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ADMIRABLE IMMORALITY, DIRTY HANDS, CARE ETHICS, JUSTICE ETHICS, AND CHILD SACRIFICE Howard J. Curzer Abstract Using five different child-sacrifice cases, I argue that the relationship between the ethics of care and the ethics of justice is not that one is wholly right while the other is morally wrong or irrelevant, or that one somehow has priority over the other, or that one is supererogatory while the other is required, or that one is a role ethic while the other is a real ethic, or that they are equivalent. Instead, I propose that the ethics of justice and care are simply descriptions of the virtues of justice and care, understood richly and broadly. Each prescribes perceptions, values, self-conceptions, etc. as well as actions and passions in every sphere of human life. Like other actual (rather than idealized) virtues, justice and care sometimes conflict with each other. They demand incompatible actions, passions, perceptions, etc. The available options in conflict situations feel both right and wrong because they are admirably immoral acts and/or dirty hands acts. I argue that these conflicts do not undermine the primacy, practicality or consistency of morality.

Introduction The ethics of care and the ethics of justice have been much discussed lately.1 But what sort of theories or entities are they? At the moment different writers seem to be working with different sets of concepts. How are the ethics of care and justice related to each other? Proposed relationships run the gamut from ‘dramatically incompatible’ to ‘differ only in emphasis.’2 How are the ethics of care and justice related to morality, in general? Some writers take the ethics of care to be an alternative to traditional 1 The discussion may be said to begin with C. Gilligan, In a Different Voice (Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press, 1982), and N. Noddings, Caring (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984). 2 L. Blum, ‘Gilligan and Kohlberg: Implications for Moral Theory’, Ethics, 98 (1988), pp. 472–491; C. Calhoun, ‘Justice, Care, Gender Bias’, The Journal of Philosophy, 85 (1988), pp. 451–463; O. Flanagan and K. Jackson, ‘Justice, Care, and Gender: The Kohlberg-Gilligan Debate Revisited’, Ethics, 97 (1987), pp. 622–637.

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moral theories of consequentialism, deontology, and (sometimes) virtue ethics which are understood to be versions of the ethics of justice. Other writers take the ethics of care and justice to be components of one or more of these traditional theories.3 Manlius’s choice I shall take up a choice recently discussed by Slote in order to shed light on these three questions. Slote asks us to imagine that a person’s (presumably adult) child has committed a grave wrong for which the penalty is very severe (e.g. capital punishment) in a region where the justice system is reasonably fair. Assume that turning the child over to the authorities is clearly not in the best interest of the child, that hiding the child from the authorities is feasible, and that there are no other options. In such a situation one parent motivated by a respect for justice might turn in the child, while another parent motivated by parental love might hide the child.4 Such choices do arise. Manlius, a Roman commander, ordered the execution of his own son for violating a certain rule.5 I shall call the choice between turning in the child and hiding the child in this situation Manlius’s choice. I begin with three widely (though not universally) shared moral intuitions about Manlius’s choice. I shall not try to defend them. Instead, I shall work out some implications of these common-sense intuitions. First, in some versions of the situation Slote sketches, the act of turning in the child seems right and hiding the child seems wrong. In other versions these are reversed. The morally right option will depend upon the details of the situation. The psychological state of the child, the conviction rate of the prosecutor, the severity of the punishment, etc. may make it obvious which is the morally right option. If, for example, the child is a psychopathic killer or the punishment for murder is horrible torture, then what to do is clear. In yet other versions of the situation the choice might be a hard case or a moral close call. It might be difficult or even impossible to determine what morally should be done. Perhaps both acts or neither are acceptable options in some versions of the situation. 3 R. Veatch, ‘The Place of Care in Ethical Theory’, Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 23 (1998), pp. 210–224. 4 M. Slote, ‘Admirable Immorality’, Goods and Virtues (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), pp. 86–87. 5 More recently, Theodry Carruth turned her son over to authorities investigating a murder. Boston Globe (12/21/1999), p. E8.

