British Journal of Social Work (2002)32, 1015-1036 Virtue ethics and social work Being lucky, Realistic, and not Doing ones Duty Graham McBeath and Stephen A. Webb Graham B McBeath is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Universiry College, Northampton. He writes mainly interdisciplinary work utilizing philosophy, and political and social theory to explore cul nurallpolitical practices such as social work. His current research is on 'boredom and on complex ity and social flows. In the past he has done DH research on the implementation of the Children Act. Other writing on social work ethics has appeared in B/Sw Stephen A Webb is Lecturer in Social Work at the Universiry of Sussex. He is currently writing a book for Palgrave-Macmillan entitled Social Work in Risk Society: Social and Cultural Perspectives. Here he analyses the development and practice of social work as part of the root condition of modern risk society. His other research interests incude evidence-based briefings in children and family work: new information technologies and the caring professions; and social work theory and ethics. orrespondence to Graham McBeath, Department of Sociology and Politics, University College, Northampton, Northants. NN2 7AL, UK. E-mail: graham@spooner. demon. co. uk: Stephen Webb, Centre for Social Policy and Social Work, University of Sussex Falmer, Nr Brighton, Sussex, UK. Few people can hush the small voice that tells us what is night Radio 4.8 October 2000 Summary This article argues that in a complex socio-political world, social work ethics needs to re-cast the moral identity of the social worker in terms of virtue ethics. We review virtue theory's Aristotelian foundations and criticisms of Kantian and utilitarian theory and show how they apply to social work. Subsequently we offer an account of a virtue sed social work that questions the validity of several models of practice currently fashionable. Virtue theory emphasizes the priority of the individual moral agent who has acquired virtues commensurate with the pursuit of a revisable conception of the good life-the well-being of all in a defined community. The virtues are the acquired inner qualities of humans-character-the possession of which, if applied in due meas- ure, will typically contribute to the realization of the good life or 'eudaimonia. The role of the virtuous social worker is shown to be one that necessitates appropriate application of intellectual and practical virtues such as justice, reflection, perception, judgement, bravery, prudence, liberality and temperance. This'self-flourishing'worker, C 2002 British Association of social Work
British Journal of Social Work (2002) 32, 1015–1036 Virtue Ethics and Social Work: Being Lucky, Realistic, and not Doing ones Duty Graham McBeath and Stephen A. Webb Graham B. McBeath is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at University College, Northampton. He writes mainly interdisciplinary work utilizing philosophy, and political and social theory to explore cultural/political practices such as social work. His current research is on ‘boredom’ and on ‘complexity and social flows’. In the past he has done DH research on the implementation of the Children Act. Other writing on social work ethics has appeared in BJSW. Stephen A. Webb is Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Sussex. He is currently writing a book for Palgrave-Macmillan entitled Social Work in Risk Society: Social and Cultural Perspectives. Here he analyses the development and practice of social work as part of the root condition of modern risk society. His other research interests include evidence-based briefings in children and family work; new information technologies and the caring professions; and social work theory and ethics. Correspondence to GrahamMcBeath, Department of Sociology and Politics, University College, Northampton, Northants. NN2 7AL, UK. E-mail: graham@spooner.demon.co.uk; Stephen Webb, Centre for Social Policy and Social Work, University of Sussex, Falmer, Nr Brighton, Sussex, UK. E-mail: s.a.webb@sussex.ac.uk Few people can hush the small voice that tells us what is right. Radio 4, 8 October 2000 Summary This article argues that in a complex socio-political world, social work ethics needs to re-cast the moral identity of the social worker in terms of virtue ethics. We review virtue theory’s Aristotelian foundations and criticisms of Kantian and utilitarian theory and show how they apply to social work. Subsequently we offer an account of a virtuebased social work that questions the validity of several models of practice currently fashionable. Virtue theory emphasizes the priority of the individual moral agent who has acquired virtues commensurate with the pursuit of a revisable conception of the good life—the well-being of all in a defined community. The virtues are the acquired inner qualities of humans—character—the possession of which, if applied in due measure, will typically contribute to the realization of the good life or ‘eudaimonia’. The role of the virtuous social worker is shown to be one that necessitates appropriate application of intellectual and practical virtues such as justice, reflection, perception, judgement, bravery, prudence, liberality and temperance. This ‘self-flourishing’ worker, 2002 British Association of Social Workers
016 Graham McBeath and Stephen A. Webb in bringing together the capacity for theoretical and practical action makes possible a hermeneutic or interpretive praxis best appraised in dialogue with fellow-practitioners and clients. With a social work remit increasingly routinized by accountability, quality control and risk management there is an emphasis on regulation and duties. This has roduced a culture of following approved or typical processes resulting in defensive forms of social work wholly uncongenial to the development of human qualities likely to promote social workers'engagement in critique and revision of what counts as best practice. In sum, our core proposition is that social work practice and education, to fit an unpredictable, non-linear world, should develop means by which professionals nur- ture the virtues. This would reflexively enhance social work itself In this article we will explore the potential of virtue ethics for social work. Rather than fit elements of a virtue ethics literature to aspects of social work practice, we propose to look at the place of social work within a framework of virtue ethics. B this we wish to remind the professional that they play a role in the production and reproduction of the public sphere and have powers to affect the structure of social relations contained therein. However, the notion of being professional carries ideas of closure, competency and control within the relatively determinate universe of a legal-rational administrative or economic systems. The literature on complexity which recognizes the fuid nature of social and institutional relations seems not yet to have been absorbed by social work. If we start from a sceptical thesis that social work interactions and their results are often patterned but not highly predictable--what the complexity literature calls deterministic chaos'(Hayek, 1967; Eve et al., 1997)-then we may have to consider moral action under conditions of uncertainty. However, if we could predict the results of our actions then, under Kantian imperatives or utilitarian calculative reason, we would know what to do morally. These two ethical paradigms prevailing in the social work literature in part hold sway because they fit snugly into--indeed mirror--social work's need to be efficient in terms of procedures and outcomes Such elective affinities entail a moral narrative within the descriptive terms of social work rather than opening up an opportunity for a prescriptive moral ground outside of social work to which social work may have to adapt We wish to argue that social work should recognize that moral agents are constituted by a play of forces which shape the capacity for good (or bad) dement and action. The identity of the moral individual is therefore disposi tional rather than functional, and a result of patterns of experience and under- standing broader than those which may be derived from the ethical dogmas already established in social work. Under these terms any homeostatic view of the social work professional and his environment may be questioned. We try to how that the kind of moral agent best fitted to social work under fluid conditions of a complex social system is that offered by virtue ethics which places emphasis upon judgement, experience, understanding, reflection and disposition. All of this adds up to what we might call the hermeneutic worker--the worker acting within a reflexive-interpretive process of self and other(Gadamer, 1981, pp. 69-139 312-24)
