Flourishing Bodies: Disability, Virtue, Happiness

230 Pages·2014·1.17 MB·English

Flourishing Bodies: Disability, Virtue,
Happiness
Author: Elizabeth Bowie-Sexton Purcell
Persistent link: http://hdl.handle.net/2345/3040
This work is posted on eScholarship@BC,
Boston College University Libraries.
Boston College Electronic Thesis or Dissertation, 2013
Copyright is held by the author, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted.
Boston College
The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Department of Philosophy

FLOURISHING BODIES:
DISABILITY, VIRTUE, HAPPINESS
a dissertation
by

ELIZABETH B. PURCELL

submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy

May, 2013
© copyright by ELIZABETH BOWIE-SEXTON PURCELL
2013
Abstract
Flourishing Bodies: Disability, Virtue, Happiness
Elizabeth B. Purcell
Advisor: Dr. Richard Kearney

The pursuit of living a good and moral life has been a longstanding ideal of philosophy,
an ideal that dates back to the writings of Plato, and more specifically, Aristotle. This
ideal establishes that a good life as a happy and flourishing life is pursued by developing
the right motives and the right character. And in order to live this life, one must, then,
develop a virtuous character, i.e., be a virtuous person, who desires the good. Finally, in
the pursuit of the good, one must not do so alone; rather, one should pursue the virtuous
life with others, i.e., friends, because they enhance our ability to think and to act. This
specific position which is taken up by Aristotelian virtue ethics, however, has recently
come under scrutiny by certain studies in social psychology. Particularly, the concept of
character has been discredited by empirical studies. Furthermore, the classic model of the
virtuous person has assumed only persons with able-bodies. As a result of these two
criticisms, Aristotelian virtue ethics has been discredited as a fantasy ethics available for
only a few to achieve.
The principle aim of this dissertation is to develop and defend an account of
Aristotelian virtue ethics which is grounded in empirical psychology and enables people
with disabilities to flourish as moral exemplars within a society. The value of virtue and
character for ethical debate is imperative for human happiness within moral life. Instead
of happiness being something an individual strives to acquire or feel, Aristotelian virtue
ethicists have argued that true happiness is human flourishing. In other words, in order to
be happy, humans should focus not just on what it is good to do, but also, and more
importantly, focus on who it is good to be. To live a good life, then, it is necessary that
one is a good person, or has a good character. Thus, to acquire virtues such as charity,
benevolence, honesty, and generosity and to shun vices such as dishonesty, cruelty, or
stinginess, is the task, Aristotelian virtue ethicists have argued, that leads to eudaimonia,
i.e., human flourishing. The person who has acquired virtuous character traits, then, is the
person who is most happy in life.
However, the attempt to understand human happiness as a result of a virtuous
character has become vulnerable to criticism from philosophical positions grounded in
empirical psychology and disability theory. In light of the charge that virtue ethics is a
fantasy ethics, many philosophers argue that Aristotelian virtue ethics should be
abandoned because it is an ethics with little or no scientific basis. In my defense of
Aristotelian virtue ethics, I first address the objection that Aristotelian virtue ethics is a
"fantasy ethics" which has no grounding in empirical psychology, and thus, as a result,
should not be used for moral theory. This objection has been put forth by certain
"Situationist" philosophers, who cite psychological studies which demonstrate that the
idea of a virtue as a "global character trait" is something that humans do not actually, or
very rarely, possess. This objection to Aristotelian virtue ethics has dealt a devastating
blow. In response to this objection, philosopher Nancy Snow has mounted a defense of
Aristotelian virtue ethics which is grounded in empirical psychology.
Snow's defense, though superficially appealing, has two intractable problems. I
address the failure of her proposal in Chapter One: The Problem of Virtue as Social
Intelligence. The first problem Snow faces concerns her use of CAPS as a method for
virtue ethics to be used throughout life. I call this problem the longitudinality problem,
which argues that Snow’s proposal for the constancy of virtue for longer than a period of
six weeks is overreaching. The second problem Snow faces concerns her reliance on
virtue as social intelligence for the actual achievement of being virtuous in daily living.
This problem turns on the empirical criteria for what makes a person capable of virtuous
action and I call this problem the exclusivity problem, which excludes people with
“Autism” form being virtuous.
As an alternative to Snow's account, I begin my defense of Aristotelian virtue
ethics by developing the following account of empirical virtue based on a narrative
identity which desires and actively pursues the good in life-long striving. This moral
desire is encouraged through the shared dialogue of virtuous caregiving, which enables a
moral novice to flourish and grow into a moral expert. This pursuit of the good enables
everyone to flourish and incorporates insights from disability, embodied cognition and