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Second, the choice between turning in the child and hiding the child calls forth intense and conflicting passions in both the agent and the observer. The details of the particular case may make the choice clear. However, they will not make it clean. There will remain a sense of having done wrong even while doing the obviously right thing. Both act and agent are tainted with wrongness. No matter which option is chosen, the parent with normal sensibilities will feel guilt, not merely agent-regret. Similarly, morally sensitive observers are not simply filled with admiration for either the parent who turns in the child or the parent who hides the child. Instead, such observers are both strongly attracted and strongly repelled by each parent’s act. The perception of the situation as tragic is evidence that observers view each act with intermingled feelings of respect and repugnance. Finally, I suggest that Manlius’s choice generates these incompatible judgments and feelings because it stands at an intersection of the ethics of care and the ethics of justice. The act of turning in the child together with this act’s associated passions, values, desires, motivations, way of looking at the situation, etc. all fall squarely within the ethics of justice. Similarly, the act of hiding the child together with its associated passions, values, etc. all fall squarely within the ethics of care. Negative results Acts are admirably immoral when they are (a) somehow great, (b) morally wrong, and (c) these two features are intrinsically connected. People have dirty hands when they perform acts that are both morally required and morally repugnant. Our passionate, conflicted ambivalence about the acts of turning in the child and hiding the child suggests that these are admirably immoral and/or dirty hands acts. In order to bring out several ways in which the ethics of care and the ethics of justice are not related, I shall contrast Manlius’s choice with four other child-sacrifice choices, exhibiting different types of admirable immorality distinguished by different sorts of admirable and dirty features arising out of different sorts of moral dilemmas. In the next section, I shall show that Manlius’s choice generates yet another type of admirable immorality paired with a type of dirty hands. I shall explain the way in which the ethics of care and the ethics of justice are related. As a byproduct, this investigation will shed some light upon the notions of admirable immorality and dirty hands.  Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2002

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Laius’s and Jocasta’s choice When the oracle predicts that Oedipus will grow up to kill his father and marry his mother, Laius and Jocasta try to secure the death of their son. Perhaps their motives are purely selfish, but they are surely acting in what they perceive to be the best interest of their child. Presumably they, like Oedipus himself,6 believe that the life of an incestuous patricide would be worse than death. Thus, it is also possible that their main motive is to spare Oedipus this life. Let us suppose that they are attempting euthanasia rather than murder.7 If so, Laius and Jocasta do not have to reckon with competing values. Love for the child motivates their reluctance as well as their deed. The only questions are whether the child would be better off dead and whether they can overcome their natural reluctance to kill their child if that is best for him. Their decision is not admirably immoral because it is not immoral.8 By contrast to Laius’s and Jocasta’s choice, Manlius’s choice is not a casuistically simple case of choosing the lesser evil for their child. Manlius does not choose between more and less of the same sort of thing. Instead, Manlius is pulled in two different directions by two different values, one central to the ethics of care, the other central to the ethics of justice. This conflict has several implications for the relationship of these ethics. Perhaps the most important implication of Manlius’s choice is that the ethics of care and the ethics of justice are not simply different ways of arriving at the same answer or even compatible answers. Nor is one a part of the other.9 Manlius must choose between hiding the child, which is clearly required by the ethics of care, and turning in the child, which is clearly required by the ethics of justice. The ethics of care and the ethics of justice are not congruent approaches to morality. They cannot be reconciled without major modifications to one or both. 6 Sophocles, ‘Oedipus the King’, trans. D. Grene, Sophocles I, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955), lines 1349–1352. 7 Many contemporary cases of seriously deformed neonates present parallel choices. 8 Arguably, if Laius and Jocasta refused to have Oedipus killed, then their refusal would be an immoral act that is not admirable, but merely confused or selfish. A parent who refused to go through with the deed would be letting his or her child live a life worse than death by mistake or in order to keep his or her own hands clean. 9 Sher tries to subsume care under justice. See G. Sher, ‘Other Voices, Other Rooms? Women’s Psychology and Moral Theory’, Women and Moral Theory, ed. E. Kittay and D. Meyers (Totowa: Rowman and Littlefield, 1987), pp. 182–187. Slote tries to subsume justice under care. See M. Slote, ‘The Justice of Caring’, Virtue and Vice, ed. F. Miller, E. Paul, and J. Paul (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 171–195.

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The contrast between Laius’s and Jocasta’s choice and Manlius’s choice also shows that the ethics of care cannot be understood as a supererogatory superstructure added on to the ethics of justice,10 or vice versa. We cannot maintain that one of these approaches to ethics sets out our duty in Manlius’s situation, while the other approach delineates a supplement that is above and beyond our duty. We do not think of the acts of turning in the child and hiding the child as ‘good’ and ‘better’. Manlius does not say to himself, ‘Hiding my child would have been outstanding, but at least by turning in my child I did my duty.’ A parent who chooses to hide his or her child in a similar situation would not say anything of the sort, either. The acts are, in some sense, opposite acts.11 One is not a better version of the other. One does not merely yield more of the same value than the other. Moreover, the performance of supererogatory acts without internal conflict is evidence that the agent is a moral exemplar. But a parent who turns in his or her child without hesitation or internal conflict is clearly not a wonderful person whom we should all strive to emulate. Only heartless, unloving parents with obsessive, narrow commitments to justice would turn in their own children without great internal turmoil. Parents who unhesitatingly hide their children are also far from ideal people. So neither act is supererogatory. Some people who do not wish to reject the ethics of care completely nevertheless privilege the ethics of justice in one way or another. They say that the ethics of justice is a later, superior stage of morality12 or that it serves as a side constraint upon the ethics of care, for example.13 Of course, parallel claims might be made to privilege the ethics of care.14 These possibilities try to accept the incompatibility of the ethics of care and the ethics of justice, but preserve the intuitions and contributions of both. However, if one of these possibilities were correct, then our reaction to Manlius’s choice would be simpler than it actually is. We might be pulled both ways initially, but after reflection one option would emerge as the unalloyed better choice. When we saw that 10 L. Kohlberg, ‘The Current Formulation of the Theory’, Essays on Moral Development vol. 2 (New York: Harper & Row, 1984), pp. 229, 307. 11 Of course, acts do not have opposites in any precise sense. I am speaking very loosely here. 12 This view is implicit in much of Kohlberg’s earlier work. 13 M. Baron, ‘The Alleged Repugnance of Acting from Duty’, Journal of Philosophy, 81 (1984), pp. 206–209. 14 V. Held, ‘The Meshing of Care and Justice’, Hypatia, 10 (1995), p. 131.

