Virtue's Domain

52 Pages Posted: 10 Sep 2008 Last revised: 21 Sep 2008

See all articles by Ekow N. Yankah

Ekow N. Yankah

Yeshiva University - Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law

Date Written: September 9, 2008

Abstract

If at the end of your life you were told you had fulfilled all your moral duties, you would be proud. If you were told you only fulfilled your moral duties, you would be less proud. We all aim to do more than fulfill our duties. We wish to have been more generous than obligatory, more patient, more wise . . . in short, we wish to be virtuous.

This insight, that there is more to moral well-being than either our moral duties or good consequences, is central to modern virtue ethics. In its important neo-Aristotelian strain, virtue ethics advocates that success in life is also determined by living an ethically rich life, showing sound practical reasoning and exhibiting the human virtues.

Virtue ethics is also importantly influencing jurisprudence. Understanding the role virtue plays in law reveals the way in which our criminal punishment regimes are based on a view of poor underlying character. When these insights are embedded in law, however, things go horribly awry. Because virtue theories premise blame, in part, on a failing of character within the offender, they alter our view of the offender and create a permanent criminal caste. With our compassion blunted, our ugliest prejudices flourish and we fail to notice that our criminal law has become a powerful tool of racial and class suppression. Equally disturbing, even the most sophisticated character theories cannot be reconciled with our commitment to liberalism, particularly with the central place of autonomy within liberalism.

This article argues that only by returning to Kantian and Hegelian Act theories of punishment can we dissolve the view of offenders as permanently tainted and stay true to our liberal commitments.

Keywords: virtue, liberalism, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, autonomy, character

Suggested Citation

Yankah, Ekow Nyansa, Virtue's Domain (September 9, 2008). University of Illinois Law Review, Forthcoming, Cardozo Legal Studies Research Paper No. 244, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1265668

Ekow Nyansa Yankah (Contact Author)

Yeshiva University - Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law ( email )

55 Fifth Ave.
New York, NY 10003
United States

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