1016 Graham McBeath and Stephen A. Webb in bringing together the capacity for theoretical and practical action makes possible a hermeneutic or interpretive praxis best appraised in dialogue with fellow-practitioners and clients. With a social work remit increasingly routinized by accountability, quality control and risk management there is an emphasis on regulation and duties. This has produced a culture of following approved or typical processes resulting in defensive forms of social work wholly uncongenial to the development of human qualities likely to promote social workers’ engagement in critique and revision of what counts as best practice. In sum, our core proposition is that social work practice and education, to fit an unpredictable, non-linear world, should develop means by which professionals nurture the virtues. This would reflexively enhance social work itself. In this article we will explore the potential of virtue ethics for social work. Rather than fit elements of a virtue ethics literature to aspects of social work practice, we propose to look at the place of social work within a framework of virtue ethics. By this we wish to remind the professional that they play a role in the production and reproduction of the public sphere and have powers to affect the structure of social relations contained therein. However, the notion of being professional carries ideas of closure, competency and control within the relatively determinate universe of a legal-rational administrative or economic systems. The literature on complexity which recognizes the fluid nature of social and institutional relations seems not yet to have been absorbed by social work. If we start froma sceptical thesis that social work interactions and their results are often patterned but not highly predictable—what the complexity literature calls ‘deterministic chaos’ (Hayek, 1967; Eve et al., 1997)—then we may have to consider moral action under conditions of uncertainty. However, if we could predict the results of our actions then, under Kantian imperatives or utilitarian calculative reason, we would know what to do morally. These two ethical paradigms prevailing in the social work literature in part hold sway because they fit snugly into—indeed mirror—social work’s need to be efficient in terms of procedures and outcomes. Such elective affinities entail a moral narrative within the descriptive terms of social work rather than opening up an opportunity for a prescriptive moral ground outside of social work to which social work may have to adapt. We wish to argue that social work should recognize that moral agents are constituted by a play of forces which shape the capacity for good (or bad) judgement and action. The identity of the moral individual is therefore dispositional rather than functional, and a result of patterns of experience and understanding broader than those which may be derived from the ethical dogmas already established in social work. Under these terms any homeostatic view of the social work professional and his environment may be questioned. We try to show that the kind of moral agent best fitted to social work under fluid conditions of a complex social system is that offered by virtue ethics which places emphasis upon judgement, experience, understanding, reflection and disposition. All of this adds up to what we might call the hermeneutic worker—the worker acting within a reflexive-interpretive process of self and other (Gadamer, 1981, pp. 69–139; 1989, pp. 312–24)
Virtue ethics and social Work 1017 The relevance of virtue to ethics in social work Historically, virtue ethics rooted in an account of how a citizen stood to the greek city-state was pre-eminently a theory of the relation between individual character morality and public life. The relevance of such an approach to todays society may rest on the question of how right moral relations can exist between state agencies and clients in terms of the character or 'excellences' of the worker the nature of the organization, and the response of the client. This stands in contrast to the current trend in public agencies, and especially in social services departments(SSD)to engage in defensive decision making. This is a culture of departmental 'battening down of the hatches by doing the least risky option that can be thoroughly accounted for in terms of laid-down procedures and/or deflecting criticism by announcing changes to a purportedly inadequate system. Senior managers have confirmed to us the beyond the UK, certainly to Canada. In British Columbia when Matthew Vaudrieul died, the Gove Inquiry was under enormous pressure to do something in the face of the ensuing scandal. To this end they grabbed at a set of Alaskan risk assessment ocedures that an academic advisor had come across and said was good, and ther posed it upon Canadian professionals irrespective of its efficacy. Thus the right thing was seen to be done, that is inquiry and change to procedures, and most importantly the political pressure was relieved(Craddock, 2001). This may sound familiar In the UK the same political logic is inevitably at work when child protec- tion failures occur, that is to defuse the problem for the authority first. This can lead e bad procedures being put in place as thenever again lobby in association with get up a head of steam. At this point any alternative procedures must be better than the existing ones, and there is no time for careful critical scrutiny. Improvement of work is often cast in terms of updated procedures Their strict application will have positive effect, it is claimed, if workers are adequately supervised. As an aside, Martin Davies and others have suggested that social work is about maintaining societys interests in society; rather it might seem first of all to be about containing sub-system crises However, our point is that the realization of the good society where it connects to social work is too often reduced to a re-negotiation of procedure irrespective of circumstance and human qualities. The Canadian example points up how both Kan- tian and utilitarian forms of reason can be corrupt if applied by persons lacking good will and a broad conception of good life. Politics tells us to act every time to minim ize political costs. If our only context was the SSD then such a course of action would be procedurally right as well as goal maximizing. However, would it be right to live a life and live in a world that is so systemically defensive in character? There would be little room here for the rather dated sounding idea of use of self and by the same token, for the application of a virtue ethics emanating from immanent qualities of persons. Thus our question: can we escape the confines of a Kantian or utilitarian cage of morality by offering a less automated and functional account of the moral conduct of public bodies in terms of the'virtuesof the citizen-worker in
Virtue Ethics and Social Work 1017 The relevance of virtue to ethics in social work Historically, virtue ethics rooted in an account of how a citizen stood to the Greek city-state was pre-eminently a theory of the relation between individual character, morality and public life. The relevance of such an approach to today’s society may rest on the question of how right moral relations can exist between state agencies and clients in terms of the character or ‘excellences’ of the worker, the nature of the organization, and the response of the client. This stands in contrast to the current trend in public agencies, and especially in social services departments (SSD) to engage in defensive decision making. This is a culture of departmental ‘battening down of the hatches’ by doing the least risky option that can be thoroughly accounted for in terms of laid-down procedures and/or deflecting criticism by announcing changes to a purportedly inadequate ‘system’. Senior managers have confirmed to us the presence of this strategy and there is evidence that this extends beyond the UK, certainly to Canada. In British Columbia when Matthew Vaudrieul died, the Gove Inquiry was under enormous pressure to do something in the face of the ensuing scandal. To this end they grabbed at a set of Alaskan risk assessment procedures that an academic advisor had come across and said was good, and then imposed it upon