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one act violated the side constraint or had a worse sort of justification, we would dismiss it in favor of the other act. But in fact the conflicting moral pulls do not resolve or go away. Instead, whichever option is chosen, the conflict lingers to haunt both agent and observer. We continue to experience intermingled feelings of admiration and abhorrence. The fact that each option seems both right and wrong shows that neither the ethics of justice nor the ethics of care can be a decisively better version of morality or a side constraint upon the other. Moreover, the fact that turning in the child is right in some situations and wrong in others also rebuts these possibilities. Sometimes one ethic takes priority; sometimes the other. Neither ethic consistently trumps the other. But this would be impossible if one ethic was a side constraint or a superior stage of morality to the other. Medea’s choice Medea’s husband, Jason, leaves her for another woman. To complete her vengeance on Jason, Medea kills their mutual children.15 Medea’s decision is immoral, all right. But there is nothing admirable about her decision to kill her children or about the aspect of her character from which her decision springs. Her decision to kill her children flows from her jealous rage unchecked by any respect for the interests of others. Moreover, Medea’s decision is not anomalous. She is already a murderess several times over. Media is vicious, and she acts in character.16 By contrast, neither of Manlius’s options flows from a vice. Parental love and respect for justice can each lead people astray in some situations, but neither could plausibly be considered a character trait that a good person strives to outgrow or eliminate. Neither is a character flaw. Consequently, neither the ethics of justice nor the ethics of care can plausibly be considered morally wrongheaded or contrary to morality. 15 Euripides, ‘The Medea’, trans. R. Warner, Euripides I (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955). 16 In one sense, we may admire people for their ability to overcome extreme squeamishness of various sorts. Just as we may admire people who surmount terror to take risks or endure great pain or manage to do disgusting things, so we may admire people who overcome their moral scruples. In this sense we may admire Medea’s ability to kill her children despite parental affection and (perhaps) moral qualms. I suggest that this is not true admiration, however. Admiring involves respecting, valuing, perhaps even desiring to emulate, but what one feels for Medea’s act is just the awe expressed by the thought, ‘I could never do that.’

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Abraham’s choice Kierkegaard strives to exhibit the religious, aesthetic, and ethical ways of life from the inside. He shows that each way of life consist in different sets of values, beliefs, perceptions, passions, desires, etc. Kierkegaard interprets the Biblical story of Abraham’s nearsacrifice of Isaac as a choice between incompatible ways of life. According to Kierkegaard, Abraham must choose between murdering his son and disobeying God, between acting immorally and acting sacrilegiously.17 Abraham’s single-mindeddevotion-to-God is not a simple vice like Medea’s irascibility. Instead, it is a part of an overarching way of life, and thus is admirably immoral. It is clearly immoral. It leads to murder, after all. However, it is admirable when viewed from a religious perspective, from within the religious life.18 When Manlius’s choice and Abraham’s choice are contrasted, one striking difference is that the tension in Manlius’s choice does not arise by viewing the same thing from both a moral and a non-moral perspective. Obviously, neither respect for justice or parental love is morally bad or irrelevant in this situation. The moral pull of both options cannot be denied. If one act were morally required, while the other act was morally neutral or immoral yet for some other reasons very tempting, this would explain the anguish, but not the moral ambivalence of the choice. Thus, another implication of Manlius’s choice is that neither the ethics of care nor the ethics of justice describes a morally insignificant collection of concerns. Neither is an extra-moral value system opposed or even skew to morality. Conversely, neither ethic is the whole moral story. Neither alone is sufficient; 17 S. Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, trans. W. Lowrie, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1941). Along with Kierkegaard, I shall ignore the divine command theorist’s position that Abraham’s moral duty is to obey God and sacrifice Isaac. I do not share Kierkegaard’s reading of the Abraham and Isaac story, however. Throughout this paper the term ‘Abraham’ will mean Kierkegaard’s Abraham, not mine. 18 Kierkegaard also maintains that (parallel to Abraham) Don Juan’s trait of singleminded-devotion-to-art is admirable from within the aesthetic life, yet immoral because it drives Don Juan to exploit others. See S. Kierkegaard, Either Or, trans. D. Swenson, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1944), pp. 83–134. More recently, Williams describes a somewhat fictionalized Gauguin who abandons his family in order to travel to Tahiti and paint. See B. Williams, ‘Moral Luck’, Moral Luck (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 20–39. I suggest that, like Kierkegaard’s Don Juan, Gauguin’s trait of singleminded-devotion-to-art is admirable from the aesthetic point of view, and immoral because exploitive.