social psychology.
To accomplish this task, I begin with an examination of the first of two
foundational components of character, i.e., the four processing levels of CAPS theory in
Chapter Two: Moral Perception. Although CAPS theory provides a solid beginning for
an account of virtue, it is not a sustainable theory throughout life. This theory of social-
cognitive moral psychology needs to be supplemented by developmental moral
psychology. CAPS theory also assumes the individual's perspective in the dynamic
interaction between situation and character. It assumes a person's intentions, and this
assumption of intentionality - desires, intentions, and beliefs - assumes a person's
embodiment in that situation. In other words, CAPS theory assumes lived embodiment.
In this chapter, I turn to the method of phenomenology used by both psychologists and
philosophers of embodied cognition to account for the moral "interpretation of the
situation" experienced by people with illness or impairment.
As a complimentary to CAPS and the second foundational component for
character, certain moral psychologists have argued for the narrative development of
Event Representations for virtuous character. This development begins with the shared
dialogue of the caregiver and dependent asking the dependent to recall events which have
just occurred. In this practice, the caregiver's aim is to help the dependent form memories
and incorporate those memories into the creation of a narrative identity. In Chapter
Three: Representations of Moral Events, I extend the caring relation to this practice of
shared dialogue to incorporate certain forms of intellectual disability, such as “Autism”
and Alzheimer’s disease. To accomplish this, I incorporate the roles of narrative and trust
in order to construct the relation of dependency and interdependency as trusting co-
authorship rather than reciprocal capability. After establishing the importance of the
caregiver in the development of one’s narrative identity, I employ the life narrative
longitudinal psychological approach to moral development as a structure for the moral
event representations and schemas guided by the caregiver. Finally, I argue that the co-
authorship of one’s life story animates one’s moral desire for the good and as a result,
leads to the development of interdependent virtues.
In Chapter Four: Moral Self-Coherence through Personal Strivings, I examine
the importance of personal strivings for a sense of lived self-coherence for character over
time. My argument is that our personal strivings are unified by the life story which
animates and directs those strivings throughout our lives. Although our personal strivings
may be altered or deterred due to life transitions including accident, illness, and
“disabling injury,” they still retain a sense of unity through our overarching life story. It
is this narrative which gives unity to both our psychological intentions and bodily
intentions, even when they are experienced as a phenomenally lived dualism due to
illness, stroke, or impairment. In order to make my argument, I examine ten case studies
from medical patients. I argue that our personal strivings toward the good guide our
growth of character from a moral novice to become a moral expert.
In Chapter Five: Flourishing Bodies, I develop an empirically grounded model of
a virtuous character which begins with interdependent virtues and eventually grows into
independent virtues. To do this, I draw on the two foundational components of character:
CAPS theory and event representations. From the caring relation and shared dialogue of
the caregiver, an individual begins to develop basic moral schemas, tasks, and scripts.
This is when the individual is a moral novice. As the novice pursues excellences in these
practices, the novice grows into a moral expert according to those virtues and becomes
virtuously independent. The moral expert, unlike the moral novice, executes virtuous
action with ease. Having acquired skills of virtue and knowledge, the moral expert knows
the right thing to do at the right time and does so with the right reasons.
MacIntyre, however, acknowledged the limit of ethics and turned to politics to
address specific needs for people with disabilities such as care, financial support,
educational support, and political proxy. The purpose of the final chapter, The Virtue-
Oriented Politics of Interdependence, is to follow MacIntyre’s endeavor and to propose a
virtue-oriented politics of interdependence as an initial solution. First, I examine the
various forms of oppression facing people with disabilities in society. In order to address
these forms of oppression for people with disabilities, I argue that a shift in the central
component of a political framework is needed. Instead of focusing on distribution or
recognition, one should focus on education in the broad sense.
In conclusion of my dissertation, The Fragility of Virtue, I provide a perspective
of our human condition that is a vulnerable one. In this final section, I discuss the role of
our collective vulnerability and the fragility of human goodness with regard to illness and
impairment. And that our interdependence is strengthened through the virtue of
friendship. I finish with a proposal of the role of sacrifice as a way to reconcile the
pursuit of a flourishing life in the face of our own fragility.
In loving memory of
Elizabeth Rangel Vargas