The conventional view might be that the violent perpetrator who assaults his partner, is doing so to exert his power and control of them by using fear and force — Tom Storm

Why does the violent perpetrator need to exert his power? Because he feels powerless. What does ‘power’ mean in
this context? Does it mean the ability to make happen whatever we desire? If so, what determines motive? If, as I am arguing, the power that we seek is fundamentally that of making sense of our world in ways that are harmoniously anticipative, it means the power to achieve the love and affection of others. But why this instead of the power to exploit them for our own selfish purposes? What makes our intent selfish in the first place? Do we start out selfish and have to be acculturated into empathy and altruism? Or is the ‘self’ that we are trying to remain faithful to a self which only exists as itself by assimilating the world? Don’t we settle for the power to exploit others as an inferior alternative to what we are really striving for, which is to connect with them? And isnt our callousness concerning their suffering the result of our assessment that they in some sense deserve this treatment , that we are punishing f them for what we perceive to be their own unjust callousness toward us?
Don’t you see in your own practice the handing down from one generation to the next patterns of abusiveness that result from the perpetuation through multiple generations of a failure to make sense of the others perspective?

Heh -- I would not say that the natural sciences make progress in any way which differentiates it from the other disciplines of human beings. Human beings continue to engage in various practices, and they change based upon what those human beings care about and do. Theatre has advanced from a previous period, and yet it has no ultimate teleology towards which it should strive. Likewise for science, and philosophy.

Progress is a measure of how impressed people are with a series of events, rather than a thing which happens — Moliere

I love this :100:

Thanks.

Don’t you see in your own practice the handing down from one generation to the next patterns of abusiveness that result from the perpetuation through multiple generations of a failure to make sense of the others perspective?
6m — Joshs

Totally agree. I am frequently in trouble for trying to remove blame and judgement from worker discourse.

Part of what philosophy does is seek the truth. I think that in seeking the truth we find out that the myth of the charioteer is a fantasy born of the ancient's preoccupation with invulnerability -- the invulnerable man could guide the horses, the truly great man would be in control of the self, etc.

Socrates, the hero of the Platonic corpus, is executed by a mob though.

However I think what we learn from psychology is that people do not control themselves in this manner. There isn't a charioteer that's part of the soul, but rather, this is an image to aspire to that no one achieves.

Isn't the question rather whether or not people can be more or less unified, more or less free? Plato, and those who follow him don't have many creating himself out of the aether. The polis, the social whole, in particular looms large, and we might suppose that societies themselves can be more or less free to actualize their goals (and to have choice-worthy goals).

This seems like more a counter to a strawman version of Plato to be honest.

Heh -- I would not say that the natural sciences make progress in any way which differentiates it from the other disciplines of human beings. Human beings continue to engage in various practices, and they change based upon what those human beings care about and do. Theatre has advanced from a previous period, and yet it has no ultimate teleology towards which it should strive. Likewise for science, and philosophy.

Science has no teleology? Might it have something to do with knowledge, perhaps? The germ theory of disease and antibiotics aren't progress in medicine?

I don't find that plausible.

When people debate over the causes of global warming or of the collapse in bee populations, aren't they interested primarily in accuracy and truth? And can't explanations of the world be more or less true?

There is a direction for progress right there, unless you want to say 16th century science is no more accurate and true than 21st?

Progress is a measure of how impressed people are with a series of events, rather than a thing which happens.

And why are people impressed by what they are impressed by? Why are people impressed by flying machines or satellite internet?

Presumably, what impresses people and what we take to be the goals of the sciences, the productive arts, etc. is not arbitrary. If it was arbitrary, then no man should agree with any other about what those goals should be. Yet that isn't the case.

In that vein it seems to me that going back to Aristotle as if he knew the good is definitely a step back. If someone owned slaves I sort of have to take what they have to say about goodness with a grain of salt -- we clearly have different priorities.

Right, and you can write off almost anyone before 1960 for supporting Jim Crow or colonialism. And future generations will like as not write us off for eating meat. But you could just as well write off people today because they wear clothes made by impoverished child workers in southeast Asia or use phones and computers packed with rare earth metals mined by slaves, and buy groceries harvested and processed by migrant workers who are often treated on par with ancient agricultural slaves. People have been remarking on the lack of a real difference between slavery and wage slavery since at least Cicero, who was well acquainted with both.*

(And I should note, the idea is not that earning a wage is slavery, but rather that the two can become virtually indistinguishable. For instance, the economic system in late-republican Rome, the growth of the latifundium and massive influx of slave labor, made the material conditions of slaves and many freedmen employed at large estates materially indistinguishable and led to people oscillating between both statuses based on good or ill fortune and an ability to keep up with debts).

This is an interesting psychological picture of how people experience their connections with others, but isn't an awful lot of ethical talk being presupposed here, in order to give this analysis? As an example,

This is the hostile option. — Joshs

You are clearly not trying to present "hostile option" in an ethically neutral way. It is not to be preferred, on your account. We ought not to choose the hostile option. So how is that judgment arrived at, and is it meant to carry ethical weight?

Is your contention that it isn't beneficial for us to be virtuous? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Quite often, that's correct. But more importantly, it doesn't matter whether it benefits us or not. We're supposed to do the virtuous thing regardless of whether it benefits us or not.

And here, in all simplicity, we see the difference between virtue ethics and deontological ethics. Virtue ethics is committed to the position that there simply must be a benefit to the individual from all virtuous action. So, to make this plausible in cases where by any normal use of language there is no benefit whatsoever, the virtue ethicist has to stipulate the definitions of words like "benefit," "good," and "virtue" so as to reveal that we are mistaken about what benefits us. We think being tortured in a good cause is merely the best alternative, the least of many evils? No, that won't do -- it also has to benefit us. This is because what I've been calling the "metaphysical union of goods" is assumed or stipulated by virtue ethics. It's a place to start, rather than a desideratum that needs to be argued for or explained.

Deontology, in contrast, says that what's good for me is neither here nor there. The purpose of the virtues is not to secure any sort of benefit, no matter how implausibly defined. We act virtuously in each case because it is the right thing to do, and this "right thing" can be discovered and described without any reference to what is good for me. It's essentially an other-directed ethics, I would say.

Now I'm not satisfied with that, because I think it's too austere. It ignores some basic facts about human beings and the things that make them flourish. But what I do like about deontological ethics is that it recognizes the supposed union of personal and universal goods as a problem, a very deep and difficult one. It doesn't begin by assuming that good acts must be good for the people who perform them. It is skeptical of all easy equations between the "good" of flourishing, say, and the "good" of standing up against injustice.