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neither contains the other. Both express some different moral truth.19 Agamemnon’s choice Convinced that attacking Troy is vital to the interests of the Greeks, Agamemnon sacrifices his daughter, Iphigenia, in order to persuade the goddess, Artemis, to allow the Greek fleet to sail for Troy.20 Like Abraham’s single-minded-devotion-to-God, Agamemnon’s single-minded devotion-to-the-national-interest is admirably immoral.21 Both Abraham and Agamemnon are driven past the borders of the morally acceptable. Both obsessions are immoral because they include dispositions to perform immoral acts. The two obsessions are admirable for different reasons, however. A good leader is a person who has the character traits appropriate to performing the function of a leader, to doing well what a leader should do. Arguably, Agamemnon’s obsession is such a character trait. Without such resoluteness, political leaders could not rally a country to persevere through tough times, undertake great projects, overcome long odds, etc. So just as injustice is a role virtue (and therefore admirable) for thieves, Agamemnon’s single-minded-devotion-to-the-national-interest is a role virtue (and therefore admirable) in a leader.22 The role 19 For other drawbacks to considering care as the whole of morality see C. Card, ‘Caring and Evil’, Hypatia, 5 (1990), pp. 101–108 and S. Hoagland, ‘Some Concerns About Nel Noddings’ Caring’, Hypatia, 5 (1990), pp. 109–114. 20 Agamemnon’s motivation is variously described by different writers, but typically the good of the nation is portrayed as one of his goals. See, for example, Aeschylus, ‘Agamemnon’, trans. R. Lattimore, Aeschylus I, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955), lines 205–217. 21 The character traits of Abraham and Agamemnon are admirably immoral, but their decisions to sacrifice Isaac and Iphigenia are simply immoral and not at all admirable. This seeming technicality implies that, unlike Manlius’s choice, neither Abraham’s choice nor Agamemnon’s choice involves dirty hands. Dirty hands acts are morally required, yet morally repugnant. Sacrificing Isaac is obviously morally repugnant, but not morally required. Sparing Isaac is morally required, but not morally repugnant. So neither Abraham’s decision to sacrifice Isaac nor the opposite decision to spare Isaac produces dirty hands. The same reasoning applies to Agamemnon’s choice to sacrifice or spare Iphigenia (and to Medea’s choice to sacrifice or spare her children). 22 Similarly, Slote describes a somewhat fictionalized Churchill whose single-minded devotion to Allied victory makes him willing to violate the rules of war by authorizing the bombing of civilians even though he knows that victory is already almost certain (Slote, ‘Admirable Immorality’, pp. 97–100). Unnecessarily bombing civilians is clearly immoral and in no way admirable. However, like Agamemnon, Churchill’s trait of single-minded devotion-to-the-national-interest is admirably immoral. His resoluteness is immoral because it drives him not only to authorize whatever is justified by the need to avoid Nazi victory, but also to go further and authorize unjustified acts, too. It is admirable because it is a role-virtue for leaders.

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virtues of some roles are moral vices. People who excel in such roles are vicious people. Presumably, this indicates that the role is somehow corrupt. Can Manlius’s choice be analyzed in a way parallel to Agamemnon’s sacrifice of Iphigenia? Is Manlius’s character admirably immoral because it includes a character trait that is both a role virtue and a moral vice? Some people take the ethics of care to be (or to be part of) the role morality of nurturing roles such as ‘parent’ and ‘nurse.’23 Could care be an immoral character trait that is necessary in order to be a good parent and a good nurse, a moral vice that is a role virtue for parents and nurses? No! If being a good parent and a good nurse included a role virtue that was a moral vice, then good parents and good nurses would be bad people. The roles of parent and nurse would be corrupt roles. Manlius’s choice does not exhibit a character trait that is both a moral vice and a role virtue. This implies that the ethics of care is not just a role morality. The ethics of care is an account of how a person should act and feel qua person. It is not just an account of how a person should act and feel qua parent or qua nurse. Summary Using five different child-sacrifice situations I have argued that the relationship between the ethics of care and the ethics of justice is not that one is wholly right while the other is morally wrong or irrelevant, or that one somehow has priority over the other, or that one is supererogatory while the other is required, or that one is a role ethic while the other is a real ethic, or that they are equivalent. Manlius’s choice is a counterexample to all of these possibilities. Positive results In the situation of Manlius’s choice the parent is pulled one way by a passion for justice and the other way by a love of the child. 23 See M. Hardimon, ‘Role Obligations’, The Journal of Philosophy, 91 (1994), p. 343. Many people argue that care is a role virtue for nurses and perhaps doctors, too. See, for example, S. Fry, ‘The Role of Caring in a Theory of Nursing Ethics’, Hypatia, 4 (1989), pp. 88–103, and E. Pellegrino, ‘The Caring Ethic: The Relationship of Physician to Patient’, Caring, Curing, Coping: Nurse, Physician, Patient Relationships, ed. A. Bishop and J. Scudder (Birmingham: University of Alabama Press, 1987), pp. 8–30. Conversely, I argue that care is a role vice for nurses, doctors, etc. See H. Curzer, ‘Is Care a Virtue for Health Care Professionals?’ Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 18 (1993), pp. 51–69.

