The Harmony Thesis and the Problem of Continence in Contemporary Virtue Ethics

Abstract

Contemporary virtue ethicists have largely followed Aristotle in accepting what Karen Stohr calls the harmony thesis. This thesis claims that a virtuous agent will not experience inner conflict or pain when acting. His reasons, desires, and actions will correspond and be in harmony with one another. A merely continent agent, on the other hand, is one who is said to perform the same action as the virtuous agent, but experiences inner conflict or pain in doing so. While the harmony thesis provides a useful criterion for demarcating virtue from continence, we can imagine cases where acting with conflict or pain is not only appropriate but necessary in the situation. In these cases the virtue/continence distinction cannot be easily drawn. This difficulty for the harmony thesis is better known as the problem of continence. In writing this dissertation I have three goals: show that the problem of continence poses a threat to the harmony thesis, offer a solution to the problem, and make that solution fit the needs of contemporary virtue ethics. In bringing about the first goal, I begin by introducing the harmony thesis and show that, in the contemporary context, the virtue/continence distinction takes on a much more expanded scope than espoused by Aristotle. For example, McDowell applies it to courage; Foot to honesty, charity, and justice; and Hursthouse to nearly all the moral virtues. While useful for contemporary virtue ethicists, this more robust conception makes the harmony thesis susceptible to problematic cases that Aristotle did not have to face. Chapter 2 explores a problematic case offered by Stohr involving a company owner who needs to fire several of her employees in order to save the company from ruin. Because acting rightly in the case requires an agent experience inner conflict or pain, only the continent agent can deliver. This puts the status of the virtuous agent in a compromising position: either be deemed morally lacking (in some way) compared to the continent agent or deny that the standard of virtue is sharply distinct from continence. In looking for a way out of the dilemma, Chapter 3 explores some attempts at a solution offered by Sarah Broadie, Susan Stark, David Carr, Geoffey Scarre, and Howard Curzer, concluding that none of the mentioned solutions adequately solve the problem of continence. The second goal of the dissertation is reached in three steps. I first return to the traditional account of continence defended by Aristotle. In a neo-Aristotelian spin drawing on Terence Irwin and Ursula Coope, I argue in Chapter 4 that continence should be interpreted as a failure of rationality rather than one of feeling. By redefining continence in this way, the real problem in Stohr's counterexample can be homed in on: the company owner who fires her employees with ease feels less pain than she should. The second step sets out to make sense of what it means to feel an inappropriate amount of pain. In Chapter 5, I propose that we turn to Aristotle's virtue of endurance to make sense of the defect. The third step uses the virtue of endurance to show that the defect in the company owner that acts with ease is that he is subject to the vice of hardness– feeling less pain than he should–not that virtue is inferior to continence in the case. Having accounted for Stohr's problem case, I address the other horn of the dilemma in Chapters 6 by offering an improved method for drawing the virtue/continence distinction. I do this by expanding and refining the concept of endurance. This culminates into a sophisticated account making use of temperance, continence, endurance, softness, and hardness. This meets my third goal by allowing the contemporary virtue ethicist to utilize continence and/or endurance in accommodating the wide variety of cases characteristically treated in the field.