If I can lighten the mood for a moment, there was a cartoon from many years ago (National Lampoon?) showing some poor sods writhing in torment in some dreadful hellscape, being poked by devils, etc. One of them is saying, "Ah, but far worse than these torments is the knowledge that I shall never experience the Beatific Vision!" That's the problem, captured in a gag. It is worse, in some important way, to be deprived of the presence of God, but whatever way that is, it can't belong on a comparison scale with being tortured. That's why the caption is funny.

I think much of 20th century ethical thought is devoted to finding a way over the gap, and creating a genuine metaphysical union of goods. Has anyone come close? Perhaps I reveal my admiration for Kant (though not, I insist, my agreement with his conclusions) by saying that John Rawls and Jurgen Habermas seem to have made the most progress. Each is a neo-Kantian of sorts, Rawls explicitly and Habermas by courtesy. And anyway, there are modalities other than philosophy that are far more useful, if you really want to be a decent person. Or so I've found.

Nothing in virtue ethics suggests that we need to claim that being tortured "benefits us." This is a creation of your own invention you keep returning to, moving from "it is good to be virtuous," to "it is good to be tortured" seems a bit much, no?

It benefits us to possess the virtues.

So, to make this plausible in cases where by any normal use of language there is no benefit whatsoever, the virtue ethicist has to stipulate the definitions of words like "benefit," "good," and "virtue" so as to reveal that we are mistaken about what benefits us.

What's weird is, you accept that Socrates or Boethius choose the best possible option available to them. But then, on your view, choosing the best possible option doesn't benefit us. We would benefit more from choosing what is worse (e.g. fleeing and escaping for Socrates, or recanting and obsequiously pleading for mercy) in this case.

But your concern here seems to be how we usually use words, and yet we have a case where "it is better/more to our benefit for us to choose what is worse?" and the "worse is better than the better."

Isn't this contradiction in terms more problematic than the claim that we are often mistaken about what is to our benefit?

People thought chattel slavery was to their benefit. Large numbers of Germans thought it was to their benefit to elect Hitler to be their leader. Rapists think raping is to their benefit. Stalin thought purging his officer corps right before trying to reconquer Finland was to his benefit. Putin thought his invasion of Ukraine was to his and Russia's benefit. Many people who started smoking, doing heroin, etc. thought the good/risks outweighed the downside.

I am not sure exactly how this is supposed to be implausible.

↪Joshs This is an interesting psychological picture of how people experience their connections with others, but isn't an awful lot of ethical talk being presupposed here, in order to give this analysis? As an example,

This is the hostile option.
— Joshs

You are clearly not trying to present "hostile option" in an ethically neutral way. It is not to be preferred, on your account. We ought not to choose the hostile option. So how is that judgment arrived at, and is it meant to carry ethical weight? — J

We can explain dogmatic or hostile construing not as the manifestation of arbitrary self-reinforcing drives or passions, but as representing the most promising avenues of constructive movement available to us given the circumstances. A prescriptive ethics ( we SHOULD avoid hostility ) only makes sense in a psychology which requires a separate motivational mechanism pushing or pulling us in ethical or unethical directions . But we don't need to be admonished to choose in favor of sense-making strategies that are optimally anticipatory, since this is already built into our motivational aims. When people stop actively questioning and evaluating their ethical constructs, and fall back on rigid verities, this should not be seen as a sign that the person has simply fallen in love with their doctrine, and thereby found themselves at the mercy of a vicious cycle of self-reinforcing rigidity. Instead, it is likely to signal a crisis in that person's ability to make their world intelligible. The question of why and to what extent a person embraces hostility should be seen as a matter of how much uncertainty that person's system is capable of tolerating without crumbling, rather than a self-reinforcing desire for hostile thinking.

Methodologically, I think a lot of this comes back to this:

Do any devil's advocate questions demand answers?

On a philosophy forum the question of the OP should probably be phrased, "Why ought one do anything at all?" Or, "Why ought one do any one thing rather than any other thing?"

At that point we can whittle the contributors down to two groups: those who recognize that some things ought to be done, and those who won't. I'd say that only the first group is worth hearing. (And we could have another thread for the second group, which shows that anyone who does things believes that things should be done.)

At that point everyone in the first group can contribute to a productive conversation given the common premise that some things ought be done. — Leontiskos

Which is an example of what I said here:

I like some of the late Thomas Hopko's ideas on this, who I believe was in your Church. One paraphrase is in my bio, "Don't label him; say he's wrong. And don't just say he's wrong; say why. And don't just say why; say what you think is right." — Leontiskos

When people on TPF and elsewhere contradict others for pages on end without giving any alternative account of their own, they are engaged in a dubious practice.

Thank you :).

Socrates, the hero of the Platonic corpus, is executed by a mob though. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Socrates is the embodiment of the myth -- not quite a God, but somehow higher than average or corrupt people.

He chooses to be executed by a mob because reason guides him that way. -- drinking doesn't effect his ability to think, and cold weather didn't effect him. Even when given an escape route to continue to live his life he dies by his own rational choosing; the apology could have been given in a manner which might have eased Socrates' punishment, but he chose to speak the truth to who he knew would execute him all in the service of the Good of the city due to the light of reason.

Isn't the question rather whether or not people can be more or less unified, more or less free? Plato, and those who follow him don't have many creating himself out of the aether. The polis, the social whole, in particular looms large, and we might suppose that societies themselves can be more or less free to actualize their goals (and to have choice-worthy goals).

This seems like more a counter to a strawman version of Plato to be honest. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Probably so -- Plato's a deep thinker and there's always a way to reflect out towards another, more charitable interpretation.

But it seems a popular image, at least -- the Rational Being Controlling Emotion. The Charioteer Guiding. There's a part of the image that I like -- that one is along for the ride -- but the part that I do not like is the idea of a charioteer choosing. Taken literally it's a homuncular fallacy -- we explain the mind by assuming a minded person within the mechanism of the mind.

Plato himself doesn't commit this, I don't believe -- it's a myth, for crying out loud! All of Plato is mythic!

But look to the popularity of the stoics to see how popular the image of the Rational Man Controlling His Emotions is.

Science has no teleology? Might it have something to do with knowledge, perhaps? The germ theory of disease and antibiotics aren't progress in medicine?