Canadian professionals irrespective of its efficacy. Thus the right thing was seen to be done, that is inquiry and change to procedures, and most importantly the political pressure was relieved (Craddock, 2001). This may sound familiar. In the UK the same political logic is inevitably at work when child protection failures occur, that is to defuse the problemfor the authority first. This can lead to bad procedures being put in place as the ‘never again’ lobby in association with the ‘where’s the report’ lobbies get up a head of steam. At this point any alternative procedures must be better than the existing ones, and there is no time for careful critical scrutiny. Improvement of work is often cast in terms of updated procedures. Their strict application will have positive effect, it is claimed, if workers are adequately supervised. As an aside, Martin Davies and others have suggested that social work is about maintaining society’s interests in society; rather it might seem first of all to be about containing sub-systemcrises. However, our point is that the realization of the good society where it connects to social work is too often reduced to a re-negotiation of procedure irrespective of circumstance and human qualities. The Canadian example points up how both Kantian and utilitarian forms of reason can be corrupt if applied by persons lacking good will and a broad conception of good life. Politics tells us to act every time to minimize political costs. If our only context was the SSD then such a course of action would be procedurally right as well as goal maximizing. However, would it be right to live a life and live in a world that is so systemically defensive in character? There would be little roomhere for the rather dated sounding idea of ‘use of self ’, and, by the same token, for the application of a virtue ethics emanating from immanent qualities of persons. Thus our question: can we escape the confines of a Kantian or utilitarian cage of morality by offering a less automated and functional account of the moral conduct of public bodies in terms of the ‘virtues’ of the citizen-worker in
the delivery of services? If this were achieved it would perhaps chime well with the Major-Blair citizenship ethos that wants to see public servants doing acts not merely by simple rule-following, but because they are persons disposed to do acts well towards others(Major, 1999, ch. 23). Kantian and utilitarian ethics to a degree rely, respectively, upon the mechanical application of rights-claims and adherence to duties, or upon the comparison of nticipated outcomes. Virtue ethics makes foundational the qualities of ones charac- ter which are manifest in ones actions. Taking this along with a claim that virtue is a cultural product, we may see that a virtue-based ethics cultivates through experience, reflection, understanding and judgement a way of "living a good lifein plural social domains. Such an account is clearly within striking distance of an existential pheno- menological approach, but because of the very strong link with Aristotle and ancient Greek philosophy it does not quite connect to the ideas of Sartre or Heidegger(cf Each of us is a citizen who ought to practise good conduct in regard of others as an aspect of being human, and not as a function of ethical or organizational imperat- ives. However, we do not believe that social workers possess some prior unitary concept of the good that they purposefully pursue en bloc each day they go into work. A little ethnography would probably bear this out. A generalized, if somewhat temporary, notion of the good acceptable to the community may result across time from the totality of activities by the SSD--it may make a positive contribution to the social welfare function. The idea, though, that workers have a rational plan for doing good which fits with an established and distinct notion of a common good rather than doing a job consisting of various kinds of actions, many of which are reactions to changing circumstances, invites the comment that this would be a case of the triumph of hope over experience. The pressing question becomes: what account of morality can be given if the link between means and ends is often weak precisely because social work is a contingent non-linear task? How can a worker do good if their world is inconsistent? What price universalizability'of morality under the complex indeterminate world of social work? To reiterate, it is our view that virtue ethics enables us to characterize what it is to be moral in a world subject to frequent revision. To connect a virtue ethics to social wor ne n question thus: what is the relation of morality to experience? Could the latter, in some way, produce the former? To fashion an answer to these questions will involve exploring the links between virtues, their cultivation, judgement and community. Some accounts of virtue ethics make virtues, as intrinsic qualities, logically prior to moral outcomes. Having already argued that the field of social work is complex and variable, we shall try to give being pointless without a prior determination of the goals of human flourishing, aTg g n account of virtue ethics applied to social work which resists the claim of virtu which needs prior value of the poses of action may work inside a discrete social system, for example social services, but this tends to make workers''virtues' functional imperatives of the routines of the organization independent of the broader human question of the good life, and how parts of its development relate to the whole. It may be that social work actually has no need
1018 Graham McBeath and Stephen A. Webb the delivery of services? If this were achieved it would perhaps chime well with the Major-Blair citizenship ethos that wants to see public servants doing acts not merely by simple rule-following, but because they are persons disposed to do acts well towards others (Major, 1999, ch. 23). Kantian and utilitarian ethics to a degree rely, respectively, upon the mechanical application of rights-claims and adherence to duties, or upon the comparison of anticipated outcomes. Virtue ethics makes foundational the qualities of ones character which are manifest in ones actions. Taking this along with a claim that virtue is a cultural product, we may see that a virtue-based ethics cultivates through experience, reflection, understanding and judgement a way of ‘living a good life’ in plural social domains. Such an account is clearly within striking distance of an existential phenomenological approach, but because of the very strong link with Aristotle and ancient Greek philosophy it does not quite connect to the ideas of Sartre or Heidegger (cf. Hodge, 1995). Each of us is a citizen who ought to practise good conduct in regard of others as an aspect of being human, and not as a function of ethical or organizational imperatives. However, we do not believe that social workers possess some prior unitary concept of the good that they purposefully pursue en bloc each day they go into work. A little ethnography would probably bear this out. A generalized, if somewhat temporary, notion of the good acceptable to the community may result across time from the totality of activities by the SSD—it may make a positive contribution to the social welfare function. The idea, though, that workers have a rational plan for doing good which fits with an established and distinct notion of a common good rather than doing a job consisting of various kinds of actions, many of which are reactions to changing circumstances, invites the comment that this would be a case of the triumph of hope over experience. The pressing question becomes: what account of morality can be given if the link between means and ends is often weak precisely because social work is a contingent non-linear task? How can a worker do ‘good’ if their world is inconsistent? What price ‘universalizability’ of morality under the complex indeterminate world of social work? To reiterate, it is our view that virtue ethics enables us to characterize what it is to be moral in a world subject to frequent revision. To connect a virtue ethics to social work one might put the question thus: what is the relation of morality to experience? Could the latter, in some way, produce the former? To fashion an answer to these questions will involve exploring the links between virtues, their cultivation, judgement and community. Some accounts of virtue ethics make virtues, as intrinsic qualities, logically prior to moral outcomes. Having already argued that the field of social work is complex and variable, we shall try to give an account of virtue ethics applied to social work which resists the claimof virtues being pointless without a prior determination of the goals of human flourishing, that is which needs prior value commitments. The point here is that a pre-setting of the purposes of action may work inside a discrete social system, for example social services, but this tends to make workers’ ‘virtues’ functional imperatives of the routines of the organization independent of the broader human question of the good life, and how parts of its development relate to the whole. It may be that social work actually has no need
