Notes from Playing by Our Own Rules - Models in Virtue Ethics from Stoicism for Humans

Deontology: concerned with duty.
Consequentialism: concerned with outcomes.
Virtue ethics: concerned with properties of agents.

Two types of rules:

thin rules, which “articulate only the imperative to be executed, with no further elaboration,”
thick rules, which “come enriched with copious advice on how to apply them: examples, exceptions, problems, provisos, models, caveats, and, in almost all cases, an appeal to what Saint Benedict had deemed the abbot’s cardinal virtue, discretion”

“An action is right [if] it is what a virtuous agent would, characteristically, (i.e. acting in character) do in the circumstances”

Paradigms and patterns are much more suitable for virtue ethics than algorithms are.

Copy, Paste notes

There are three main approaches to ethics that are typically recognized and discussed by philosophers today:

Deontology: concerned with duty; typically relies on rules to guide our behavior, the most famous of which is Kant’s categorical imperative
Consequentialism: concerned with outcomes; typically concerned with maximizing benefit, as in the Utilitarian adage of “the greatest good for the greatest number”
Virtue ethics: concerned with properties of agents rather than rules or consequences.

Stoicism and most other ancient philosophies are virtue ethics, emphasizing character development as a means to a good life and ethical action.

Two types of rules that can inform our practice of Stoicism today: guidelines (such as Hursthouse’s v-rules or Cicero’s regula) and role models, with an emphasis on the latter.

Throughout Western history, kanon and its Latin successor, regula, could be used in these three different senses:

Rule as algorithm (procedure for solving a problem)
Rule as model, pattern, or paradigm
Rule as law

Daston distinguishes between thin rules, which “articulate only the imperative to be executed, with no further elaboration,” and thick rules, which “come enriched with copious advice on how to apply them: examples, exceptions, problems, provisos, models, caveats, and, in almost all cases, an appeal to what Saint Benedict had deemed the abbot’s cardinal virtue, discretion”

Modern academic ethics (which is heavily biased toward deontology and consequentialism) has become rule-based in the algorithmic sense, which causes acute difficulties since ethics is always going to be messy and call for discretion.

Hursthouse’s v-rules are guidelines tied directly to the virtues and vices, such as “Do what is courageous,” or “Don’t do what is unjust.” They are based on the idea that “An action is right [if] it is what a virtuous agent would, characteristically, (i.e. acting in character) do in the circumstances”

Paradigms and patterns are much more suitable for virtue ethics than algorithms are. Models were never meant to be copied and pasted, but rather adapted based on the hard-won experience and best judgment of real people. They are made for the rough-and-tumble, give-and-take of real-life ethics.

Added 2024-08-22.