Justin Oakley - Virtue Ethics & Effective Altruism EA Global Melbourne 2015

After briefly outlining virtue ethics, Justin explains how virtue ethics can support effective altruism as an expression of what Aristotle called the virtue of ‘liberality’ (sometimes translated as generosity). A person who has the virtue of liberality “does not value wealth for its own sake”, and “will refrain from giving to anybody and everybody, that he may have something to give to the right people, at the right time.” This virtue also involves acting from the right motives, “with pleasure or without pain”. So, virtuous giving, for Aristotle, involves giving with both the head and the heart. Justin also explains how effective altruism is supported by the Aristotelian virtue of justice. However, there are a great variety of virtuous ways of giving, and Justin argues that it is important that effective altruism does not lead to other forms of helping, such as family care-giving to a frail and elderly relative, being undervalued.

Justin also talks about how ethical career choices can justifiably make allowances for personal fulfillment and self-realisation, even where one’s career choice is not the most effective way of being altruistic. Here Justin draws on the commentary he gave on Will MacAskill’s paper on the ethics of career choice, at the 2012 UK Society for Applied Philosophy Conference in Oxford.

In closing, Justin briefly suggests that it need not be unethical for two people to start a long-term relationship which is likely to result in their being a less 'optimal team' for the world, compared with the relationships that each of them might have formed with others.

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Justin Oakley discusses Effective Altruism from the perspective of a Virtue Ethicist and the way that Virtue Ethics could endorse at least some of the ideas in EA. Justin then speaks about Aristotle and his key ideas which influenced modern Virtue Ethics. Justin compares a Virtue Ethicist approach to the Utilitarian approach to ethics and Effective Altruism.

Justin Oakley BA, PhD (Philosophy) is Associate Professor at Monash University Centre for Human Bioethics. He is the author of Morality and the Emotions (Routledge, 1993), and Virtue Ethics and Professional Roles (with Dean Cocking) (Cambridge University Press, 2001), and is editor of Informed Consent and Clinician Accountability: The ethics of report cards on surgeon performance (with Steve Clarke) (Cambridge University Press, 2007), and Bioethics (Ashgate, International Library of Essays in Public and Professional Ethics, 2009). He has published articles in international journals on the ethics of clinical trials, informed consent, surrogate motherhood, surgeon report cards, whistleblowing, reproductive cloning, and various topics in ethical theory. Justin is also co-editor of the quarterly refereed journal Monash Bioethics Review.
Justin teaches clinicians and other professionals in the Master of Bioethics course at Monash, along with an undergraduate philosophy subject on the moral psychology of evil. He is currently working on a project on policy applications of virtue ethics in medical practice, and a project on the moral significance of genetic parenthood and the regulation of assisted reproduction.

Many thanks for watching!

[sauliussimcikas]

Some of the disagreement between the two ethics seems to be semantic, due to different understanding of the word "ethics". I take personal fulfillment into account when choosing a job but I do it for selfish reasons. Hence I don't call personal fulfillment an "ethical value" like he does but we don't really disagree about how I should choose a job.