>>One of the most important questions that virtue ethicists face is the problem of the
relationship between the good life and the sense of a flourishing or desirable life and
a good life in the sense of an admirable life, a life of virtue. Remember that the stoics
thought that virtue is both necessary and sufficient for a happy life. If you’re virtuous
you will have a desirable life, a life of eudaimonia. Aristotle’s view was more tentative.
Since he thought that although we need the virtues in order to flourish we also need
goods of fortune such as good health, financial resources and a peaceful city to live in.
Virtue is the part of a good life that we control. The other goods are a matter of luck.
We can’t choose our luck but we can choose to be virtuous. Being virtuous is the best
we can do ourselves to live a life that is desirable, a life of flourishing. I’m sure
you can think of some problems with this point of view. For one thing some of the most virtuous
people die a premature death because of their virtue. Jesus died at 33. Martin Luther King
was assassinated at 39. Sir Philip Sidney was an Elizabethan poet and courtier who was
injured in the thigh during a battle with the Spanish and died of gangrene twenty-six
days later. While lying wounded he reportedly gave his water to another wounded soldier
saying thy necessity is yet greater than mine. How could virtue contribute to his flourishing?
You can’t very well flourish if you’re dead. On the contrary, virtue seems to have
detracted from his ability to live a flourishing life. Here is another example described by
Christine Swanton in her book Virtue Ethics. A woman is an aid worker in the jungle. She
suffers repeatedly from malaria and dysentery. She’s often exhausted and discouraged. Does
not have the comfort of religious faith and she dies prematurely, Swanton judges that
the aid worker’s life is admirable, but it is not flourishing. That seems right to
me and I think Aristotle would have agreed. She would have flourished more, had a more
desirable life if she had not gone into the jungle but had lived a more ordinary life
near her family and friends. But it’s hard to know how to interpret this case because
we need more details about her alternatives, her passion to help others might not have
been satisfied in an ordinary life in her hometown. She was not happy but maybe she
would have been even more miserable if she had not gone to the jungle but maybe we should
not look at the extremes of virtue for Aristotle’s point. Most virtuous people are not heroes
or saints, just ordinary people who practice the virtues within the limits of their social
and economic circumstances. Aristotle probably had people like that in mind when he argued
that being virtuous plus a bit of luck is sufficient for happiness. The goods of fortune
are beyond our control but being virtuous is within our control. It is necessary for
happiness and with luck it is sufficient. But here is another problem. Why should we
think that being virtuous is necessary for living a desirable life? Aren’t there people
who are not virtuous but thrive even more than the virtuous? They have friends, money,
a long pleasant life, and they may live in a community that shields them from violence
and other kinds of unpleasantness. They might not be extremely vicious but they’re not
virtuous and they get away with a bit of cowardice, a bit of unfairness, a bit of stinginess,
and a bit of disloyalty, and dishonesty, and lack of self-control. With some luck their
vices are not enough to drive away their friends or get them arrested or ruin their health.
Doesn’t that mean that virtue is not necessary to live a desirable life? I think that Aristotle
probably has the resources to answer this question but I prefer a different approach.
In my paper the Admirable Life and the Desirable Life I describe a different way to relate
the two kinds of good lives: A life of virtue, and a life of flourishing. The traditional
approach that comes from Greek philosophy is to define and defend virtue by reference
to a desirable life, a life of eudaimonia. My proposal is to do the reverse. It seems
to me that we are very unclear about what a desirable life is like. We know some of
its features including health, financial resources, love and friendship, and freedom from suffering
but that does not tell us very much. In fact, even if that is supplemented by an account
of the virtues and we come to accept with Aristotle that a desirable life requires living
virtuously that still does not tell us what to do all day long. It does not tell you whether
to go to college and what to major in. It doesn’t tell you whom to marry, or whether
to marry. How to handle your money, how to contribute to civic life and all the hundreds
of other choices both large and small that you need to make every day. My suggestion
is that a desirable life is a life we would desire if we knew what the wisest people know
about a desirable life. That leads to defining a desirable life in terms of what admirable
person’s desire. An admirable life is a life lived by admirable persons, persons whom
we admire upon reflection. A desirable life is a life desired by admirable persons. When
we look closely at admirable lives I think we will see some similarities and many differences.
We will see that admirable persons desire to live virtuously so it is desirable to have
the virtues but we will see that they desire many other things that vary from person to
person. I think that means there are lots of different kinds of admirable lives. To
live the most desirable life for yourself it is helpful to read stories, observe lots
of people and watch movies that depict many admirable persons because some are more relevant
to the kind of life that would be desirable for you rather than others. Narratives show
us the varieties of admirable lives and even more they show us disadmirable lives, lives
you would not desire upon reflection. But those lives can be helpful too. It’s good
to know what you do not want to be. So what about the people who are virtuous extremes?
The people who sacrifice their lives like the aid worker described by Swanton or Sir
Philip Sidney, or martyrs for freedom like Nelson Mandela, who spent twenty-seven years
of his life in prison. If I’m right that a desirable life is what admirable people
desire than these lives were not desirable because nobody wants to die young or spend
twenty-seven years in prison. On the other hand Philip Sidney, Nelson Mandela, and the
anonymous aid worker might have lived lives that were as desirable as they could make
them in their circumstances. It is interesting to see how extreme many admirable people are
in their lives. They risk ordinary human goods in order to get some other good that they
believe is worth the sacrifice, like freedom or a good life for other people who are suffering.
Is there judgment wrong? If it is wrong then why do we admire them? If it is right then
we have to admit that an admirable life is desirable even if we can’t always appreciate
that.