I don't find that plausible.

When people debate over the causes of global warming or of the collapse in bee populations, aren't they interested primarily in accuracy and truth? And can't explanations of the world be more or less true?

There is a direction for progress right there, unless you want to say 16th century science is no more accurate and true than 21st? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Nope, I don't believe science has a teleology. If it did -- towards truth and accuracy, say -- it wouldn't be so hopscotch as it is. It's clear to me that truth and accuracy are important to any field of knowledge because we like it to be so, and furthermore, that it's not just truth and accuracy that guide scientists or wonderers of the world. There's wonder. There's greed. There's pride. Desperation. Usefulness.

Basically a whole host of desires.

That doesn't counter truth and accuracy. But it demonstrates how rational discourse is motivated by very human passions rather than Reason.

Reason is the referee. Passion is why we do it. When their powers combine we get Captain Rational ;)

So an advance in medicine tells us a little tiny bit about the world -- it does not increase the accuracy of our world-picture, or our ontological understanding of the world. Studies about global warming and bee-populations are about global warming and bee-populations, not The World.

And why are people impressed by what they are impressed by? Why are people impressed by flying machines or satellite internet? — Count Timothy von Icarus

The economy -- these are useful for war, agriculture, production, etc.

Presumably, what impresses people and what we take to be the goals of the sciences, the productive arts, etc. is not arbitrary. If it was arbitrary, then no man should agree with any other about what those goals should be. Yet that isn't the case.

I don't think that follows --

if it were arbitrary people could agree insofar that they feel the same.

Right, and you can write off almost anyone before 1960 for supporting Jim Crow or colonialism. And future generations will like as not write us off for eating meat. But you could just as well write off people today because they wear clothes made by impoverished child workers in southeast Asia or use phones and computers packed with rare earth metals mined by slaves, and buy groceries harvested and processed by migrant workers who are often treated on par with ancient agricultural slaves. People have been remarking on the lack of a real difference between slavery and wage slavery since at least Cicero, who was well acquainted with both.*

(And I should note, the idea is not that earning a wage is slavery, but rather that the two can become virtually indistinguishable. For instance, the economic system in late-republican Rome, the growth of the latifundium and massive influx of slave labor, made the material conditions of slaves and many freedmen employed at large estates materially indistinguishable and led to people oscillating between both statuses based on good or ill fortune and an ability to keep up with debts). — Count Timothy von Icarus

Have I written off Plato and Aristotle in this in saying they are good to read? I'd say this is just part of reading the text -- there's the with the grain reading and the against the grain reading, and you can kind of pick and choose which reading depending upon how the arguments strike you.

They're masters of philosophy, but human for all that.

As for the future generations: I don't mind the idea of a future harsher judge of myself. I'll be dead, and maybe the world will be better. Also I don't have any qualms in pointing out the present day conditions of slavery in the world -- I don't think things have gotten very much better since the days of Plato.

A few things, sure. But in terms of Good? Are human beings really any better today than they were when Plato was writing?

I don't think so.

When people on TPF and elsewhere contradict others for pages on end without giving any alternative account of their own, they are engaged in a dubious practice. — Leontiskos

How can one make sense of this? If one DOES contradict the other, then the alternative account has indeed been made. If there is no contradiction offered and only negation with no reason, then this could be almost right. It still fails because the meaning of the words used is not, in general OR in specific, quite accurate.

Just curious at this point.

Plato's a deep thinker and there's always a way to reflect out towards another, more charitable interpretation. — Moliere

This 'mitigation of the ways' (to reflect out) is important. An unambiguous language, seemingly impossible, would help.

But really the idea this centers on is critical as a takeaway. It is in the nature of reality itself, of these many efforts towards virtue (as a secondary but exactly analogous point of view), that everything of value exists on a limit as x the chooser of that intent aims towards perfection, the impossible. But if we allow that what we consider as impossible is possible perhaps only once in all of existence effectively then ENDING existence when the impossible finally happens (perfection), then ... I ask ... in some humility, doesn't that make great sense?

But it seems a popular image, at least -- the Rational Being Controlling Emotion. The Charioteer Guiding. There's a part of the image that I like -- that one is along for the ride -- — Moliere

So you support accidental progress, random progress, amid chaos. You are leaning then desire side in my model, wallowing in worthlessness, making too much of it by choice.

but the part that I do not like is the idea of a charioteer choosing. Taken literally it's a homuncular fallacy -- we explain the mind by assuming a minded person within the mechanism of the mind. — Moliere

Yes, clearly. The fear-sided approach to reality is Pragmatic and proud, wallowing in JUST AS MUCH pride and worthiness as the chaos side does wallow in worthlessness (like you just did).

I agree that these self-made man types are annoying, and all of Pragmatism and that which serves the mind side, the fear-side of truth, order, is tedious in the extreme.

But your side, the chaos side, is JUST AS tedious.

Wisdom is the middle path, born of anger and respecting of the existence of and pursuit of perfection despite the foolish wallowing in delusional worthiness or worthlessness of MOST people, the unwise, at all times. Anger is the demand for rights, for worthiness EVEN amid error in choice. The wise person is neither allowed to maintain worthlessness (we just can't do it - we morons is only human) and worthiness (behold how I doth conquered the chaos fools around me). The first emphasizes equality only in worthlessness, neglecting the worthiness. The last emphasizes failure (of others) to underscore its success denying the unity principle, 'You are me and I am you. Your failures are mine as well!'

But just because we all belong and our failures are forgivable, that DOES NOT mean that there is not a right path and that that right path is not walkable.

Plato himself doesn't commit this, I don't believe -- it's a myth, for crying out loud! All of Plato is mythic! — Moliere

Myth is real. What about myth is not real?

But look to the popularity of the stoics to see how popular the image of the Rational Man Controlling His Emotions is. — Moliere

Yes, blind fools abound.

They without sin can call for the purge of the sinful. Since perfection is only amid ALL and since the unity principle is real, if any is without sin then all must be without sin. So there is no need for a purge ever. It is always a mistake of pride.

Nothing in virtue ethics suggests that we need to claim that being tortured "benefits us." This is a creation of your own invention you keep returning to, moving from "it is good to be virtuous," to "it is good to be tortured" seems a bit much, no?

It benefits us to possess the virtues. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Truly, we're disputing words now. We both agree that there is something of great value in standing up for a principle even if it means enduring a dreadful death. You want to call this "something" a benefit, I do not. But is there anything more to it than this? I don't really mind what words we use to describe the problem, I only ask that it be seen as a problem.

