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Moral Virtue in the Twenty-First Century1
Thomas Kiefer
Abstract:
Ethical concerns about policing, immigration, and security have recently sparked renewed national
debates and even protests centered on xenophobia. The causes of such problems are often complex,
nuanced, and structural. But recent research suggests they have a common basis in the psychological
predispositions to form implicit biases and hold negative stereotypes. Counteracting these
predispositions requires a framework for understanding why they exist in the first place, which is
often left out of ethical accounts. In this essay I provide a framework for identifying and justifying
the moral virtues required to meet the ethical challenges posed by twenty-first century societies. This
account updates an Aristotelian understanding of moral virtue through reference to recent findings
in evolutionary biology. Due to certain changes in social settings, we are presented with unique
moral challenges that can only be met through the cultivation of specific moral virtues concerned
with cooperation and the avoidance of moral vices concerns with conflict.
Categories: Ethics, Evolutionary Biology, Virtue Ethics, Metaethics, Social Issues
0. Introduction
Ethical concerns about policing, immigration, and security have recently sparked renewed national
debates and even protests centered around xenophobia, especially on college campuses. The causes
of such problems are often complex, nuanced, and structural. But recent research suggests they have
a common basis in the psychological predispositions to form implicit biases and hold negative
stereotypes.2 Acknowledging this is an important part of addressing these ethical concerns. But
counteracting these predispositions requires a framework for understanding why they exist in the
first place, which is often left out of ethical accounts. As an increasing number of human beings live
in or near large urban centers, we are now tasked with coping with an unprecedented level of
diversity, impersonality, and complexity.
In this essay I provide a framework for identifying and justifying the moral virtues required
to meet the ethical challenges posed by twenty-first century societies. This account updates an
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This is a shortened version of the essay.
Banaji and Hardin (1996), Kelly and Roedder (2008), Nosek, et al. (2010), Brownstein and Madva (2012).
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Aristotelian understanding of moral virtue through reference to recent findings in evolutionary
biology. I argue that moral virtues should be understood as adaptive forms of evolved psychological
predispositions towards cooperating with others that we can identify through the social use of
rationality. I then show that due to certain changes in our social settings we are presented with
unique moral challenges that can only be met through the cultivation of specific moral virtues
concerned with cooperation and the avoidance of specific moral vices concerned with conflict. To
the extent that our ancestors evolved in small groups consisting of closely related bands of ingroup
kin, we are now predisposed psychologically to form implicit biases and hold negative stereotypes
about those who appear to be in an outgroup, whether real or imagined.3 Even if at one point it was
adaptive to be skeptical of strangers based on characteristics such as belief and appearance, this
tendency today can lead to maladaptive behaviors in contemporary societies in the form of the
moral vices of suspicion, hatred, and conflict.4 I update two primary virtues required to live a moral
life in light of the ethical problems posed by today’s social environments: temperance and justice.
Temperance and justice can be understood as adaptive forms of other-directed self-control and
beneficence, respectively. These are not the only moral virtues, but they are among the most
important and concern basic requirements of helping and not harming others.
1. Aristotelian Virtue for the Twenty-First Century
Recent findings in evolutionary biology can fill the gaps that open up in the Aristotelian
account of virtue after rejecting the specifics of his metaphysics. 5 Today we are in a position to
Fishbein (1996), Schaller and Conway (1999), Fiske (2000), Hirschfeld (2001), Hammond and Axelrod (2006), Fu, et al.
(2012).
4 I use ‘if’ and ‘can’ here to highlight that there is no necessary adaptive effect of these predispositions independent of
the environmental context and ingroup favoritism does not in each case result in outgroup fear or hatred as such (see
Brewer 1999).