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Even when the parent knows which act is morally right, the other feeling is still there, and it is still a morally appropriate feeling to have. Morally appropriate feelings are manifestations of virtues. Thus, I suggest that the conflicting passions in Manlius’s choice arise from a conflict between two moral virtues, the virtues of justice and care. Manlius’s choice presents itself as a conflict between two different yet equally valid conceptions of what a morally good person would do. The ethics of care and the ethics of justice are descriptions of two moral virtues. This should not be a shocking thesis. Justice has long been thought a virtue, of course, and affinities between the ethics of care and virtue ethics have been noticed by many. Nevertheless, it may be useful to sketch the beginning of a trajectory that ends with seeing the ethics of care and justice as descriptions of virtues. So I offer a quasi-Aristotelian, first pass at a description of the virtues of justice and care. A person is just if, in situations calling for distribution, he or she is disposed to distribute the right amount of the goods and burdens to the right people, at the right time, in the right way, for the right reason, etc. Moreover, he or she must have a disposition to feel the right sort and amount of pleasure when someone obtains a just share of some good or burden, and to feel the right sort and amount of pain (sadness, frustration, etc.) when someone obtains an unjust share. A person is caring if he or she is disposed to make and maintain the right sort of relationships, with the right people, in the right way, at the right times, for the right motives, etc. The caring person must also feel the right level and sort of fondness and responsibility for people standing in various different relationships to him or her.24 These very general proto-definitions may be fleshed out a bit more in the course of responding to four objections. Objection #1 Probably the main objection to my suggestion is that both the ethics of care and the ethics of justice seem substantially more encompassing than mere descriptions of single virtues. While virtues are specifications of the actions and passions that are right in various situations, the ethics of care and justice go far beyond 24 Although these definitions have an Aristotelian flavor, neither of them is exactly Aristotle’s definition. The former is approximately Aristotle’s ‘second order’ virtue of general justice plus nemesis. It should not be confused with Aristotle’s ‘first order’ virtue of justice whose opposite is pleonexia, an excessive desire for gain. The definition of care is approximately Aristotle’s quasi-virtue of friendship.

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this. Like Kierkegaard’s ways of life, the ethics of care and justice also include sets of values, modes of perception, beliefs about the nature of personhood, ways of relating to people, etc. Thus, the objection concludes that the ethics of care and justice are more than merely descriptions of virtues. This objection fails because it presupposes an impoverished conception of virtue. Virtues involve not just actions and passions, but also attitudes and values, pleasures and pains, perceptual modes and moods, relationships and interactions, and more.25 For example, the virtue of courage includes typically feeling the right sort of fear and confidence and performing the right acts in situations involving risk of death, wounds, and pain, of course. But it also includes valuing goods and bads correctly (knowing which goods are worth which risks), accurately assessing perils and countermeasures, balancing the likelihood of avoiding the danger with the likelihood of achieving a worthwhile goal, and so on. Care structures one’s experience, one’s projects and goals, and one’s picture of oneself. People for whom one cares jump out of a crowd; a toy triggers the thought ‘my daughter would love that’; one identifies oneself as parent of so-and-so. But courage is no different in these respects, either. It also structures perception, projection, and self-conception. Dark doorways become places where muggers might hide; a heavy purse becomes a potential weapon; a pounding heart triggers the thought ‘What a coward I am!’ So the fact that the ethics of care and justice have more to say than merely, ‘These are the right actions and passions for those situations,’ does not preclude the ethics of care and justice from being merely accounts of the virtue of care and the virtue of justice. Objection #2 Each virtue is thought to apply only to a limited range of situations; each virtue governs a different sphere of human life. Good temper applies to situations involving insult and injury; liberality’s sphere is situations involving monetary gain and loss; courage governs situations of risk of death, wounds, and pain; and so on. However, neither the ethics of justice nor the ethics of care seem restricted to a single set of situations. Each of these two approaches to ethics seems to have something to say about most, 25 An early statement of this broader view of virtue is found in J. McDowell, ‘Virtue and Reason’, The Monist, 62 (1979), pp. 331–350.