Virtue ethics and social Work 1019 of an ethical perspective, but inasmuch as this goes against an important strand within the history of olation of th question how ought one to live?', then we should be concerned with bringing our encultured self into a right relation with the social whole. This calls for a genuine ecolo gical perspective that examines the richness of play between the micro-, the meso-and the macro-levels of society. In regard of this, it is a pity that government and educators in the last few years have been so keen on reducing the broader social science elements of vocational training at the same time as there has been talk of reviving"civics'in schools. It was perhaps no accident that the eighteenth-century political economy of Ferguson, Hume and Smith linked an uncertain universe to an analysis of the interac- tion between the political, the economic, the social, the moral and the cultivation of manners (Winch, 1978). The recognition that human behaviour was not causally abso- lute, obliged an emphasis upon evolving the best way of doing things likely to lead to outcomes conducive to the public good. Once more we are led to recognize the signi cance of an analysis in terms of emergent cultural-moral patterns over that of scient ific prediction Everitt and Hardiker (1996) noted that, in the middle 1980s one or two writers in social work began to consider whether an Aristotelian notion of the good, defined in terms of the virtues, might be helpful as a source of ethics in social work. How- ever, such attempts fell stillborn from the presses. None the less these few writers vere to be congratulated for their prescience inasmuch as they were trying to intro- duce a moral theory which was only just being revived by professional philosophers such as Alisdair MacIntyre who saw that his'communitarian political theory was underpinned by virtue theory(MacIntyre, 1981). By the middle 1990s there were still only one or two who were considering virtue as a component of social work ethics, notably Richard Hugman and David Smith(1995), and Sarah Banks(1997/ 2001). That an 'Aristotelian perspective in social work ethics was not taken up was perhaps testimony to the persistent drone of Kantianism and utilitarianism or, out of the depths of the 1970s, a mix of the two(cf CCETSW, 1976)and to the ubiquity of an'ethicsof anti-discrimination which, though pitched at a low level of critical analysis, none the less was given equal status to a higher order moral thinking inspired by Aristotle, Kant and Mill. The easily bought discussion of an ethics of anti-discrimination reduced humanity to narrow sociologically-driven categories of race, gender and disability. What looked like a way into ethical analysis was actually a closing off of discussion as most social workers and students saw the moral obliga tions towards these groups as self-evident and therefore they largely wanted to engage in considerations of practice instead of developing the virtue of providing philosophically informed reasons for action. Social work traditions themselves have dictated the relevance of some ethical bases and not others, and the absence of virtue theory from any of social works history or cognate disciplines in part explains its' continuing absence. The weakness of a rationale for developing a virtue perspective in a discipline other than philo- sophy--and even there it was lacking until the 1980s--has quickly extinguished its first glimmerings. However, in the last few years a virtue literature has been circulat- (Crisp and Slote, 1997; Statman, 1997a)as has a post-Thatcherite political lar
Virtue Ethics and Social Work 1019 of an ethical perspective, but inasmuch as this goes against an important strand within the history of humanity, that is a practical as well as theoretical contemplation of the question ‘how ought one to live?’, then we should be concerned with bringing our encultured self into a right relation with the social whole. This calls for a genuine ecological perspective that examines the richness of play between the micro-, the meso- and the macro-levels of society. In regard of this, it is a pity that government and educators in the last few years have been so keen on reducing the broader social science elements of vocational training at the same time as there has been talk of reviving ‘civics’ in schools. It was perhaps no accident that the eighteenth-century political economy of Ferguson, Hume and Smith linked an uncertain universe to an analysis of the interaction between the political, the economic, the social, the moral and the cultivation of manners (Winch, 1978). The recognition that human behaviour was not causally absolute, obliged an emphasis upon evolving the best way of doing things likely to lead to outcomes conducive to the public good. Once more we are led to recognize the signi- ficance of an analysis in terms of emergent cultural-moral patterns over that of scientific prediction. Everitt and Hardiker (1996) noted that, in the middle 1980s one or two writers in social work began to consider whether an Aristotelian notion of the good, defined in terms of the virtues, might be helpful as a source of ethics in social work. However, such attempts fell stillborn from the presses. None the less these few writers were to be congratulated for their prescience inasmuch as they were trying to introduce a moral theory which was only just being revived by professional philosophers such as Alisdair MacIntyre who saw that his ‘communitarian’ political theory was underpinned by virtue theory (MacIntyre, 1981). By the middle 1990s there were still only one or two who were considering virtue as a component of social work ethics, notably Richard Hugman and David Smith (1995), and Sarah Banks (1997/ 2001). That an ‘Aristotelian’ perspective in social work ethics was not taken up was perhaps testimony to the persistent drone of Kantianism and utilitarianism or, out of the depths of the 1970s, a mix of the two (cf. CCETSW, 1976) and to the ubiquity of an ‘ethics’ of anti-discrimination which, though pitched at a low level of critical analysis, none the less was given equal status to a higher order moral thinking inspired by Aristotle, Kant and Mill. The easily bought discussion of an ethics of anti-discrimination reduced humanity to narrow sociologically-driven categories of race, gender and disability. What looked like a way into ethical analysis was actually a closing off of discussion as most social workers and students saw the moral obligations towards these groups as self-evident and therefore they largely wanted to engage in considerations of practice instead of developing the virtue of providing philosophically informed reasons for action. Social work traditions themselves have dictated the relevance of some ethical bases and not others, and the absence of virtue theory fromany of social works’ history or cognate disciplines in part explains its’ continuing absence. The weakness of a rationale for developing a virtue perspective in a discipline other than philosophy—and even there it was lacking until the 1980s—has quickly extinguished its first glimmerings. However, in the last few years a virtue literature has been circulating (Crisp and Slote, 1997; Statman, 1997a) as has a post-Thatcherite political lan-
