The Demands of Virtue - Neither Hypothetical nor Categorical Part One
In the next two posts I am going to argue that, given the framework of virtue ethics, the distinction between categorical and hypothetical imperatives loses most of its meaning. I will do so by drawing on the idea from my last post that the reasons for performing virtuous actions only become intelligible after one has acquired virtue.
The distinction between hypothetical and categorical imperatives is established by saying that accordance with the former is contingent on the pursuit of ends one may or may not pursue, while accordance to the latter is not. The rule ‘If you want to hit the target, you ought to take good aim’ is a hypothetical imperative because one has only a good reason to take good aim if one actually wants to hit the target. If you tell someone that they ought to keep good aim and they ask you why, you might answer ‘because otherwise you will not hit the target’. The person still might reply ‘But why should I care if I hit or miss?’. In that case, there is nothing much you can say as long as you do not manage to convince the person that hitting the target is a desirable end. But if you do not manage, you still can settle with the fact that the person takes enjoyment in a different aspect of the activity in question than people usually do.
In contrast, categorical imperatives are supposed to be followed regardless of ends. Famously, Kant argued that the rules of morality are categorical. You ought to keep promises, regardless of what ends you pursue and whether or not keeping promises is conducive to their pursuit. That is, you have good reasons to act morally, independent of what you want. No doubt this captures an important aspect of morality. People who only act morally as long as it is to their own advantage and because it is to their own advantage are suspicious. What will they do if they get more out of acting immoral? The idea is that it should be possible to say ‘You ought to keep your promise’. And when the person asks why the ought to, you can answer ‘Because that is the right thing to do’. And if the person wants to know why they should care about doing the right thing, there simply is not much to say. In fact, we can understand the attempt to pass off moral rules as categorical to show that this very question is meaningless.
On a weak reading, we can say that the conception of moral rules as categorical allows to give a compelling answer to the question as to whether one has good reasons to act morally regardless of one’s ends. The question ‘Why should I care about doing the right thing?’ can be asked and answered. But on the stronger reading, the point of such a conception is not to provide a satisfying answer to the question but rather to show that it is meaningless in the first place.
The problem with the weaker version is that it may look like it collapses into a conception of morality as hypothetical. This is especially the case with eudaimonist virtue ethics. On its account, the good reasons one has to be virtuous is that virtue is conducive to a good life. So the answer that may be given to the question ‘Why should I care about doing the right thing’ is ‘Because it will make you flourish’. This would be a reasoning that is analogous to the reasons given for taking good aim.
I think that this attempt rests on a misunderstanding regarding the relation between eudaimonía and virtue, and consequently the nature of the reasons that virtue provides. I will explain this misunderstanding and my attempt to solve it in the next part.