What's weird is, you accept that Socrates or Boethius choose the best possible option available to them. But then, on your view, choosing the best possible option doesn't benefit us. We would benefit more from choosing what is worse (e.g. fleeing and escaping for Socrates, or recanting and obsequiously pleading for mercy) in this case. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's exactly right. Virtue ethics commits you to finding a benefit in virtuous action, and I know it seems weird to you that virtue might not always be its own reward. (Maybe this is a bit of what MacIntyre was pointing to, in terms of the difficulty of building bridges between ethical systems.) But that's not at all the only way to see it. Deontology, as I've summarized it, asks us to ignore this question of self-benefit entirely. Or, if we must talk of benefits, let's stick to the ordinary usage and admire Socrates and Boethius precisely because they chose to forego any benefit for themselves by taking a virtuous course of action.

we have a case where "it is better/more to our benefit for us to choose what is worse?" and the "worse is better than the better." — Count Timothy von Icarus

So, again, this is only a contradiction if we insist on a link between "benefit" and "ethical goodness." From my point of view (which you may not agree with but I hope you will acknowledge is not unreasonable or ignorant), it makes perfect sense to say "It was greatly to Stalin's benefit [or substitute any wicked person who succeeded and died happy] to choose what was worse, that's part of why it was worse -- it was entirely selfish."

I'd like to invite us both to step back and consider this as a problem of the relation between personal and public goods. What I've been calling a "metaphysical union of goods" returns as an issue in political ethics. Or perhaps I shouldn't say "returns," since the Republic is full of discussion of this problem. We've been talking about this in highly abstract terms, but I submit that the issue is one of daily concern, as we attempt to navigate between personal, familial, community, national, human, and creation goods. I want to find a way to unite these goods, both philosophically and in my own life. Habermas opposes what he calls "a supposedly irreconcilable conflict between justice for all and the individual good"; when put this way, I think we can see that this is the same "benefit" problem, writ large. How do we further the goods or benefits of a life -- love, pleasure, family, achievement -- yet hold them in balance with our duties as citizens and members of a much larger ethical community?

This is a different subject, in some ways, but I thought I'd at least bring it up because I've found that, when sharp disagreements arise between intelligent people, it's often best to focus on their common beliefs and aims. I think we both want to keep searching for a resolution to this "supposedly irreconcilable conflict." Disputing how to use the word "benefit" probably isn't the way, and I apologize if I've encouraged too much logomachy.

A prescriptive ethics ( we SHOULD avoid hostility ) only makes sense in a psychology which requires a separate motivational mechanism pushing or pulling us in ethical or unethical directions . But we don't need to be admonished to choose in favor of sense-making strategies that are optimally anticipatory, since this is already built into our motivational aims — Joshs

This is the claim that needs arguing, I think. When you speak about something being "built into our motivational aims," are you describing it from the point of view of psychology? That is, as a description of the human animal, of how we behave? Or do you mean "built in" as a sort of stand-in for a transcendental argument that would show it must be the case? I think it will make a big difference, which way we understand it, because if I want to go on to say that we do need a separate motivational mechanism, I need to know whether I'm arguing against an empirical or a conceptual claim.

The question of why and to what extent a person embraces hostility should be seen as a matter of how much uncertainty that person's system is capable of tolerating without crumbling, rather than a self-reinforcing desire for hostile thinking. — Joshs

The last part is certainly true. Even people who believe they enjoy hostile thinking can probably be shown to lack a level of self-awareness that would reveal something more fear-based. I'm not sure, though, whether hostile behavior is only a matter of one's own system of concepts and values being in jeopardy. Can we use the word "hostile" without also meaning "aggressive toward others"?

Of more concern is where this stands vis a vis ethics. Are you wanting to say that, when we give a correct, or at least perspicacious, analysis of the person who has raped and killed someone, we are no longer in a position to describe the actions as wrong?

That's exactly right. Virtue ethics commits you to finding a benefit in virtuous action, and I know it seems weird to you that virtue might not always be its own reward. (Maybe this is a bit of what MacIntyre was pointing to, in terms of the difficulty of building bridges between ethical systems.) But that's not at all the only way to see it.

Yes, but you have said that from your perspective the choices made by Boethius are better for them and "the best option they have available," and that it is better for them. But now you seem to think it is actually better for them to lack the strength of will to follow through on their convictions. Such a view also entails that Socrates, Boethius, etc. are simply wrong about what is truly to their benefit. Egoism is actually to their benefit. They are deluded in thinking it isn't.

As I have pointed out, I find this implausible.

Deontology, as I've summarized it, asks us to ignore this question of self-benefit entirely. Or, if we must talk of benefits, let's stick to the ordinary usage and admire Socrates and Boethius precisely because they chose to forego any benefit for themselves by taking a virtuous course of action.

Right, but now you seem to have stepped back from your previous positions to presupposing "morally good is a sui generis sort of good unrelated to other uses of the term. "

What's the justification for this? Where is the argument for it?

That's exactly right. Virtue ethics commits you to finding a benefit in virtuous action,

No it doesn't. It commits you to the idea that it is better for persons to be virtuous. People possess virtues primarily, not "actions." Actions cannot, for instance, become more self-determining by possessing virtue, nor can they come to more fully know what is truly good as opposed to what merely appears to be good. You keep returning to "virtue ethics as seen through the lens of presuppositions foreign to it."

Or, if we must talk of benefits, let's stick to the ordinary usage and admire Socrates and Boethius precisely because they chose to forego any benefit for themselves by taking a virtuous course of action.

Again, switching back to the focus on individual actions, when the question is "is it to our benefit be a virtuous person." And again, this also presupposes that Socrates and Boethius are both fundamentally deluded as to what is to their own benefit and would benefit from lacking the strength of will to follow through on their delusions.

I don't see how such a position doesn't require the presupposition that "benefit" means something like "egoistic pursuit of one's own pleasure," or something similar. Good luck building an ethics on that assumption, and good luck justifying it, given how many examples there are of people being ruined by such egoistic pursuits.

Or, conversely, this might be resolved as a sort of Protagorean "no one can ever be wrong about what is to their own benefit" position, but this is also implausible.