1020 Graham McBeath and Stephen A. Webb guage of citizenship, individual responsibility and the idea of a public ethics. Glossy HMSO documents have invoked phrases such as best practice which reflect"inclu- sivist' ideas of participation, commitment and, in effect, the making of a common wealth. If we listen carefully to these statements we may faintly hear a language of virtue that commends the measured comportment of ones qualities of self into form of social relations and the public sphere, and which if cultivated may lead to a moral society The relevance to social work should be fairly clear. Such an ethics gives moral meaning to modes of practice in everyday life whether in personal or professional settings. The practice of virtue developed through experience, reflection and circum spection--is the very stuff of good social work. These situated factors provide cri- teria for a profoundly human moral theory that is not perfectionist in its ambition but rather is defensible in terms of the 'good enough. This is precisely because the ructure of human encounter, of setting, and of policy horizons are variable and dynamic. Only in a static world is perfection possible, and of all worlds the social york world is no utopia. Thus virtue ethics may fit well with a field of activity accountable to time, change, accident and flexibility. Herewith our reasons for giving another outing to this most ancient and contemporary account of moral life. The criticism that a virtue ethics cannot adequately be applied to moral problems of the what ought I to do in this case? type points up a strength for our purposes, namely that at a time when social work aims to become more prescriptive and criteria-lec a theory of moral action rooted in the development of persons-as-subjective-agents is, perhaps, to be welcomed (Louden, 1997, p 184). In this sense, virtue ethics may be seen as partial but revitalizing in its focus upon the virtues of the social worker and not just of the work done. The former should not be isolated from the latter any more than a role can be performed in isolation from the abilities and qualities of the ctor. Doing a task well is not merely a matter of rule-following: expressed in it are the skills and virtues of persons. This point may be used against the mantra of good practice found in training manuals which tend to see the practitioner qua person as a mere cypher. Virtue ethics, then, may not tell us what must be done in this or that case to satisfy an image of social work as a moral enterprise; rather virtue ethics can be used to offer an account of the modes of moral existence shaping the being of a good social worker. More simply then, the basic question is not what is good social work, but rather what is a good social worker? Having sketched out the position of virtue ethics with regard to the history of ethics and social work values and practice, for the rest of this article we propose to outline the character and context of Aristotles notion of virtue to review some of the main contributions to recent work on virtue and then explore some of the ways which these can show how a virtuous disposition can be understood to be at the centre of agency-based social work Aristotelian virtue ethics Essentially, for virtue ethics, a good act is good because it results character that is intrinsically going to perform an action in line with
1020 Graham McBeath and Stephen A. Webb guage of citizenship, individual responsibility and the idea of a public ethics. Glossy HMSO documents have invoked phrases such as ‘best practice’ which reflect ‘inclusivist’ ideas of participation, commitment and, in effect, the making of a commonwealth. If we listen carefully to these statements we may faintly hear a language of virtue that commends the measured comportment of ones qualities of self into forms of social relations and the public sphere, and which if cultivated may lead to a moral society. The relevance to social work should be fairly clear. Such an ethics gives moral meaning to modes of practice in everyday life whether in personal or professional settings. The practice of virtue developed through experience, reflection and circumspection—is the very stuff of good social work. These situated factors provide criteria for a profoundly human moral theory that is not perfectionist in its ambition, but rather is defensible in terms of the ‘good enough’. This is precisely because the structure of human encounter, of setting, and of policy horizons are variable and dynamic. Only in a static world is perfection possible, and of all worlds the social work world is no utopia. Thus virtue ethics may fit well with a field of activity accountable to time, change, accident and flexibility. Herewith our reasons for giving another outing to this most ancient and contemporary account of moral life. The criticism that a virtue ethics cannot adequately be applied to moral problems of the ‘what ought I to do in this case?’ type points up a strength for our purposes, namely that at a time when social work aims to become more prescriptive and criteria-led, a theory of moral action rooted in the development of persons-as-subjective-agents is, perhaps, to be welcomed (Louden, 1997, p.184). In this sense, virtue ethics may be seen as partial but revitalizing in its focus upon the virtues of the social worker and not just of the work done. The former should not be isolated from the latter any more than a role can be performed in isolation from the abilities and qualities of the actor. Doing a task well is not merely a matter of rule-following; expressed in it are the skills and virtues of persons. This point may be used against the mantra of ‘good practice’ found in training manuals which tend to see the practitioner qua person as a mere cypher. Virtue ethics, then, may not tell us what must be done in this or that case to satisfy an image of social work as a moral enterprise; rather virtue ethics can be used to offer an account of the modes of moral existence shaping the being of a good social worker. More simply then, the basic question is not what is good social work, but rather what is a good social worker? Having sketched out the position of virtue ethics with regard to the history of ethics and social work values and practice, for the rest of this article we propose to outline the character and context of Aristotle’s notion of virtue, to review some of the main contributions to recent work on virtue and then explore some of the ways in which these can show how a virtuous disposition can be understood to be at the centre of agency-based social work. Aristotelian virtue ethics Essentially, for virtue ethics, a good act is good because it results froma good character that is intrinsically going to performan action in line with one or more
Virtue ethics and social Work 1021 virtues. Thus the goodness of the act is not a result of the(intended) outcome or of he indexing of ones moral actions by their universalizability and the duty entailed always to act similarly in similar cases. The connection between the actor and the acted upon whether in terms of respect or advantage given to the latter by the former is not of primary concern. It is not that the ends do not matter but that the(intended) result does not make the actor moral. It is rather peculiar to want to suggest that an action or its result, in and of itself, can be good. The goodness of an action lies in persons in a context of moral appraisal and their motivations and dispositions in the execution and aims of their actions. To account for the structure of this process is effect to do a phenomenology of moral action, and this requires scrutiny of the making of the inner self not merely through a psychology, but through the identi- fication of social and cultural factors which shape how the components of the inner life are intricated in the project of being human in the world. And this question exploring the meaning of the good life-the question of the best way to bewas central to plato and aristotle and the hellenic world view Aristotle's notion of the good life placed greater importance upon the collective of the city-state than it did upon the good of the individual. For even if the good of the community coincides with that of the individual. it is clearly a greater and more perfect thing to achieve and preserve that of a ommunity: for while it is desirable to secure what is good in the case of an individual, to do so in the case of a people or a state is something finer and more sublime(Aristotle, 1976, p. 64) Ultimately the interests of the state coincide with the interests of the individual- the well-being of the state is the summum bonum because it promotes the good of all individuals and is the entity which the individual thus aspires to promote and for which he does his best. The reciprocal nature of the relation between the state and e individual requires that good as happiness is a function of the disposition towards certain ways of individual conduct that is the virtues acquired through training and example. To be happy is to act not only in accordance with virtue--to live virtu- ously--but also to have material goods 'throughout a complete life(Aristotle, 1976, p. 84). Human kind is therefore primarily active and practical, and secondarily con- templative. The good life, which all want in their various ways, can only be achieved through participation in the political culture which individuals develop by debating well and acting justly. These are precisely the means by which to improve the structural conditions which in turn improve the conditions of the individual. So the conception of a good life is bound to the practices of the virtuous citizen and the state. At root then, is the good will-the totality of virtuous dispositions the indi- vidual brings into his social and political activity. As we have seen these are matured by forms of education. Here we may quickly note that a good will-the impetus to act well towards an object or goalis the concept Kant appealed to as irreducibly ood when he opened the Groundwork (1785/1948). Identifying the good with a disposition to be good not surprisingly has led many to see that there is more than a whiff of virtue ethics about Kant despite it being widely held that he provided a form of ethical reasoning opposed to that of Aristotle(Sherman, 1997, p. 1; Baron, 1997,§3)