5 The latter half of the 20th century saw a renewed interest in virtue as an approach to ethics, which required justifying
its central ideas against modern and contemporary critiques. Perhaps the largest concern since the rise of modern
philosophy has been the charge that the account requires a metaphysical framework that cannot be reconciled with
recent scientific discoveries. The connection between eudemonia, reason, virtue, and human nature appears to rest on an
appeal to things like final ends, special kinds of causation, fixed essences, and teleological purposes inherent in the nature
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explain this relationship without an appeal to final ends, special kinds of causation, fixed essences, or
teleological purposes inherent in reality. As a result of the discoveries of organic chemistry and
evolutionary biology, we now know that living beings result from physio-chemical processes and the
particular features of different organisms result from evolutionary developments known as
adaptations by way of natural selection.6 This explains both how life is able to develop in a world of
mostly inanimate matter without recourse to vital principles, spontaneous generation, or overarching
teleology, while accounting for why different organisms appear tailor-made for their respective
environments by way of specific functions or characteristic activities. Through an appeal to
evolutionary biology we can also now vindicate a form of the function argument. The function
argument is met with such skepticism because it is not clear how things can have functions apart
from the way in which they are instrumentally used for human purposes.
We must first restrict our focus to life because it is the only kind of naturally-occurring thing
with characteristic activities, specifically as a self-replicating system capable of survival and
reproduction.7 To understand what living beings are, we must refer to the functions that distinguish
them from non-living entities (e.g., activities such as growth, development, response to stimuli,
homeostasis, etc.). By defining a living being according to its biological functions, we can apply
virtue to it in general as an excellence in surviving and reproducing. For instance, a fern that is able
of reality, but not found in contemporary physics or biology, at least not in the same manner. The most prominent neoAristotelians have attempted to defend virtue without this metaphysical appeal. But without this appeal, it becomes
unclear how we can properly identify virtue without assuming some relevant understanding of human nature and its
characteristic activities.5 And even if this is possible, the question of the kind of moral psychology that justifies the
rational basis for claims about moral virtue in an explanatorily satisfying manner appears to remain open. This is often
attributed to Anscombe (1958)’s critique of religious morality, and in turn, both the deontological and utilitarian use of
the language of moral obligation. Descartes and Bacon had undermined the ancient and medieval essentialism upon
which appeals to eudaimonia, rationality, and a fundamental human nature were based. If any appeal to virtue was to
survive, it would have to be based in the philosophical subject. There is debate about the necessity of teleological
language in biology (Nissen 1997). But in either case the use of teleological language is not meant to signal a larger
metaphysical claim about purposes inherent in reality.
6 Garvey (2007).
7 Although there are non-living things in the universe that can be described as systems, such as the solar system, living
systems are the only kinds of naturally-occurring things that act in such a way as to preserve themselves over time based
on what they are. Contrary to living systems, the solar system results from the relative position of planets around the sun
due to gravity, which has no internal mechanism(s) for maintaining these positions through certain activities.
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to survive and reproduce well exhibits the virtues or excellencies of a living system, whereas one that
is unable to take in water, turn sunlight in to useable energy, produce spores, or absorb nutrients
from the soil exhibits numerous vices or defects.8 The same reasoning applies to any organism as a
living system and accounts for the connection between a living thing’s nature and the ability to use
terms like ‘virtue’ and ‘vice’ to simultaneously describe and evaluate it relative to how it would
function based solely on its nature and apart from contingencies.9
This accounts for virtue as applied to life in general, but to explain species-specific virtues
we must refer to the particular way a living being survives and reproduces as a result of its
evolutionary lineage. Organisms do not simply survive and reproduce in general, but do so in
specific ways based on developments that evolve over time through random genetic mutations and
differential rates of reproductive success in an environment. These are known as biological
adaptations.10 The function of an adaptation explains why the adaptation developed and was
naturally selected for, rather than being selected of incidentally (e.g., the heart’s pumping of blood
compared to the sound of its beating).11 This distinction prevents reference to functions from
devolving in to ‘just-so’ stories that are trivially true. For a clear example, consider the emperor
penguin, which as a result of its evolutionary lineage, has specific adaptations that enable it to
survive and reproduce in the harsh climate of Antarctica, including thick feathers, a layer of sub-
Moran (2009).
Based on what it is, a fern ought to be able to survive and reproduce as such and by exhibiting certain virtues, which
are here strictly non-moral excellences. If the fern cannot, we correctly infer that something has gone wrong and there
must be some form of internal defect or external interference. This in turn bypasses concerns about Hume’s Law by
identifying certain descriptive ‘is’ statements with prescriptive ‘ought’ statements, such that in the premises and not only
in the conclusion do we find normativity.
