Conatus: REVISED EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

Virtue, as a basis of ethics, dates back to Aristotle. For him, what was important in virtue is where it is leading — a teleological approach. What will a person become in the long term? ‘Virtue ethics’ is about becoming a good person, rather than just obeying rules. It is a morality based on what we regard as constituting a good and dignified life for a person.

Virtue ethics is often also given a narrative spin — I’m thinking particularly of Alasdair MacIntyre — where one’s efforts towards forging a vocation, and generally living a good life, form the basis of a narrative for one’s purposes in the world. This setting up of a life narrative — grading our wants and so on — always comes from a prior conception of what is right and wrong, what counts as good and the like. What would our life amount to if we chose this or that particular course of action? That’s the kind of question that virtue ethics is asking us to consider. The narrative approach seeks the good within the context of a whole life story.

It seems that our life stories are always being updated, and our awareness of our own strengths and weaknesses continually evolves. Most importantly, life stories and virtue ethics are always set within the context of a community. Communities, of course, also change and are informed by other communities, as cultures and nations change. So, as Alasdair MacIntyre reminds us, this is a never-ending development. But, he says, our lives are enriched because they are incomplete.

Virtue ethics (and indeed ethics in general) can

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