Virtue Ethics and Social Work 1021 virtues. Thus the goodness of the act is not a result of the (intended) outcome or of the indexing of ones moral actions by their universalizability and the duty entailed always to act similarly in similar cases. The connection between the actor and the acted upon whether in terms of respect or advantage given to the latter by the former is not of primary concern. It is not that the ends do not matter but that the (intended) result does not make the actor moral. It is rather peculiar to want to suggest that an action or its result, in and of itself, can be good. The goodness of an action lies in persons in a context of moral appraisal and their motivations and dispositions in the execution and aims of their actions. To account for the structure of this process is in effect to do a phenomenology of moral action, and this requires scrutiny of the making of the inner self not merely through a psychology, but through the identi- fication of social and cultural factors which shape how the components of the inner life are intricated in the project of being human in the world. And this question exploring the meaning of the good life—the question of the best way to be—was central to Plato and Aristotle and the Hellenic world view. Aristotle’s notion of the good life placed greater importance upon the collective of the city-state than it did upon the good of the individual. For even if the good of the community coincides with that of the individual, it is clearly a greater and more perfect thing to achieve and preserve that of a community; for while it is desirable to secure what is good in the case of an individual, to do so in the case of a people or a state is something finer and more sublime (Aristotle, 1976, p. 64). Ultimately the interests of the state coincide with the interests of the individual— the well-being of the state is the summum bonum because it promotes the good of all individuals and is the entity which the individual thus aspires to promote and for which he does his best. The reciprocal nature of the relation between the state and the individual requires that good as happiness is a function of the disposition towards certain ways of individual conduct that is the virtues acquired through training and example. To be happy is to act not only in accordance with virtue—to live virtuously—but also to have material goods ‘throughout a complete life’ (Aristotle, 1976, p. 84). Human kind is therefore primarily active and practical, and secondarily contemplative. The good life, which all want in their various ways, can only be achieved through participation in the political culture which individuals develop by debating well and acting justly. These are precisely the means by which to improve the structural conditions which in turn improve the conditions of the individual. So the conception of a good life is bound to the practices of the virtuous citizen and the state. At root then, is the good will—the totality of virtuous dispositions the individual brings into his social and political activity. As we have seen these are matured by forms of education. Here we may quickly note that a good will—the impetus to act well towards an object or goal—is the concept Kant appealed to as irreducibly good when he opened the Groundwork (1785/1948). Identifying the good with a disposition to be good not surprisingly has led many to see that there is more than a whiff of virtue ethics about Kant despite it being widely held that he provided a formof ethical reasoning opposed to that of Aristotle (Sherman, 1997, p. 1; Baron, 1997, § 3)
1022 Graham McBeath and Stephen A. Webb Aristotle distinguishes between two classes of virtue: intellectual and moral. Under the former fall wisdom, prudence and understanding which are acquired by instruction which needs time and experience which add up to wisdom; under the latter fall into liberality and temperance, which are chiefly acquired by habit and the example of others. However, a virtue can become a vice where there is either a surfeit or deficit of it. with this idea in mind. Aristotle elaborates his well-known doctrine of the mean which has come to be captured in sayings such as you can have too much of a good thing or 'don' t go overboard. He sets out a table of virtues and vices where, in the sphere of social conduct, the virtuous mean would be friendliness, in deficient form would be cantankerousness and in excessive form would be obsequiousness. Thus in Aristotles ethics, to be virtuous is a practice of life which if done well is the process of producing the good life. It requires judge ment of what is a just measure of action commensurable with the situation obtaining, for this is implied by the doctrine of the mean. How such judgement is acquired is tself a socio-cultural product. The relation between the good of the individual and that of the community is bi-conditional Having discussed the context and terms of Aristotle's virtue ethics we should ow turn to exploring post-Aristotelian versions. For our purposes we will only consider work from the last twenty years inasmuch as this work represents a sponse to developments in analytical moral philosophy that have set the paramet of argument in applied ethics in recent times Contemporary virtue ethics' relation to ethical notions in social work Contemporary virtue ethics is a reaction to the pre-dominance of Kantian, utilitarian and meta-ethical theories which concern either giving ethical directives to specific moral problems or defining the meaning of the predicate 'good. Virtue ethics tends to dispense with criteria such as duty, responsibility and ends hitherto deemed essen- tial to justifying actions. Given that our sense of how to evaluate morality is shaped by the dominant discourses of the time, it is not easy to abandon concepts we use Deontological moral discourse rests upon a notion of duty, but it is duty that is abandoned in the face of virtue. a basic argument for this is that if someone says he is doing an act from duty then he is not doing it by reason of an unadulterated will for the sake of the other person, but rather the act is being done for the sake of an abstract obligation. Michael Stocker gives the example of telling someone that one has visited them in hospital because it was ones duty. This carries the implica tion that one did not visit them because one wanted to. In this sense acting from duty is of lesser moral worth than an act done because one purely wanted to. One neither doing the act for oneself or for the other (Stocker, 1997). The same would seem to be true for social work where seeing a client is often done not because we want to see that particular client with a view to doing good for them, but because