10 Dobzhansky (1970), Sober (1984), (2006).
11 For any given adaptation A we can identify its proper function E by isolating the way in which it increases the
likelihood of reproductive success R by bringing about E. Millikan (1984), (2001). There is debate around the exact
nature of biological adaptations and their proper functions, whether an etiological or selection-history based method is
required or whether a systems approach is sufficient (see McLaughlin 2001 and Ariew, Cummins, Perlan 2002). This
technical issue is largely outside the scope of this essay, apart from noting that there are things that can be relevantly
referred to as ‘proper’ functions, regardless of exactly why this is the case. Sober (1984). Incidental selection would mean
the byproduct of selection, a spandrel, or the piggy-backing on a trait that directly confers fitness.
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dermal fat, thermoregulation, and adaptations that permit deep diving, among others.12 These
developments in the nature of the emperor penguin explain why it is able to survive and reproduce
in a particular way through characteristic activities that differ from other species of organism and
even other birds.
A focus on adaptations allows for a more fine-grained form of virtue and vice owing to
excellencies and deficiencies in the function of biological adaptations. This vindicates reference to
the virtue of an eye, heart, or limb, which becomes intelligible once we understand that organs,
limbs, and the systems of which they are a part effectively serve as instruments that facilitate the
primary functions of survival and reproduction by producing certain behaviors in normal conditions.
These behaviors then enable the organism to engage with the environment in such a way as to
survive and reproduce and can be evaluated on functional grounds. This vindicates reference to
species-specific virtue claims, such as the virtues of a horse, or human being, by rendering intelligible
claims about excellencies in the characteristic activities brought about by species-specific
adaptations. A good horse is able to run well not only insofar as a human being can use it
instrumentally for riding, but because horses have adaptations that normally enable running of a
certain kind, which allow them to escape predators, find food, and migrate during different times of
the year. Indeed, it is only because horses have such adaptations that human beings can use them to
satisfy the desire to travel, hunt, or farm.
2. Moral Virtue in the Twenty-First Century
The combination of an Aristotelian account of virtue with recent empirical findings opens the door
to reconceiving moral virtue and applying it to today’s ethical challenges. Although we evolved in
such a way as to be able to reason socially, we also evolved with psychological predispositions
toward holding implicit biases and forming stereotypes that predispose us toward features of the
12
Maho (1997).
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physical and social environment.13 It is because of these predispositions that new habits of thought
and action are required to flourish in the social settings we inhabit today, while new obstacles stand
in the way of social cooperation and foment social conflict.
By considering morality as a biological adaptation in human beings, we discover that moral
virtues are excellencies in other-directed forms of feeling and action. Aristotle recognized that
human beings are social animals,14 but this is true for other social organisms such as many mammals,
birds, and eusocial insects such as ants, termites, and bees. The difference is that human beings are
complex enough to exhibit their own individual needs, desires, and goals that can effectively come
apart from those of other members of the social group and come together through certain prosocial
thoughts, feelings, and actions. In the small social groups in which morality evolved, groups
consisting of nomadic bands of genetically-related kin, interests coming apart would have the
maladaptive effect of preventing mutual aid and collective action, with a detrimental effect on the
aggregate fitness of the individual members. Only through certain psychological dispositions that
induce an individual to not only reason in relation to others but identify with and act on behalf of
group members, which normally consists of helping and not harming them in certain adaptive
contexts, is the likelihood of this possibility decreased. These dispositions are moral virtues or
adaptive developments of psychological predispositions we have toward cooperation.15
Haselton (2006).
Aristotle recognizes the social nature of human being elsewhere, specifically in the Politics, but he develops and justifies
moral virtue in the Nicomachean Ethics in relation to what is fine and noble for the virtuous agent as an individual in terms
of flourishing.
