligence. Aristotle's conception of the good is therefore not defined independently of a prior conception of morally right action.13 This is evident from Aristotle's remark in Book II that the virtue or excellence of human beings (i.e. moral virtue) is what makes a person good and able to perform his function well (1106a15-23). To say that moral virtue makes a person good, that the final good is the exercise of moral virtue is to suggest that the final good to be aimed at is one's own moral goodness or excellence as expressed by one's character and one's actions - a moral ideal of right conduct that already has been defined by the deontological criterion of performing our proper human function. Brandt recognizes this, but without explicating its implications for the consequentialist/deontological taxonomy. Op. cit. Note 4, p. 354, n. 2. 12 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Terence Irwin (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1985), 1097b22-1098a17. Also see 1144a6-9. Henceforth citations are parenthecized in the text. 13 Here I ignore for the sake of argument the controversies surrounding the correct interpretation of Book X relative to the Nicomachean Ethics as a whole. In fact, I ignore Book X and the problems it raises altogether. 11 © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