So, again, this is only a contradiction if we insist on a link between "benefit" and "ethical goodness." From my point of view (which you may not agree with but I hope you will acknowledge is not unreasonable or ignorant), it makes perfect sense to say "It was greatly to Stalin's benefit [or substitute any wicked person who succeeded and died happy] to choose what was worse, that's part of why it was worse -- it was entirely selfish."

No, I'd argue precisely that such actions do represent ignorance. Stalin was ignorant of what was truly to his own benefit. Stalin lived a fairly miserable life, a life defined by constant paranoia and a lack of close relations.

Three stories about Stalin:

One of his son's shot himself in the chest in an attempt to commit suicide and lived. Stalin's first remark was: "I told you he cannot do anything right."

One of Stalin's sons was captured by the Germans. They offered to trade him for a high ranking German officer. Stalin's immediate reply, was a simple: "why would I trade a field marshal for a major?"

Shortly before Stalin had the stroke that would lead to his death he had flown into one of his customary rage and asked to be left alone. Everyone was so completely terrified of him that no one ventured into his chambers until three days later. During that time, Stalin had lain paralyzed and possibly conscious for long periods slowly dying of dehydration because no one was willing to risk his ire by going in to check on him.

Was it to Stalin's benefit to have this sort of relationship with his sons? Was it too his benefit to be a paranoid man who conducted his affairs in such a way that he also had good reason to be constantly paranoid?

Or likewise, was it to the benefit of the BTK killer to stay on the loose murdering and torturing families? More to the point, was it good "for him" to enjoy torturing families much more than a good father? (or was it only "bad for him" because he got caught doing this? Recall, virtue entails enjoying doing what is best.) Or was it to Jeffery Epstein's benefit to do what he did so long as he wasn't caught?

Or would it have been better for each one of these people to be virtuous, well-adjusted people who could partake in the common good of a marriage, family, etc.? I find it very hard to make a case that Stalin or Hitler benefited from being the type of people they were.






Do you think someone like the BTK killer or Jeffery Epstein's main problem was a crisis of intelligibility and sense-making? Or does this only cover part of ethics?

It seems to me that a lot of criminals, in interviews, understand why what they did is wrong at a deep level, and experience significant guilt and shame over it.

Psychopaths like the BTK killer might be a case where there is something of a deficit in an ability to fully recognize what is meant by moral terms or "common good," but in many cases they understand these well enough to do things like have successful careers, stable marriages, be leaders in social organizations, and, obviously, to hide their abhorrent interests and activities.

Certainly, we could fit all this into a totalizing lens of sense-making, in the same way the term "game" is sometimes stretched to incorporate virtually anything.

Plato also at times seems to present a view where all immoral behavior is simply an ability to grasp the full intelligibility of the good, and this can certainly be "made sense of" in his framework, but it always seemed like a weak spot to me. Psychology normally tends to separate an inability to make sense of ethical norms or to empathize and poor impulse control, an inability to emotionally regulate, etc.

Yes, but you have said that from your perspective the choices made by Boethius are better for them and "the best option they have available," and that it is better for them. But now you seem to think it is actually better for them to lack the strength of will to follow through on their convictions. Such a view also entails that Socrates, Boethius, etc. are simply wrong about what is truly to their benefit. Egoism is actually to their benefit. They are deluded in thinking it isn't. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't know how I can make any more compelling the idea that we're simply playing around with what "benefit" means. I don't think "the best option available" has to be beneficial for anyone; you do. I think it is a better thing for Socrates et al. to do right, but I don't equate this "better" with being beneficial for them; you do. If Socrates uses "benefit" the way I do, then he wouldn't say that doing the right thing is always necessarily a benefit. If he uses it your way, then he would. I would greatly like to know if there is a Greek word that discriminates here, allowing "beneficial" to break off into these two senses -- roughly, the benefit of personal goods and the benefit of acting well.

Which way is the "right" way to use the word? How do you think we should answer such a question?

Is there any way I can persuade you that we really aren't having a substantive disagreement here? This harks back to what I meant, earlier, when I said that all this discussion of "good" (and now "benefit") can only be coherent if there are different, equivocal meanings of "good" in play. It saddens me a bit, because it seems so clear that you and I are both on the side of the angels, as it were, and this kind of infighting when there is so much genuine ethical atrocity to call out, seems unfortunate.

I don't see how such a position doesn't require the presupposition that "benefit" means something like "egoistic pursuit of one's own pleasure," or something similar. — Count Timothy von Icarus

No, it says nothing about motivation, and there are many things besides pleasure that are beneficial. It says that a benefit improves a person's lot in life, or something equally general. Again, I appeal to ordinary usage: If one's daughter is raped and murdered, she may have refused to give up a wanted man and been punished accordingly, and so acted virtuously, but what father would claim she had anything beneficial happen to her?

you seem to have stepped back from your previous positions to presupposing "morally good is a sui generis sort of good unrelated to other uses of the term. " — Count Timothy von Icarus

No, I think that's too strong. I don't believe the various usages of "good" are unrelated. Equivocation often occurs precisely because various usages are so closely related -- yet distinct. What I want is a union of these related goods, as do you.

Right, but now you seem to have stepped back from your previous positions to presupposing "morally good is a sui generis sort of good unrelated to other uses of the term. "

What's the justification for this? Where is the argument for it? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Continuing this thought, my argument for the idea that usages of "good" differ significantly has, I think, already been made. Better, perhaps, to say "I've given my reasons," because, as I acknowledged, arguments from usage are tricky. Is it even an argument? Could I argue for the fact that "phrasing," in music, has been used to mean both the performance intentions of the composer, as found in the score, and also the practice of a particular performer, such that a passage can be "phrased" in different ways? All I can do is point out how I think educated musicians use the word, and I will be either right or wrong depending on how they do use it. That's not exactly an argument, but I don't know what more one could do.

Stalin lived a fairly miserable life, a life defined by constant paranoia and a lack of close relations. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, I was afraid, when I reached for Stalin as an example, that a biographer might reveal that he was actually miserable, confusing the issue. But that's beside the point -- unless you're wanting to say, with Plato, that every wicked person has to be miserable as a result. (I'm thinking of the tyrant in the Republic.) I'm sorry to say I've personally known a few exceptions. We're not talking about who's happy and who's miserable, because we both agree that these conditions aren't indicative of a virtuous life. What we want to know is whether the wicked person benefits from their wickedness. Well, certainly they do, especially if (unlike Stalin, evidently) they live a prosperous life and die happy. But then, I'm using "benefit" my way . . . part of why he's wicked is that he does act for his own benefit, rather than considering the welfare of others.

every wicked person has to be miserable as a result.