15 Importantly, understanding moral virtue in this way does not mean that what is moral is whatever results in survival
and reproduction directly. The individual who survives and reproduces the most, even at the cost of her close friends
and family, would surely not therefore be the most morally virtuous. In contrast, some of the starkest examples of heroic
action in human life result when an individual sacrifices her life for the sake of others, which clearly removes the chances
of the likelihood of continued survival and reproduction. Morality only indirectly increases the likelihood of reproductive
fitness in normal conditions, it does not guarantee it. That is, what is morally virtuous and vicious does not depend on
whether survival and reproduction actually occurs, just as running well or adaptively does not guarantee reproductive
success for the horse. Additionally, even though morality evolved by enabling early humans to cooperate with
genetically-related kin, moral virtue and vice deal with what is cooperative and uncooperative as such; and thus do not
apply only to those we are related to but anyone with whom we are able to socially interact.
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Within this framework for understanding virtue, we can identify two specific excellencies
that are important for adaptive human behavior in every possible social setting to some degree,
temperance and justice. Temperance and justice are not the only two moral virtues, but many of the
others can be understood along the lines of specific kinds of other-directed forms of self-control
and beneficence, such as the moral aspects of courage, honesty, generosity, and friendliness, etc.
The moral virtue of temperance (sophrosyne) aligns with other-directed forms of self-control.
Social cooperation requires moral agents to not only be disposed to control their thoughts and
actions in relation to others through social rationality, especially when they otherwise could take
advantage, but to enjoy it as well. A social group wherein its members were unable or unwilling to
exhibit other-directed forms of self-control would suffer form social conflict, and result in a
decreased likelihood of the continued survival and reproduction of its members. In the small setting
in which human morality evolved, it was not possible for group members to be completely
intemperate and remain a functional group, at least not to a large degree or as a general rule. Indeed,
this is likely why every known human society has specific rules, norms, and forms of habituation to
promote temperance in its members.16 As an excellence in social rationality, this concerns how we
rationally guide our feelings and actions in relation to others, rather simply having no feelings or
desires the satisfaction of which would be uncooperative. Rather, it concerns a habituated ability to
channel these desires in to adaptive outlets by satisfying them in a cooperative way in relation to
others.
In addition to temperance, a second important moral virtue is justice (dike), which in this
context refers to interpersonal forms of fairness, an other-directed form of beneficence. Just as
cooperation requires moral agents to be disposed to control their thoughts and actions through
temperance, cooperation requires a disposition to benefit others in certain situations, such as sharing
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Krebs (2011).
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and aiding another in danger. A social group wherein its members were wholly unable or willing to
help each other on the basis of perceived fairness, would suffer from social conflict and the
associated decrease in aggregate fitness, especially when it comes to the dangers posed by scarcity,
accident, and the dangers of life. As with temperance, every known human society has rules, norms,
and ways of habituating justice in its members from a young age, where its principles are often
taught in the form of myths, parables, and abstract ideals related to fairness.17 Justice as an excellency
in social rationality in many ways forms the glue that holds human societies together by reasoning
with the interests of others in mind, showing that more is needed than mere coordination, such as
mutual trust, fellow-feeling, and love.
While these two moral virtues are required in every known and possible human society to a
minimal degree, changes in the social settings in which human beings live can present evolutionarily
novel challenges to being virtuous. As human beings evolved by being predisposed toward
cooperation with ingroup members, they also evolved by being predisposed toward suspicion and
even conflict with outgroup members.18 These predispositions do not necessitate conflict today, but
they do predispose us toward making distinctions between ‘us’ and ‘them,’ and incline us to apply
different moral standards owing to perceived group membership based on certain superficial cues.
Such distinctions at one point were likely adaptive, but now present the distinct possibility for
maladaptive forms of thought and action insofar as differences in belief and appearance do not align
with the boundaries of the community or behavioral prediction, and never tracked morally-relevant
distinctions based solely on human differences at all.19
Brown (1991).
Fishbein (1996), Schaller and Conway (1999), Fiske (2000), Hirschfeld (2001), Hammond and Axelrod (2006), De
Dreu, et al. (2011), Fu, et al. (2012). Maintaining trust often required being wary of threats to social integrity in the form
of external incursions, where other human groups often posed lethal dangers similar to non-human predators (Bowles
2009). There was also likely a fair amount of non-hostile interaction occurring as well.