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if not all, spheres of human life. So this objection concludes that neither the ethics of justice nor the ethics of care can be reduced to a mere description of a virtue. This objection fails because it presupposes an impoverished conception of the virtues of justice and care. The virtue of justice is relevant whenever any good or burden is distributed. Thus, it is properly applied to almost all situations. One can assign blame and feel angry over insults and injuries in just or unjust ways. One can earn, take, spend, and give money justly or unjustly. One can distribute the burden of risk or the good of safety in a just or unjust fashion. And so on. Whereas the spheres of most virtues are (more or less) disjoint, the sphere of justice substantially overlaps the spheres of all of the other virtues. Care, too, is a virtue that properly applies to almost all situations. Not only are all situations involving one’s relationships with others governed by care, one must also care for one’s self, and one must at least be open to caring for those one has not yet encountered. Of course, care is relevant to all aspects of one’s relationships to others and to oneself. To make and maintain caring relationships one must caringly modulate one’s blame and anger, caringly take and give money and risk, and so on.26 So the fact that the ethics of care and justice have something to say about almost all aspects of human life does not preclude them from being accounts of the virtues of care and justice.27 Objection #3 The virtuous person performs the right acts, with the right feelings, for the right reasons, etc. Virtues are supposed to give the right answers to the questions: ‘What action should be performed in this situation?’ ‘What passion should be felt?’ And so on. Yet since the ethics of care and justice give incompatible answers to Manlius, at least one of them must give the wrong answers. So this objection concludes that the ethics of care and justice cannot be descriptions of virtues. This objection fails because it presupposes that the ethics of justice and the ethics of care describe idealized versions of the virtues of justice and care, versions satisfied by no actual human 26 In particular, justice and care are not limited to the public sphere and the private sphere, respectively. Justice is necessary within families and relationships; care is necessary in public practices and institutions. Both families and social institutions should be both just and caring. See Held, pp. 128–130. 27 Blum, pp. 483–484.

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agent. Ideal virtue is a state of character that leads a person always to act, feel, and perceive rightly, even in unusual situations. The ideally virtuous person serves as the standard for right action. ‘An act is right if and only if it is what a virtuous agent would characteristically (i.e. acting in character) do in the circumstances.’28 Since acts that virtuous agents characteristically do are virtuous acts, it follows from this idealized conception of virtue that an act is virtuous if and only if it is right. However, this idealization of virtue does not give due weight to the thought that virtues are dispositions arising predominately through habituation. People cannot become disposed to do, feel, and perceive correctly in anomalous situations for the simple reason that such situations come up rarely. One simply does not get enough practice. Reason may be flexible enough to cope with the exceptional, but habits of action, passion, and perception are blunt instruments. So actual virtue is a disposition that leads a person typically to act, feel, and perceive rightly, but in unusual situations, duty and disposition diverge. In such situations, actual virtue gives the wrong answers; the right act is not the virtuous act. The actually virtuous person experiences a conflict between what comes naturally and what should be done. Now the failure of the objection is clear. Idealized virtues always give the right answers and never conflict, but the ethics of care and justice are descriptions of actual virtues. And actual virtues, being dispositions rather than idealizations, are not so accurate. The fact that the ethics of care and justice sometimes give conflicting answers does not disqualify them from being descriptions of actual virtues. Indeed, the ethics of care gives the wrong answers and conflicts with the ethics of justice in a fair number of situations. Noddings, for example, admits that when push comes to shove the ethics of care would direct her to stand behind the barricades along with the racist relative for whom she cares rather than storming the barricades along with the blacks who are right.29 Noddings is correct about what the ethics of care would say in this situation, but what the ethics of care would say is obviously wrong.30 Similarly, as ethics of care advocates have pointed 28 R. Hursthouse, ‘Normative Virtue Ethics’, How Should One Live, ed. R. Crisp (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 22. 29 Noddings, pp. 109–110. 30 V. Davion, ‘Autonomy, Integrity, and Care’, Social Theory and Practice, 19 (1993), pp. 171–172.

