Julia Annas: Being Virtuous and Doing the Right Thing

question 7

Essay

Julia Annas: Being Virtuous and Doing the Right Thing
In "Moral Worth," Nomy Arpaly examines a familiar fact of moral life: sometimes the performance of a morally good action does not receive moral praise. For example, we praise the person who acts charitably out of compassion but not the person who donates simply at the advice of his accountant. Although both of these actions are morally desirable-giving to charity is, after all, a morally good thing to do-they differ in what Arpaly calls moral worth. The moral worth of an action, according to Arpaly, is the extent to which an agent deserves praise or blame for performing the action.
On Arpaly's analysis, moral worth is first and foremost a matter of an agent's reasons for acting. Agents are praiseworthy for performing morally good actions when they do so on the basis of morally relevant reasons. Arpaly is quick to point out that doing the right thing for the relevant moral reason is not the same as acting from duty, that is, a desire or interest to perform one's moral duty. This is because we can imagine a case in which an agent is concerned to do his duty and succeeds in doing so, but because of a mistaken view of morality, acts on the basis of morally irrelevant reasons. Arpaly also points out that acting on the basis of morally relevant reasons does not require having correct moral beliefs and uses the case of Huckleberry Finn as an illustration. Huck believes-incorrectly-that helping Jim escape from slavery is morally wrong. But in an instance of inverse akrasia, Huck does the right thing and helps Jim regardless. According to Arpaly, Huck is praiseworthy because despite his flawed moral beliefs, his actions can be interpreted as having been moved by morally relevant features of his situation, such as Jim's personhood.
Arpaly next considers when an agent is blameworthy for doing the wrong thing. As before, Arpaly's analysis turns on the motivations of the agent. If an agent performs a morally bad action on the basis of something manifestly immoral, such as a desire to inflict suffering, then she is clearly blameworthy. Agents are also blameworthy-although less so-when they act wrongly because of insufficient responsiveness to moral reasons. As this analysis makes clear, moral worth is a matter of degree on Arpaly's view. According to Arpaly's analysis, an agent is more praiseworthy the stronger the moral concern that lead to his or her action. Conversely, agents are more blameworthy the greater their indifference to moral reasons and greater still when they act from ill will.
-Why can Huckleberry Finn's actions toward Jim be considered morally praiseworthy according to Arpaly's analysis? Do you agree with Arpaly's analysis? Why or why not?

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