1022 Graham McBeath and Stephen A. Webb Aristotle distinguishes between two classes of virtue: intellectual and moral. Under the former fall wisdom, prudence and understanding which are acquired by instruction which needs time and experience which add up to wisdom; under the latter fall into liberality and temperance, which are chiefly acquired by habit and the example of others. However, a virtue can become a vice where there is either a surfeit or deficit of it. With this idea in mind, Aristotle elaborates his well-known doctrine of the mean which has come to be captured in sayings such as ‘you can have too much of a good thing’ or ‘don’t go overboard’. He sets out a table of virtues and vices where, in the sphere of social conduct, the virtuous mean would be friendliness, in deficient formwould be cantankerousness and in excessive form would be obsequiousness. Thus in Aristotle’s ethics, to be virtuous is a practice of life which if done well is the process of producing the good life. It requires judgement of what is a just measure of action commensurable with the situation obtaining, for this is implied by the doctrine of the mean. How such judgement is acquired is itself a socio-cultural product. The relation between the good of the individual and that of the community is bi-conditional. Having discussed the context and terms of Aristotle’s virtue ethics we should now turn to exploring post-Aristotelian versions. For our purposes we will only consider work fromthe last twenty years inasmuch as this work represents a response to developments in analytical moral philosophy that have set the parameters of argument in applied ethics in recent times. Contemporary virtue ethics’ relation to ethical notions in social work Contemporary virtue ethics is a reaction to the pre-dominance of Kantian, utilitarian and meta-ethical theories which concern either giving ethical directives to specific moral problems or defining the meaning of the predicate ‘good’. Virtue ethics tends to dispense with criteria such as duty, responsibility and ends hitherto deemed essential to justifying actions. Given that our sense of how to evaluate morality is shaped by the dominant discourses of the time, it is not easy to abandon concepts we use for everyday moral reasoning. Deontological moral discourse rests upon a notion of duty, but it is duty that is abandoned in the face of virtue. A basic argument for this is that if someone says he is doing an act fromduty then he is not doing it by reason of an unadulterated will for the sake of the other person, but rather the act is being done for the sake of an abstract obligation. Michael Stocker gives the example of telling someone that one has visited themin hospital because it was ones duty. This carries the implication that one did not visit thembecause one wanted to. In this sense acting from duty is of lesser moral worth than an act done because one purely wanted to. One is neither doing the act for oneself or for the other (Stocker, 1997). The same would seemto be true for social work where seeing a client is often done not because we want to see that particular client with a view to doing good for them, but because
Virtue ethics and social work 1023 we have to see them if we are to do our duty as set out by the SSD. This breaks the reflexive of the good life, ones own sel able, and the reasons for acting. With similar implications, Slote runs the argument that if duties have a reference point, it is that of the person for whom a duty is performed and not the performer(Slote, 1997). This Slote identifies as a self-other asymmetry that implies that the moral agent(performer) lacks positive moral worth, and that agents are viewed as mere tools for helping others'(Statman, 1997b, p 5) In social work terms this underlines the not unfamiliar idea that social workers are increasingly becoming technical agents of the efficient distribution of welfare goods and construction of client life-plans(see Giddens, 1991; Ferguson, 2001). Doin mething for the sake of the other person may, at face value, seem to be moral, but it weakens the relation between the agent and the act which is what makes the act moralthe virtuous impulse which carries the agent forth into action. Practically speaking, asserting the irrelevance of a sense of personal moral worth of ones own likely to lead to a loss of mo and collectively. How often, if only anecdotally, has one heard comments from social workers about the lack of regard for what they do? This is not a comn about appraisal of their actions, but about their disappointment over the publics failure to appraise their worth as committed carers in difficult circumstances. They would like to be seen as being good. To decouple act from action would strike at the heart of the psychology of work satisfaction apart from any philosophical point In this way then, the self-other asymmetry argument can reveal the functioning of important values in social work. The two arguments above go to the heart of becoming a social worker. It is quite clear that there is a recruitment problem in social work, but why would one become a social worker today? At one time it was common to appeal to political or religious motivations; people committed to doing the right thing in relation to an ideological conception of the good life. Today the motivations are not so clear. Many perhaps enter the profession in pursuit of a public sector job that is relatively secure, but are also dictated by the consequent set of duties that prioritize social work as a task. This brings into play the self-other asymmetry and thus undermines the celebrated Kantian criterion of treating people as ends and not as means. The social worker who does the task because he or she is obliged--is duty boundto do it once mployed, lacks commitment as a self-responsible being pursuing the good life Supplication to duty leaves the worker without moral identity because heor she is acting for the sake of others, that is for the Ssd or the client. If a social worker does not recognize his or her moral identity and calling, then one may wonder whether such a person ought to do social work at all. We may see here that if we ignore the implications of the Stocker and Slote criticisms of Kantian ethics and gnore the need to reflect upon the idea of the virtuous life, the value of social workers as persons and indeed the value of entering social work, at all, is obscured A third point about deontology is what Bernard Williams(1985) has called the problem of moral luck. This points out that our duties are limited by our abilities such that contingency does not enter into duty based accounts of morality. However, the fact is that our lives are filled with the unpredictable, and affairs over which we
Virtue Ethics and Social Work 1023 we have to see themif we are to do our duty as set out by the SSD. This breaks the reflexive relation between ones expression of the good life, ones own self as valuable, and the reasons for acting. With similar implications, Slote runs the argument that if duties have a reference point, it is that of the person for whoma duty is performed and not the performer (Slote, 1997). This Slote identifies as a self-other asymmetry that implies that the moral agent (performer) lacks positive moral worth, and that ‘agents are viewed as mere tools for helping others’ (Statman, 1997b, p. 5). In social work terms this underlines the not unfamiliar idea that social workers are increasingly becoming technical agents of the efficient distribution of welfare goods and construction of client life-plans (see Giddens, 1991; Ferguson, 2001). Doing something for the sake of the other person may, at face value, seem to be moral, but it weakens the relation between the agent and the act which is what makes the act moral—the virtuous impulse which carries the agent forth into action. Practically speaking, asserting the irrelevance of a sense of personal moral worth of one’s own actions would be dispiriting and be likely to lead to a loss of morale individually and collectively. How often, if only anecdotally, has one heard comments from social workers about the lack of regard for what they do? This is not a comment about appraisal of their actions, but about their disappointment over the publics’ failure to appraise their worth as committed carers in difficult circumstances. They would like to be seen as being good. To decouple act fromaction would strike at the heart of the psychology of work satisfaction apart fromany philosophical point. In this way then, the self-other asymmetry argument can reveal the functioning of important values in social work. The two arguments above go to the heart of becoming a social worker. It is quite clear that there is a recruitment problem in social work, but why would one become a social worker today? At one time it was common to appeal to political or religious motivations; people committed to doing the right thing in relation to an ideological conception of the good life. Today the motivations are not so clear. Many perhaps enter the profession in pursuit of a public sector job that is relatively secure, but are also dictated by the consequent set of duties that prioritize social work as a task. This brings into play the self-other asymmetry and thus undermines the celebrated Kantian criterion of treating people as ends and not as means. The social worker who does the task because he or she is obliged—is duty bound—to do it once employed, lacks commitment as a self-responsible being pursuing the good life. Supplication to duty leaves the worker without moral identity because heor she is acting for the sake of others, that is for the SSD or the client. If a social worker does not recognize his or her moral identity and calling, then one may wonder whether such a person ought to do social work at all. We may see here that if we ignore the implications of the Stocker and Slote criticisms of Kantian ethics and ignore the need to reflect upon the idea of the virtuous life, the value of social workers as persons and indeed the value of entering social work, at all, is obscured. A third point about deontology is what Bernard Williams (1985) has called the problem of moral luck. This points out that our duties are limited by our abilities such that contingency does not enter into duty based accounts of morality. However, the fact is that our lives are filled with the unpredictable, and affairs over which we