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out, in other situations the ethics of justice says inappropriate things. When punishing young children, for example, the point is usually not to be fair, but rather to do what is in the overall, longterm best interest of the child. Sometimes this requires unjust action. Care-justice conflicts have been noticed by others. Aristotle mentions a situation where a tyrant threatens to kill a person’s family unless he or she performs a base act.31 If the base act is unjust, then the person must choose between performing a just, uncaring act or a caring, unjust act. Similarly, if Sally cannot talk her friend Sam out of shoplifting, justice says that she should report him while care says that she should not betray her friend. Suppose Sally marries Sam and refuses to do her share of the housework. Justice says that Sam should stand on his rights and not do Sally’s share, but sometimes care says that Sam should just pick up the slack without fuss.32 Some conflicts of interest are carejustice conflicts. Sally faces such a conflict when she must grant a promotion either to a friend or to a more deserving stranger. Sam faces such a conflict when he must decide whether to start his own child or a more deserving child as pitcher in a little league game. As these examples suggest, care-justice conflicts are uncommon, but not vanishingly rare. No virtue, by itself, covers all of the moral territory. Justice and care must be combined with and limited by each other (together with all of the rest of the virtues including especially practical wisdom) in order to arrive at appropriate decisions about how to act, feel, and perceive.33 When people overemphasize one virtue and slight another, they are led astray.34 31 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. W. D. Ross, in The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. J. Barnes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), lines 1110a4–8. 32 Of course, care says that Sam must care for himself as well as for Sally. But suppose the work is not too burdensome and that Sally is psychologically fragile right now. Under such conditions I think the virtue of care would tell Sam to do more than his fair share. 33 Other actual virtues conflict, too. Williams describes the following situation. In an emergency a man must choose between helping his wife and helping a stranger. Presumably, the virtue of care says, ‘Help your wife;’ while the virtue of beneficence says, ‘Help the one who most needs help.’ If the wife is merely in a bit of pain, while the stranger’s life is threatened, then the claims of care and beneficence conflict. See Baron, pp. 212–213; B. Williams, ‘Persons, Character, and Morality’, Moral Luck (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 17–18. 34 Although relying exclusively upon one virtue while ignoring another causes some immoral acts, most arise from ignorance, incontinence, or vice, rather than from virtue. To illustrate, Dr. Zhivago chooses not to accompany Laura and their child, Katenka, when they leave Russia under the protection of the very vicious Victor Komarovsky. Rather than accept aid from a person he despises, Zhivago allows Laura and Katenka to fall under the power of Laura’s old corrupter. Zhivago’s act displays a sort of high-mindedness, yet by so

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Taking the ethics of care and the ethics of justice to be descriptions of the actual moral virtues of care and justice provides a framework for understanding many moral dilemmas. It explains what is going on in many situations where a person is pulled in different directions by different values. In particular, it enables us, at last, to analyze Manlius’s choice. When care disposes a person to perform a caring act and justice disposes a person to perform an incompatible just act, then the caring act will be virtuous with respect to the virtue of care and vicious with respect to the virtue of justice. The just act will be the reverse. Something other than the two virtues will be necessary to determine what is morally required in the situation. Suppose that practical wisdom endorses the caring act. Then it will be a morally required, yet (in one respect) vicious act, and the just act will be a morally wrong, yet (in one respect) virtuous act. Now a vicious act is morally repugnant because it is vicious, even if it is morally required, and a virtuous act is always admirable, even if it is immoral. Thus, vicious, morally required acts are dirty hands acts, and virtuous, immoral acts are admirably immoral. So, if practical wisdom endorses the caring act, then it will be a dirty hands act, and the just act will be admirably immoral. Thus, in the situation of Manlius’s choice, the act of turning in the child is admirably immoral when looked at from the perspective of care; dirty hands from the perspective of justice. The act of hiding the child is just the opposite. This is why each act produces intermingled feelings of respect and repugnance. Which of these perspectives is correct will depend upon the details of the situation and must be determined by practical wisdom. Objection #4 This paper’s investigation of the nature and relationship of the ethics of care and the ethics of justice has led to an odd result. Acts that are both vicious and virtuous are worrisome. Vicious, morally required acts and virtuous, immoral acts seem to threaten the viability of morality. Indeed, any sort of admirable immorality acting Zhivago neglects his responsibility, arising from the virtue of care, to protect Laura and Katenka. See B. Pasternak, Dr. Zhivago, trans. M. Hayward, M. Harari (New York: Pantheon, 1958). By contrast, Agave kills her son, Penthius while she is delusional, thinking him to be a wild beast. See Euripides, ‘Bacchae’, Euripides V, trans. W. Arrowsmith (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955), lines 1105–1145. And Medea kills her children while in the grip of a jealous rage. While Zhivago’s decision to sacrifice his child flows from a misapplied virtue, Medea’s decision flows from a vice, and Agave’s decision from ignorance.  Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2002