But that isn't what is required at all; that would be a straw man relying on extremes (Plato's point, for instance, requires significant nuance). Fortune, the acts of others, the social context, etc. are all relevant to one's happiness. Aristotle makes this point explicitly at the outset of the ethics.

The point is rather that it's always better to possess the virtues than to lack them. "Jeffery Epstein if he never got caught and exposed" being relatively happy (in the common English use of the term), is not a counterexample for two reasons:

First, considering that Epstein was able to build a massive fortune, a great deal of influence, and to be successful in elite social and intellectual circles, it would seem that Epstein did possess many of the virtues to varying degrees. Perhaps luck played an outsized role in his success, but it does seem that he was intelligent, charming, not brash or reckless, prudent in some respects (or we might say cunning), etc.

Second, the proper counterexample would be a case where Epstein lives a better life (or to deflate the notion, is "more happy") and would benefit from being more cowardly or rash, more gluttonous, more irascible or lacking in spirit, or conversely less modest, less temperate, less honest, etc.

The other key point is that the state of virtue involves enjoying right action. Would Epstein's life have been worse if he had enjoyed deeper romantic partnerships based around a common good more than coercing adolescents into sex for his or gratification less? I think the answer is obvious.

The good always relates to the whole. Of course we can imagine a situation where someone who is born into modern Denmark and with great wealth, can, in many ways, live a life that is happier than someone born in Liberia, despite the latter being relatively more virtuous. The virtues, at the individual level, make the individual life better; they don't make context irrelevant.

If the virtues are attained to a high level of perfection (something far more difficult to accomplish in an unvirtuous society), then they do insulate one from future misery (e.g. Laozi and St. Francis happy in the wilderness with nothing, St. Paul sublime in prison).

This is no way entails that "being sent to prison is to one's benefit." It would have been better for Boethius to live in a more virtuous society, one that wouldn't execute him for fighting corruption. It would not have been to his benefit to be less virtuous.

I think it is a better thing for Socrates et al. to do right, but I don't equate this "better" with being beneficial for them; you do.

Ok, but then it seems to me that you're committed to the idea that people can be profoundly wrong about what is truly to their own benefit, because in these examples (Boethius, St. Polycarp, St. Maximus, St. Paul, etc.) all think that would they do is to their benefit. But then if people, and indeed an entire epoch of ethics, can be profoundly wrong about what is actually to their own benefit, then I am not sure what your appeal to "common notions of benefit" is supposed to show exactly.

Which way is the "right" way to use the word?

On the view that things can be truly better or worse for people, the one that is (more) accurate.

It isn't good for people like Epstein to be the type of people they are. It would be better for them to change. Is it good for them to go to prison? Not necessarily, but that's precisely because prison doesn't change the type of person you are. Indeed, it often makes people worse. Prison is often "an education in vice." This has to do with the way prisons work, particularly in the US. It would be better for prisoners if they lived in a more virtuous society that structured corrections better.

No, it says nothing about motivation, and there are many things besides pleasure that are beneficial. It says that a benefit improves a person's lot in life, or something equally general. Again, I appeal to ordinary usage: If one's daughter is raped and murdered, she may have refused to give up a wanted man and been punished accordingly, and so acted virtuously, but what father would claim she had anything beneficial happen to her?

This example is confused, because the daughter is dead, but then doesn't want to give up her murderer? At any rate, you seem to be falling back on "virtues ethics requires you to benefit from being tortured, murdered, etc." again. It doesn't. It requires that you benefit from being virtuous, as in "possessing the virtues" not as in "completing isolated acts deemed good by some deontological framework."

You keep slipping into an entirely alien frame, which is MacIntyre's exact point. You hear "it's to your benefit to be virtuous," and it seems the only meaning you can take from that it "it is to your benefit (personal good) to complete acts deemed morally good according to some set of proper rules by which virtuous behavior is defined."

However, it means: "it is to your benefit to be courageous, temperate, prudent, generous, patient, honest, friendly, modest, loving, witty, etc." and "it is better for you to live with people who have these virtues," and "it is better to live in societies that embody and instill these virtues."

Edit:

I don't think "the best option available" has to be beneficial for anyone; you do.

In virtue of what is an option that benefits no one "best?"

I don't think I've taken up a side of chaos or wallowing -- just the same old boring technique of reading the books, thinking about them, talking about them with others, and rethinking about them, and retalking about them, and . . . :D

I don't see how such a position doesn't require the presupposition that "benefit" means something like "egoistic pursuit of one's own pleasure," or something similar. Good luck building an ethics on that assumption, and good luck justifying it, given how many examples there are of people being ruined by such egoistic pursuits. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This is part and parcel of the incoherence of Kantian ethics: right action absent motivation (because all motivation is selfish). @J keeps dancing around that without actually defending it. If he would actually defend his own Kantian position this could be a productive exchange.

Kantian ethics in a nutshell:

1. If something is done for a reason then it isn't moral.
2. Therefore all moral acts are done for no reason.

(The modern egoist uses the same premises, only denying the existence of moral acts.)

And J's argument:

• Suppose (1) is false.
• What reason does Socrates have to drink the hemlock?
• Socrates' act is "right" without being "good." It is an act without a reason, without a motivation, without an intended good/benefit. Reasonable acts are always susceptible to selfishness, and moral acts are not susceptible to selfishness.

---

If we follow J's version of Kant, then it would seem that Kant agrees that Socrates made the correct decision, but he can't figure out how that would be true given the ethical options available to him, so he tries to draw up something new. Kant's ethics makes most sense when considering these acts of extreme virtue or sacrifice.

For example:

I would greatly like to know if there is a Greek word that discriminates here, allowing "beneficial" to break off into these two senses -- roughly, the benefit of personal goods and the benefit of acting well. — J

• Socrates did what was right even though it was not desirable.
• Therefore not everything we should do is desirable.
• Therefore there must be some category of choiceworthy-but-not-desirable.

For the Greeks the kalos is desirable but not base, and it retains its value even in cases of martyrdom. @Count Timothy von Icarus is right when he says that reducing all desirable objects to the base or selfish is the error. Kant seeks a guarantee on the moral character of an act, and that is the problem. It is a bit like trying to guarantee that you avoid gluttony by only eating food that tastes bad. Or more specifically, specifying sensuous taste as a non-moral category.

