Abstract
Julia Annas is one of the few modern writers on virtue that has attempted to recover the ancient idea that virtues are similar to skills. In doing so, she is arguing for a particular account of virtue, one in which the intellectual structure of virtue is analogous to the intellectual structure of practical skills. The main benefit of this skill model of virtue is that it can ground a plausible account of the moral epistemology of virtue. This benefit, though, is only available to some accounts of virtue. Annas claims that Aristotle rejects this skill model of virtue, and so the model of virtues as a skill that Annas endorses for the modern virtue theory is Socratic.This paper argues that while Aristotle rejects the Socratic model of virtue as a skill, he does not reject the model of virtue as a skill altogether. Annas has mischaracterized Aristotle’s position on the skill model, because she has not recognized that Aristotle endorses a different account of the structure of skill than the one put forth by Socrates. In addition, recent research on expertise provides an account of skills very much at odds with the description of skills offered by Annas, but similar to the account endorsed by Aristotle.Contrary to Annas, not only is the skill model of virtue compatible with a neo-Aristotelian account of virtue, but it also appears that basing a skill model of virtue on a Socratic account of virtue is likely to prove unsuccessful.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
I will refer to this view of skills as Socratic throughout the paper.
The first part of Bloomfield’s article puts forth the Socratic view of skills and virtues, and is thus similar to Annas’s view, which he cites at the beginning of his article.
The article is by Deborah Hornblow in the Hartford Courant (6/17/97), and Bloomfield quotes it in footnote 5, on page 26 of “Virtue Epistemology and the Epistemology of Virtue”.
Daniel Jacobson, in personal communication, has given other examples that suggest that Annas has underestimated how counterintuitive the Socratic position sounds. Take, for example, a doctor who specializes in heart surgery. Presumably, there are many other types of surgeries that he is not qualified to perform. Is this sufficient to show that he is not an expert?
My thanks to an anonymous reviewer for pushing this point.
The discussion that follows about the debate over medicine and other practical skills is indebted to a paper by D.S. Hutchinson (1988).
The view seems to be that one had to understand the guiding principles that govern the cosmos in order to know what was going on in the human body. Hutchinson notes that this is similar to Plato’s own view about the good of the soul.
Fred Miller, in personal communication, has pointed out that Plato’s Statesman is a good example of the shift in Plato’s own thinking about skills, as statesmanship is considered to be a skill, and the knowledge of the statesman is not something that can be fully codified into law.
Because of space limitations, I do not try to explicate the Dreyfus model here. As far as I can tell, Daniel Jacobson (2005) is the first to bring the Dreyfus skill model to bear on questions of modern virtue theory. Although Dreyfus and Dreyfus discuss the ethical implications of their skill model, including the affinities with an Aristotelian ethical approach, they do not discuss the idea that virtues are analogous to skills.
Bloomfield (2000, p. 39) helpfully points out that “The sense of ‘intuition’ here is quite different from the a priori intuitions posited by moral intuitions like Sidgwick, Moore, Ross, and Prichard. The relevant intuitions for virtue epistemology and moral epistemology are a posteriori.”
References
Annas J (1993) The morality of happiness. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK
Annas J (1995) Virtue as a skill. Int J Philos Stud 3(2):227–243
Annas J (2003) The structure of virtue. In: DePaul M, Zagzebski L (eds) Intellectual virtue. Clarendon, Oxford, UK pp15–33
Aristotle (1984) Nicomachean ethics, H. Apostle (trans.). Periapatetic, Grinnell, IA
Benner P (2001) From novice to expert. Prentice Hall Health, New Jersey
Bloomfield P (2000) Virtue epistemology and the epistemology of virtue. Philos Phenomenol Res 60(1):23–43
Chase WG, Simon HA (1973) Perception in chess. Cogn Psychol 4:55–81
Chi MTH et al. (1981) Categorization and representation of physics problems by experts and novices. Cogn Sci 5:121–152
Dreyfus H, Dreyfus S (1986) Mind over machine: the power of human intuition and expertise in the era of the computer. Basil Blackwell, Oxford, UK
Dreyfus H, Dreyfus S (1991) Towards a phenomenology of ethical expertise. Hum Stud 14:229–250
Dreyfus H, Dreyfus S (2004) The ethical implications of the five-stage skill-acquisition model. Bull Sci Technol Soc 24(3):251–264
Hutchinson DS (1988) Doctrines of the mean and the debate concerning skills in fourth-century medicine, rhetoric, and ethics. Apeiron 21:17–52
Jacobson D (2005) Seeing by feeling. Ethical Theory Moral Pract 8:387–409
Larkin JH et al. (1980) Expert and novice performance in solving physics problems. Science 208:1135–1142
McDowell J (1998) Virtue and reason, in mind, value & reality. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, pp50–73
Plato G (1997) Gorgias. In: Cooper J (ed.) Plato – Complete Works. Hackett, Cambridge, MA, pp791–869
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Stichter, M. Ethical Expertise: The Skill Model of Virtue. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 10, 183–194 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-006-9054-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-006-9054-2