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or dirty hands seems prima facie problematic. If taking the ethics of care and the ethics of justice to be descriptions of virtues leads to such awkward conclusions, perhaps we should seek an alternative account of these two ethics. This objection is multi-pronged, for different sorts of admirable immorality and dirty hands threaten morality in different ways. Admirable immorality arising from conflicts between morality and other value systems (such as Abraham’s choice) threatens the primacy of morality, but not its consistency or practicality. Although Isaac is spared, morality is sacrificed in Kierkegaard’s version of the story. However, this does not show that the overridingness thesis (the thesis that moral considerations always take priority over all other considerations) is false. It shows only that Kierkegaard’s Abraham believes it to be false. In general, the fact that some immoral acts are admirable from nonmoral points of view is unsurprising and unproblematic. Evidence that such non-moral points of view take precedence over the moral point of view would undermine the overridingness thesis, of course. But the bare existence of Abraham-like admirable immorality provides no such evidence.35 Admirable immorality arising from conflicts between morality and certain role moralities (such as Agamemnon’s choice) shows that some roles are incompatible with morality in the sense that to be good at the role one must be or become a vicious person. The existence of immoral roles, like the existence of immoral points of view, is predictable and harmless. We must choose between developing and maintaining the character traits of a good thief, torturer, or traitor, on the one hand, and the character traits of a good person, on the other hand. Sometimes we must choose whether to jettison our conscience plus more in order to accept a corrupt part in some corrupt practice. Immoral roles threaten neither the primacy nor the consistency, but rather the practicality of morality. Morality would be impractical if some socially necessary roles turned out to be immoral. But the collision of morality and roles such as leader, lawyer, or lender does not yet show that morality is impractical, for these roles might turn out to be dispensable or reformable rather than socially necessary. 35 Early criticism of the overridingness thesis may be found in P. Foot, ‘Are Moral Considerations Overriding?’ Virtues and Vices, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1978), pp. 181–188; Slote, ‘Admirable Immorality’, pp. 78–107.

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Admirable immorality arising from conflicts between virtue and virtue (such as Manlius’s choice) seems, at first glance, to constitute a true contradiction within morality. Such conflicts are a tragedian’s dream and a virtue theorist’s nightmare. In such situations a single act is both virtuous and vicious. Now virtuevirtue conflicts would render morality incoherent if they generated acts that were virtuous and vicious in the same respect. But in cases such as Manlius’s choice, each act is virtuous in one respect and vicious in another. Virtue-virtue conflicts would also render morality incoherent if the virtues in question were idealized. Acts are ideally virtuous if and only if they are morally right. So an act that was both ideally virtuous and ideally vicious would be both morally right and morally wrong. However, Manlius-like admirable immorality arises from conflicts between actual rather than idealized virtues. Such virtue-virtue conflicts merely imply that moral virtue, alone, is not a sufficient guide to moral action. The moral virtues must be supplemented by practical wisdom to adjudicate virtue-virtue conflicts and determine what should be done. However, the need for such a supplement does not undermine the primacy, consistency, or practicality of morality. Unlike the other two sorts of conflicts mentioned above, virtuevirtue conflicts generate dirty hands as well as admirable immorality. Now by definition, dirty hands acts are both morally required and morally repugnant. Some thinkers believe that acts are morally repugnant if and only if they are morally wrong. So they believe either that there are no dirty hands acts,36 or that there are dirty hands acts (morally required, immoral acts) and morality is inconsistent.37 However, if virtues can conflict, then acts need not be wrong to be repugnant. Vicious acts are repugnant even if they are not morally wrong. Thus, accepting that virtues conflict makes it possible to capture the phenomenon of dirty hands without having to deny the consistency of morality. Dirty hands arising out of virtue-virtue conflicts merely show that morality’s demands are occasionally out of sync with our gut feelings. This is not unexpected or dangerous to morality. Although dirty hands and admirable immorality may seem threatening to the primacy, practicality, or consistency of morality 36 E.g. A. Donagan; ‘Consistency in Rationalist Moral Systems’, Moral Dilemmas, ed. C. Gowans (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 278–281. 37 E.g. T. McConnell; ‘Moral Dilemmas and Consistency in Ethics’, Moral Dilemmas, ed. C. Gowans (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 154–173; M. Walzer, ‘Political Action: The Problem of Dirty Hands’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 2 (1973), pp. 160–180.

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at first glance, they actually pose no serious problem for morality. Thus, taking the ethics of care and the ethics of justice to be descriptions of virtues does not lead to awkward conclusions. Summary In the first portion of this paper, I used Manlius’s choice as a counterexample to several different accounts of the relationship between the ethics of justice and the ethics of care. In the latter portion of the paper, I proposed that the ethics of justice and the ethics of care are simply descriptions of the virtues of justice and care. In response to potential objections, I fleshed out this proposal by stipulating that justice and care should be understood as rich rather than impoverished virtues, and actual rather than idealized virtues. Like other virtues, the virtues of care and justice prescribe much more than merely actions and passions. Unlike most other virtues, the virtues of care and justice govern situations in almost all spheres of human life. Situations such as Manlius’s choice reveal that, like other virtues, justice and care sometimes demand incompatible actions, passions, perceptions, etc. The available options in these moral dilemmas feel both right and wrong because they are admirably immoral acts or dirty hands acts. The morally ambiguous nature of such virtue-virtue conflicts seems ominous for morality, but turns out to be benign. Virtue-virtue conflicts enable us to capture the phenomenology of these dilemmas without denying the primacy, practicality, or consistency of morality.38 Department of Philosophy Texas Tech University Lubbock, Texas 79409-3092 USA [email protected]

38 I wish to thank Aaron Meskin for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.

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