However, it means: "it is to your benefit to be courageous, temperate, prudent, generous, patient, honest, friendly, modest, loving, witty, etc." and "it is better for you to live with people who have these virtues," and "it is better to live in societies that embody and instill these virtues." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Here is the counterargument:

1. It is always to your benefit to be courageous. (Supposition)
2. It is never to your benefit to die.
3. Some courageous acts get you killed.
4. Therefore, (1) is false. (Via reductio)

And @J has the same puzzle:

• Socrates was right to drink the hemlock. (Supposition)
• But it is never right to die.
• Therefore, Socrates was not right to drink the hemlock.

. When you speak about something being "built into our motivational aims," are you describing it from the point of view of psychology? That is, as a description of the human animal, of how we behave? Or do you mean "built in" as a sort of stand-in for a transcendental argument that would show it must be the case? I think it will make a big difference, which way we understand it, because if I want to go on to say that we do need a separate motivational mechanism, I need to know whether I'm arguing against an empirical or a conceptual claim. — J

This claim can be justified on more than a psychological basis. I would hesitate to call it transcendental in the sense of an idealist ground. Rather, it is transcendental in a way that cannot be understood on the basis of an idealist-realist
distinction. Both idealism and realism are anchored in a sovereign notion of ontology. Realists and idealists ground psychological phenomena, either directly or indirectly, in the way the world supposedly is in itself, whether that be the non-human or the human world. But the motivational grounding I have in mind is tied to a world that recursively re-invents its basis, sense and meaning by existing in time. There can be no static principles of ethics for this reason, no sovereign principle of motivation , no concept of the Good, of right and wrong, that makes any sense outside of actual, contingent contexts of interaction. Our motives are not drivers that propel us into motion. We always already find ourselves in motion, thanks to the reciprocally changing nature of our involvement with things in the world. Our motives emanate not from somewhere inside us but from matters at hand.

There cannot be a disconnect between our schemes of knowing or ethics and the way things are or should be , since those schemes are built from actual relations with a world that we are immersed within, a world that is on the way to being transformed by our interaction with it, and whose responses to our actions will continually require new assessments of the basis of right and wrong , correct or incorrect, true or false.

Can we use the word "hostile" without also meaning "aggressive toward others"?

Of more concern is where this stands vis a vis ethics. Are you wanting to say that, when we give a correct, or at least perspicacious, analysis of the person who has raped and killed someone, we are no longer in a position to describe the actions as wrong? — J

Aggression in its basic sense simply means active engagement with things. But this meaning becomes confused with the kind of activity that is motivated by anger and hostility. Such action is not directed toward simple destruction, but toward correcting a perceived violation. Anger always perceives itself to be justified.

To recognize a wrong is to have a perspective on it unavailable to the wrongdoer, to already inhabit a different world from them. If we succeed in bringing them over to our world, they will see themselves as guilty. If we cannot, they will see us as committing a wrong by condemning them.
I’m not denying that our ethical standards can progress, that the different worlds inhabited by diverse ethical communities dont belong to an overall developmental trajectory, but they evolve as a function of a complexification of sense-making that is built -in tendency of a complex dynamical system such as ours

Do you think someone like the BTK killer or Jeffery Epstein's main problem was a crisis of intelligibility and sense-making? Or does this only cover part of ethics?

It seems to me that a lot of criminals, in interviews, understand why what they did is wrong at a deep level, and experience significant guilt and shame over it — Count Timothy von Icarus

The tendency to cite notorious media or historical figures as examples of evil (the Hitler effect) feeds into the Romantic conception of the autonomously willing ethical subject. Both the archetype of the lone killer and the solitary genius fit the bill here. But this thinking fails to do justice to the fact that the vast majority of individuals and groups who perform acts deemed as unethical by an aggrieved party believed themselves to be full justified. We have a strong need to believe that the ‘evildoer’ knows in their heart of hearts that they strayed from the path of goodness, but the reality is that in most cases they are as convinced of the righteousness of their actions as we are of our condemnation of them.

You often raise this strawman. I don't see anyone thinking that Hitler self-consciously believed himself to be evil. The example of Hitler is often raised for the opposite reason: the self-righteous are not always righteous.

So this only covers part of ethics then?

Those are just examples. When I think of people who feel genuinely bad about what they have done I am thinking more about documentaries I've seen on prisoners and people I know who went to prison. I don't think BTK or the Gilgo Beach Killer are particularly remorseful. In some sense, they seem incapable of it.

It is always to your benefit to be courageous. (Supposition)
It is never to your benefit to die.
Some courageous acts get you killed.
Therefore, (1) is false. (Via reductio)

Two is a false premise, yet it's easy to imagine an example where something like this might be successful. For example, the courageous fire fighter might die in a scenario where a coward lives, potentially without doing anyone any good through their sacrifice (and indeed hurting their wife and children).

However it would be foolish to think that individual virtue would somehow insulate someone from all bad fortune or all the consequences of living in an unvirtuous world and society. Virtue insulates us from bad fortune and make us relatively more self-determining. It doesn't make us invulnerable and absolutely self-determining. The virtues help us to live better lives, not perfect ones.

In general, it is better to be courageous than reckless or cowardly. In a case where we misjudge the risk as lower than it is, the rash person would seem to always fall victim when the courageous person does, and the converse is true vis-á-vis the coward if the risk is deemed higher than it really is.

But this doesn't mean that we, as people, shouldn't want to be courageous, prudent, wise, etc.—to possess thess qualities in general.

Plus, I feel like courage is the easiest one to make this sort of example for because it involves our response to danger. It's harder to think of common examples where it would be better to be profligate or avaricious, as opposed to generous, or either gluttonous/lustful or anhedonic/sterile as opposed to temperate.

The difficulty of looking at isolated scenarios is the ubiquitous influence of fortune and the unknown. For consequentialists, there is the rape that leads to the conception of the person who invents technologies that remove our reliance on fossil fuels, saving millions from global warming related deaths and preventing several wars. Or the child who is murdered who would otherwise become the next Hitler or Stalin. Or the "life saving" technology developed with the best intentions that ends up harming millions. The same sorts of issues hold true for rules. You either have preverse counter-examples or else create rules so broad and immune to the viccistiudes of fortune and our own ignorance that they are completely unhelpful (e.g. "always choose the better over the worse.")

