Flourishing Bodies

Abstract

The pursuit of living a good and moral life has been a longstanding ideal of philosophy, an ideal that dates back to the writings of Plato, and more specifically, Aristotle. This ideal establishes that a good life as a happy and flourishing life is pursued by developing the right motives and the right character. And in order to live this life, one must, then, develop a virtuous character, i.e., be a virtuous person, who desires the good. Finally, in the pursuit of the good, one must not do so alone; rather, one should pursue the virtuous life with others, i.e., friends, because they enhance our ability to think and to act. This specific position which is taken up by Aristotelian virtue ethics, however, has recently come under scrutiny by certain studies in social psychology. Particularly, the concept of character has been discredited by empirical studies. Furthermore, the classic model of the virtuous person has assumed only persons with able-bodies. As a result of these two criticisms, Aristotelian virtue ethics has been discredited as a fantasy ethics available for only a few to achieve. The principle aim of this dissertation is to develop and defend an account of Aristotelian virtue ethics which is grounded in empirical psychology and enables people with disabilities to flourish as moral exemplars within a society. The value of virtue and character for ethical debate is imperative for human happiness within moral life. Instead of happiness being something an individual strives to acquire or feel, Aristotelian virtue ethicists have argued that true happiness is human flourishing. In other words, in order to be happy, humans should focus not just on what it is good to do, but also, and more importantly, focus on who it is good to be. To live a good life, then, it is necessary that one is a good person, or has a good character. Thus, to acquire virtues such as charity, benevolence, honesty, and generosity and to shun vices such as dishonesty, cruelty, or stinginess, is the task, Aristotelian virtue ethicists have argued, that leads to eudaimonia, i.e., human flourishing. The person who has acquired virtuous character traits, then, is the person who is most happy in life. However, the attempt to understand human happiness as a result of a virtuous character has become vulnerable to criticism from philosophical positions grounded in empirical psychology and disability theory. In light of the charge that virtue ethics is a fantasy ethics, many philosophers argue that Aristotelian virtue ethics should be abandoned because it is an ethics with little or no scientific basis. In my defense of Aristotelian virtue ethics, I first address the objection that Aristotelian virtue ethics is a "fantasy ethics" which has no grounding in empirical psychology, and thus, as a result, should not be used for moral theory. This objection has been put forth by certain "Situationist" philosophers, who cite psychological studies which demonstrate that the idea of a virtue as a "global character trait" is something that humans do not actually, or very rarely, possess. This objection to Aristotelian virtue ethics has dealt a devastating blow. In response to this objection, philosopher Nancy Snow has mounted a defense of Aristotelian virtue ethics which is grounded in empirical psychology. Snow's defense, though superficially appealing, has two intractable problems. I address the failure of her proposal in Chapter One: The Problem of Virtue as Social Intelligence. The first problem Snow faces concerns her use of CAPS as a method for virtue ethics to be used throughout life. I call this problem the longitudinality problem, which argues that Snow's proposal for the constancy of virtue for longer than a period of six weeks is overreaching. The second problem Snow faces concerns her reliance on virtue as social intelligence for the actual achievement of being virtuous in daily living. This problem turns on the empirical criteria for what makes a person capable of virtuous action and I call this problem the exclusivity problem, which excludes people with "Autism" form being virtuous. As an alternative to Snow's account, I begin my defense of Aristotelian virtue ethics by developing the following account of empirical virtue based on a narrative identity which desires and actively pursues the good in life-long striving. This moral desire is encouraged through the shared dialogue of virtuous caregiving, which enables a moral novice to flourish and grow into a moral expert. This pursuit of the good enables everyone to flourish and incorporates insights from disability, embodied cognition and social psychology. To accomplish this task, I begin with an examination of the first of two foundational components of character, i.e., the four processing levels of CAPS theory in Chapter Two: Moral Perception. Although CAPS theory provides a solid beginning for an account of virtue, it is not a sustainable theory throughout life. This theory of social-cognitive moral psychology needs to be supplemented by developmental moral psychology. CAPS theory also assumes the individual's perspective in the dynamic interaction between situation and character. It assumes a person's intentions, and this assumption of intentionality - desires, intentions, and beliefs - assumes a person's embodiment in that situation. In other words, CAPS theory assumes lived embodiment. In this chapter, I turn to the method of phenomenology used by both psychologists and philosophers of embodied cognition to account for the moral "interpretation of the situation" experienced by people with illness or impairment. As a complimentary to CAPS and the second foundational component for character, certain moral psychologists have argued for the narrative development of Event Representations for virtuous character. This development begins with the shared dialogue of the caregiver and dependent asking the dependent to recall events which have just occurred. In this practice, the caregiver's aim is to help the dependent form memories and incorporate those memories into the creation of a narrative identity. In Chapter Three: Representations of Moral Events, I extend the caring relation to this practice of shared dialogue to incorporate certain forms of intellectual disability, such as "Autism" and Alzheimer's disease. To accomplish this, I incorporate the roles of narrative and trust in order to construct the relation of dependency and interdependency as trusting co-authorship rather than reciprocal capability. After establishing the importance of the caregiver in the development of one's narrative identity, I employ the life narrative longitudinal psychological approach to moral development as a structure for the moral event representations and schemas guided by the caregiver. Finally, I argue that the co-authorship of one's life story animates one's moral desire for the good and as a result, leads to the development of interdependent virtues. In Chapter Four: Moral Self-Coherence through Personal Strivings, I examine the importance of personal strivings for a sense of lived self-coherence for character over time. My argument is that our personal strivings are unified by the life story which animates and directs those strivings throughout our lives. Although our personal strivings may be altered or deterred due to life transitions including accident, illness, and "disabling injury," they still retain a sense of unity through our overarching life story. It is this narrative which gives unity to both our psychological intentions and bodily intentions, even when they are experienced as a phenomenally lived dualism due to illness, stroke, or impairment. In order to make my argument, I examine ten case studies from medical patients. I argue that our personal strivings toward the good guide our growth of character from a moral novice to become a moral expert. In Chapter Five: Flourishing Bodies, I develop an empirically grounded model of a virtuous character which begins with interdependent virtues and eventually grows into independent virtues. To do this, I draw on the two foundational components of character: CAPS theory and event representations. From the caring relation and shared dialogue of the caregiver, an individual begins to develop basic moral schemas, tasks, and scripts. This is when the individual is a moral novice. As the novice pursues excellences in these practices, the novice grows into a moral expert according to those virtues and becomes virtuously independent. The moral expert, unlike the moral novice, executes virtuous action with ease. Having acquired skills of virtue and knowledge, the moral expert knows the right thing to do at the right time and does so with the right reasons. MacIntyre, however, acknowledged the limit of ethics and turned to politics to address specific needs for people with disabilities such as care, financial support, educational support, and political proxy. The purpose of the final chapter, The Virtue-Oriented Politics of Interdependence, is to follow MacIntyre's endeavor and to propose a virtue-oriented politics of interdependence as an initial solution. First, I examine the various forms of oppression facing people with disabilities in society. In order to address these forms of oppression for people with disabilities, I argue that a shift in the central component of a political framework is needed. Instead of focusing on distribution or recognition, one should focus on education in the broad sense. In conclusion of my dissertation, The Fragility of Virtue, I provide a perspective of our human condition that is a vulnerable one. In this final section, I discuss the role of our collective vulnerability and the fragility of human goodness with regard to illness and impairment. And that our interdependence is strengthened through the virtue of friendship. I finish with a proposal of the role of sacrifice as a way to reconcile the pursuit of a flourishing life in the face of our own fragility.