1024 Graham McBeath and Stephen A. Webb have no or little control given the latter we cannot in most situations act morall other words much of life is a matter of luck and traditional moral frameworks exclude this property as they view morality as only a matter of that for which we are entirely responsible. Applied to social work, moral luck builds in a realistic factor of uncertainty which is sometimes enabling of a good act, and sometimes not It thus behoves us to develop an ethics of social work that is compatible with the facts of complexity and risk. It is a false utopia to pretend, as managers and politi cians tend to do, that each case is essentially controllable and predictable. Positivist methodologies have taught us to believe that this is the case, but experience tells us it is not. The particular character of each case calls upon us to do our best, using our judgement and situational intelligence to adapt to changing circumstances. Here lies the skill of the worker giving concrete expression to Aristotle's intellectual virtues of wisdom in relation to prudence Against utilitarian theories which aim to maximize the welfare of persons and society, one telling argument virtue ethics runs is that it would be virtuous to do less than the optimizing action welfare-wise, if the minimizing action entailed trans- gressing virtue. Christine Swanton gives the example of someone refusing to betray a friend for the sake of optimizing the welfare of themselves or someone else (Swanton, 1997). To keep faith with friends is an act that shows that one possesses the virtue of friendship. This is the way one best performs friendship. One does not eep faith simply because of abstract rules of duty. In social work terms, if defensive social work which optimizes the interests of an SSD is a primary consideration and elected members are not to suffer unpopularity near election time, expensive services to a heroin addict should be refused. Giving the addict resources may be the best, most virtuous thing to do where virtue equals looking after clients, but may be contextually sub-optimal for the SSD and the local authority. The social worker should surely endorse virtue against the cruder instincts of obtaining the greatest A second set of arguments in regard of utilitarianism emerges when we consider the relation of complexity to judgement. This goes to the very heart of our discussion which is about the human qualities which can be brought into conjunction with the world of experience. Let us draw a distinction between determinant and reflective judgement; that is between the application of a decision rule such as the greatest ood for the greatest number and, action as a result of prudential consideration of circumstances or as Vico puts it: The wise man... who attains eternal truth by the uneven and insecure paths of practice(Vico, 1709, p. 35). Reflective judgement, which represents the virtuous man, is a sifting process of circumspection. It develops wisdom by engaging us in the process of the cultivation of good judgement. Unlike the utilitarian, the person of virtue and reflection moves from the particular to the universal, that is from an encompassing perception of the circumstances in which we find ourselves to the recognition of a revisable rule as to how we might judge in similar circumstances. The component of reflection provides the critical distance that underpins revisability. Beiner puts it well when he observes that Human beings possess no god-like clairvoyance that guides their judgement; they inhabit a world of experience where insight is always a fragile achievement, forever subject to opa-
1024 Graham McBeath and Stephen A. Webb have no or little control. Given the latter, we cannot in most situations act morally. In other words, much of life is a matter of luck and traditional moral frameworks exclude this property as they view morality as only a matter of that for which we are entirely responsible. Applied to social work, moral luck builds in a realistic factor of uncertainty which is sometimes enabling of a good act, and sometimes not. It thus behoves us to develop an ethics of social work that is compatible with the facts of complexity and risk. It is a false utopia to pretend, as managers and politicians tend to do, that each case is essentially controllable and predictable. Positivist methodologies have taught us to believe that this is the case, but experience tells us it is not. The particular character of each case calls upon us to do our best, using our judgement and situational intelligence to adapt to changing circumstances. Here lies the skill of the worker giving concrete expression to Aristotle’s intellectual virtues of wisdomin relation to prudence. Against utilitarian theories which aim to maximize the welfare of persons and society, one telling argument virtue ethics runs is that it would be virtuous to do less than the optimizing action welfare-wise, if the minimizing action entailed transgressing virtue. Christine Swanton gives the example of someone refusing to betray a friend for the sake of optimizing the welfare of themselves or someone else (Swanton, 1997). To keep faith with friends is an act that shows that one possesses the virtue of friendship. This is the way one best performs friendship. One does not keep faith simply because of abstract rules of duty. In social work terms, if defensive social work which optimizes the interests of an SSD is a primary consideration and elected members are not to suffer unpopularity near election time, expensive services to a heroin addict should be refused. Giving the addict resources may be the best, most virtuous thing to do where virtue equals looking after clients, but may be contextually sub-optimal for the SSD and the local authority. The social worker should surely endorse virtue against the cruder instincts of obtaining the greatest utilitarian pay-off. A second set of arguments in regard of utilitarianism emerges when we consider the relation of complexity to judgement. This goes to the very heart of our discussion which is about the human qualities which can be brought into conjunction with the world of experience. Let us draw a distinction between determinant and reflective judgement; that is between the application of a decision rule such as the greatest good for the greatest number and, action as a result of prudential consideration of circumstances or as Vico puts it: ‘The wise man . . . who attains eternal truth by the uneven and insecure paths of practice’ (Vico, 1709, p. 35). Reflective judgement, which represents the virtuous man, is a sifting process of circumspection. It develops wisdomby engaging us in the process of the cultivation of good judgement. Unlike the utilitarian, the person of virtue and reflection moves from the particular to the universal, that is from an encompassing perception of the circumstances in which we find ourselves to the recognition of a revisable rule as to how we might judge in similar circumstances. The component of reflection provides the critical distance that underpins revisability. Beiner puts it well when he observes that ‘Human beings possess no god-like clairvoyance that guides their judgement; they inhabit a world of experience where insight is always a fragile achievement, forever subject to opa-