Fortune and misfortune—error and ignorance, these always play a large role in our lives. Yet the virtuous person is best able to weather them, just as the virtuous state is best able to, be it through better fostering technological advancement, being able to better defend itself, or being more immune to political turmoil and economic disruptions (e.g., people do not tend to revolt against states they love and enjoy and systems they have "bought into"). And of course it's better for individuals, organizations, and states to live in a more virtuous world.

↪Chet Hawkins I don't think I've taken up a side of chaos or wallowing -- just the same old boring technique of reading the books, thinking about them, talking about them with others, and rethinking about them, and retalking about them, and . . . :D — Moliere

As yes well, I feel apologies are in order. Sorry if I offended.

We are, all of us, prone to orderly ruts, even the chaos-apologists. For me, the interesting thing is how this emotive stacking is within each person, each chooser. As the frequency of the wave between order and chaos increases the complexity and possible wisdom increase (the most folds approaching a theoretical all folds included state).

It can be confusing when assessment of these tendencies runs afoul of the folds. The chooser points to an inner fold as evidence that they are not primarily guided by the outer fold. But I labor under the impression that the choice in outer fold still has a primary or controlling influence. It can be indeed, quite subtle. I mean, really, there could never be a singular or integrated reason that academics are drawn to the same sorts of conclusions, group together, think and rethink tasks, right? The second fold of desire being pretentious image-consciousness, chaos, is a clever non-defense of the overriding order that is nonetheless present. This second fold allows orderly types to feel as if they are being varied in their approach. But the real variation is external to that scenario, found in the general population that is not indulging their order fixation. Of course this is only a theory.

It is always to your benefit to be courageous for the GOOD.
It is always to your benefit to allow for the possibility of any death for the GOOD.

The difficulty or argument is only in what constitutes the GOOD.

Is that finally something that is objective or subjective?

We can try to differentiate or reduce further. Perhaps the GOOD is defined as effort towards an ideal. The subjective nature comes in amid the process of choosing the ideal. But this steers then away from objective morality by allowing for the chooser to choose the ideal.

What is the evidence, if any, of a choice that was made more objectively correct? This would be a choice that would then support the idea or ideal of an objective GOOD, eliminating point of view or subjectivity as ... well ... irrational.

I submit to you that such evidence does exists and can be measured at least in a repeatable way. That evidence is happiness. This concept, happiness, is not easy to define or understand.

Although this post is attempting to lend credence in belief towards objective morality, we must needs address the reason that the POV delusion of subjectivity exists in the first place. These two efforts, explaining happiness and the delusion of POV, are accomplished at the same time.

What is GOOD? On some level there are different things that seem to all be GOOD. We colloquially and historically refer to these things as virtues. But WITHIN each virtue there is a failing chance and a success chance. This MUST be true if morality is objective. One might assert circular reasoning to this argument or even something akin to confirmation bias. So, does that mean circles are wrong in some way? Are circles possessed of any virtues? So, lets pay attention to a 'what if'. What if there is an exception to the rule of circular reasoning? What if every circle is wrong except the one right one?

Where is this babble going? What is GOOD was the start of the last set of thoughts. It's a collection of virtues was the main thrust offered. OK, so these virtues then are like points of view. And there was earlier an assertion that points of view are all wrong, subjective, when we are trying to aim at objectivity. But there was also the exception. There is one POV that is right, perfect, the exception. THAT is the GOOD. The GOOD shines out as the least probable thing, the exception to every rule. This is its dangerous and combative truth with the other virtues.

Each virtue struggles on its own to be worthy, a part of perfection. But left to their own devices the virtues fail as singular thematic concentrated points of view. They are far more error than they are right. But remember that in one case they do intersect with what is right, perfection, the GOOD. This point causes great confusion. The "betting man's" Pragmatists assert safe probable 'truths' in the name of their point of view, not realizing that this safety delusion is cowardice born of fear, their pov error. Outside of this rigorous ATTEMPT at certainty lies a whole realm of indulgence in various pov errors. That is the realm of desire, of chaos.

The union and balance of these two polarities is indicative of the GOOD, of wisdom, as the middle path. Notice how my original statements are made with the exception of the GOOD included. THAT is why I did that. If the GOOD is objective, one MUST say such statements in such a way.

But that still leaves us with the evidence and the whole 'burden of proof' issue. Well, the need for certainty IS cowardice, as mentioned. But that need can serve us if we do not wholly surrender to its erroneous aims. We have to surrender only in the case of the exception of GOOD. It is the hardest thing anyone can do (a moral act or choice).

So, what is the evidence. I mentioned happiness. But cynics of feather would be right to begin flapping their wings in agitation that happiness seems often to be wrongly felt. Why is that? The emotional math is actually simple and it mirrors exactly the limit condition of all virtues. As we pursue a virtue is offers us what IT ALONE considers the consequence of happiness. And THAT happiness, that sub-form of it, is of course a part of the greater overall happiness of objective GOOD, the exceptional GOOD. Think about it. If the chooser has not experienced the happiness elements or contributions of other virtues, those virtues can be subtly downplayed. This is THE essence of immoral choice. Both under and over expression of virtues OUT OF BALANCE with all other virtues, is immoral. There is only one single path of actual exceptional GOOD leading to the concept and the instantiation of perfection itself.

We ignore the MUST of the exceptional GOOD (objective moral truth) at our peril.

↪Joshs

You often raise this strawman. I don't see anyone thinking that Hitler self-consciously believed himself to be evil. The example of Hitler is often raised for the opposite reason: the self-righteous are not always righteous. — Leontiskos

You mean they know not what they do?

OK, it's a sort of genealogy of ethics. As such, it's foreign to the questions of ethics as I understand them, but I appreciate your laying out your point of view for me.

Two is a false premise — Count Timothy von Icarus

Okay, but how so? What is a counterexample?

(And note that in following @J's argumentation I perhaps should have italicized "your". He is emphasizing personal gain or benefit.)

In general, it is better to be courageous than reckless or cowardly. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Right, and I agree that our way of doing ethics now puts too much emphasis on exceptional cases, but Socrates' hemlock is still an interesting example. Socrates dies willingly. Fortune does not intervene in an unanticipated way. On the contrary, Socrates probably foresaw his end a long way off.

Plus, I feel like courage is the easiest one to make this sort of example for because it involves our response to danger. It's harder to think of common examples where it would be better to be profligate or avaricious, as opposed to generous, or either gluttonous/lustful or anhedonic/sterile as opposed to temperate. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I can think of some, but my argument is unique insofar as it involves death. If you could find another virtue that is capable of causing death you could run a similar argument.