19 Efferson, et al. (2008).
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The diversity of social settings today presents a number of challenges to being virtuous. The
environment in which human morality evolved was much more homogenous than the heterogeneity
we see today. The similarity of ingroup members resulted in psychological predispositions to prefer
those who happen to think or think like us and a suspicion of those who do not, even if in actuality
we inhabit the same social collective. This results in the tendency to form implicit biases and hold
negative stereotypes about those considered to be in an outgroup, which can operate on the level of
those outside one’s family, clique, company, institution, community, nationality, ethnicity, or
religion, to name just a few. This is the evolutionary basis of ethnocentrism, xenophobia as a fear of
the foreign, and the general tendency to Other by not extending social rationality to different
people.20 In the setting in which morality evolved, temperance and justice were relatively easier
when the agent readily identified with each member of the social group and when satisfying one’s
desires at the cost of another or failing to lend aid would be to hurt someone who was part one’s
extended family, and indirectly, oneself. But today there is the potential for a gap to open up
wherein preconceived notions lead us to believe in morally-relevant distinctions that act as excuses
to not exhibit self-control or justice based on the belief that we form different moral communities
and do not owe each other equal moral consideration.
In addition to diversity, the complexity that results from the sheer size of today’s social
settings presents a number of challenges to being virtuous. The vast majority of people now live in
social environments which consist of tens of thousands, if not millions, of people, wherein
interaction occurs between those outside of one’s close friends and family. This applies not only to
occupational or educational settings, but day-to-day interactions like going to the store or walking
down the street. As most of us must now interact with those we are not directly related to, and thus
not interconnected with in the form of a special relationship, it is now easier to fail to be temperate
20
Hammond and Axelrod (2006).
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and just. An agent can now more easily justify satisfying her desires at the detriment of others
because it is not as immediately clear how doing so will cause her or her family members to suffer,
even indirectly. The size of our social settings makes it easier to fail to be just, as it is less clear what
we owe to those we are not directly related to, and given that it is simply not possible to lend aid to
everyone to the same extent and at the same time. It is now possible to overlook the needs of others
in such a way that we simply could not do if the suffering person was our own mother or father.
Finally, the impersonality of our social settings presents a number of challenges to being
morally virtuous today. Whereas in the small societies in which morality evolved human interaction
took place on a persistent face-to-face basis,21 today we are increasingly using technologies that allow
us to live, work, and communicate without this interaction and at times even anonymously. Perhaps
the most relevant example today is the internet, which allows for near instant communication
without seeing or even hearing those who are affected. In terms of temperance, this makes it harder
to control one’s desires in relation to others, especially when there is no clear emotional feedback
that would result from seeing the facial expressions that result from hurtful comments. Now
individuals can say and do things to others impersonally that they likely would not do in person,
including some of the cruelest forms of language, targeting, and harassment. Impersonal technology
can also diminish the urgency of the needs of others while concealing opportunities to lend aid, as it
is more difficult to grasp the importance of being fair to faceless individuals or masses of people
represented by dots on a pixilated screen.
Given such changes and our evolved nature, new habits of thought and action are required
to be virtuous in the social settings of the twenty-first century. We require forms of temperance and
justice updated with the facts of evolution to counteract these psychological predispositions and
channel them in cooperative ways using social rationality. There will be limits to what we are capable
21
Caporael (1997).
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of psychologically, in that it will simply not be possible to treat every individual as if she is a close
friend or family member, and to do so would likely require us to not be sufficiently temperate and
just to those closest to us. But we can establish a baseline, whereby the virtuous agent today does
not take advantage of others and treats each person fairly as an individual. While we cannot
eliminate the predispositions that give rise to xenophobia entirely, we can learn to cope with our
evolved nature over time through virtues that result from habituation, critical reflection, and
education.22 This account is not a substitute for important changes that must occur at the legislative,
organizational, and structural levels to address the ethical issues of today, but it can help make
individuals aware of the need for such changes in the first place.
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