Moral Virtue Vs Moral Obligation
I have been seeing multiple debates and podcasts in which certain individuals argue as to whether a certain action is morally virtuous or a moral obligation. This led me to try to give an example of an action that is morally virtuous, but one that is not an obligation. My first instinct was that charitable financial donation is one such example, however I found myself finding it easy to justify this as an obligation, using Peter Singer's example of witnessing a child drowning and not intervening; the event is not caused by the witness (as poverty is not), yet it is still an obligation to rescue the child. I currently cannot think of any other examples of moral virtue and would love to hear some. Thanks.
Comments (60)
Virtue is more concerned with generally building a good moral character, and so seems to apply even to acts where other people are not involved.
Moral obligations seems to imply other people. Unless you would want to take the view that you have a moral obligation to yourself also.
Moral obligation is about maintaining the fabric of society, for better or worse. In this fabric we can have people who are more committed to that aim than others. Individual virtue is an untenable concept.
I don't quite understand. If virtue is moral it should imply some kind of action with respect to others. I don't know how a character that doesn't behave well towards others can be moral.
Could you explain a little more the opposition between moral virtue and moral action? Thank you.
There’s a big difference between having a child drowning in a pool right in front of you and knowing there are unspecified children dying far away in Africa at this moment. That kid in the pool can be saved by you and probably by you only with only a minor effort on your part, and if you don’t do it, it really is as if you were the one who killed it. You may argue that the distance, six feet away versus ten thousand miles, is only relative and therefore the principle is the same but when a fellow human being has come within your immediate range of action, he is yours, so to speak. The only obligations that we have are those that we have taken upon us through our previous movements. You have rented a house, and you are under obligation to pay the rent, you have crashed into someone’s car and you must pay for the damage, you have walked into the perimeter of a drowning child and you are obligated to save it.
There are no limits and no obligations in virtue. It would certainly be virtuous to save that starving child twenty thousand miles away, but it can’t be an obligation. Why that child and not another one? You can’t save everyone anyone, and an obligation that it’s not possible to fulfill is nonsense.
A try: Virtuosity means seeking the opportunity to be a hero.
The obligation opposes itself.
Spontaneity is what makes life so intriguing. If we were to just do whatever we were obligated to do, we would hardly be more than robots. However, we can still be virtuous—in fact, we may only be virtuous if we have free will. If everybody follows their moral obligations, virtue has no meaning. However, if certain actions are morally right, and we have the will to either follow it or not, then we can say the virtuous are those who decide to follow.
Yeah sure, I'll try to articulate my view on it... but virtue is a term used for a whole host of different things historically, so it's not that easy to say something clear and definite about it.
I think they are not so much in opposition to each other (although they can be), but rather different in scope. Virtue ethics is the wider and more encompassing idea, that also deals with the more general question of how to best live ones life. And that includes moral questions, but also things that are not necessary strictly moral.
The example I gave of something I think is virtuous, but not a moral obligation, is "taking care of yourself". That would be, I presume, typically part of virtue. Or another example would be maintaining good relations with other people in your community. There is no moral obligation to do that, I don't think, you don't 'have' to do that... but it does probably make for a better life if you do. Underlying virtue theories are psychological and sociological ideas and a host of other context of what it means to live a good life as a human being.
Moral obligations on the other hand are just that, moral obligations in the form of X is wrong, or Y is the right thing to do. In my view they are 'social agreements about what a society or community considers to be acceptable or not acceptable behavior' (that's what I think anyway, but people are known to disagree :-)). The goal is not necessarily making your life better, but to make sure that people can live together in a community without harming each other. Or maybe in a more active sense, the goal can be to make sure that people living together help each other out.... But whatever the extend of the concrete moral obligations, the underlying idea here is that the individual gives up some of his freedom to act, and in return other people will also refrain from certain behavior that might impact him negatively.
So maybe to summarize, i'd say there's a difference in scope and goals, and also in origin. Moral obligation come from a community or collective, whereas virtue is more centered around the individual. Often a virtue theory will include and agree with moral obligations of the community, as from the perspective of living a good life, moral obligations certainly can have value... but it doesn't always have to, because in the end they have different goals in mind and those can conflict with each other.
For the ancient Greeks and Romans, morality just referred to proper manners, behavior, or comportment. "Moral obligation," as we understand it in a contemporary context, was an unintelligible concept. Some time perhaps starting in the 1500s, and coming full swing in the 1800s, the moral tradition started changing to be more action-centric or rule-centric, as opposed to character-centric. Foot and MacIntyre point out that the tradition was sort of hijacked by the likes of Kant, Bentham, Mill, etc. The new idea, whether it was Victorian, or Enlightenment, was that questions concerning morality had actually correct answers, if only we could adopt a set of normative parameters to proceed from.
The problem with the modern moral tradition, in my view, is that it turned into a "truth-seeking" enterprise, whereby ethical questions must have answers, even if we don't know what those answers are. This is why there are so many irresolvable ethical "dilemmas" floating around. It is a kind of manufactured problem that came into being because we peculiarly expected ethics to answer questions for us that perhaps admit no definite answers in the first place.
For the Ancient Greeks, morality was understood as being concerned with wisdom, not truth. Aristotle always said ethics is a practical science, not a precise one, and so we should not expect mathematical certainty.
That's sort of a preeminent example of the modern moralist's mindset -- very much steeped in the existing moral tradition, sans any historical understanding.
If it were your obligation to achieve the ultimate minimalization of suffering in the world, what exactly would your obligations be? An obligation must be definite. If you have to do this, it is an obligation. If it would be nice if you did it, but you don’t really have to, it’s not an obligation.
So exactly what would an ultimate minimalization of suffering mean? I suppose someone would have achieved it if he had reached a point where he had maximized his capacity for alleviating suffering; the point where he couldn’t possibly do anything more. But what would that look like. Suppose he worked day and night, never giving himself rest, never wasting a second that wasn’t used for the good cause. Well, even that wouldn’t be his maximum. He could always work even harder, sleep even less, spend even less time eating, move even faster.
Well, he would soon drop dead from exhaustion, so he would need to portion his energy if he were to maximize it, but what exactly would the right measure be? Besides, maybe he was using the wrong strategy, maybe another profession would be more effective for minimizing suffering. There is no way of knowing what his obligations would actually be, and he would be sure to fail.
It can’t be your obligation to do something that can’t be done.
Book published in 2018 arguing for Objective Moral Realism.
Compassionate Moral Realism by Colin Marshall, Oxford University Press (OUP).
Here is the presentation at OUP: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/compassionate-moral-realism-9780198809685
And here is a review by University of Notre Dame as I haven't read it myself, also:
https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/compassionate-moral-realism/
A presentation and option to buy at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Compassionate-Moral-Realism-Colin-Marshall/dp/0198809689
A book review by Mind Journal behind payment wall: https://academic.oup.com/mind/article-abstract/129/514/631/5511598
"Objective Morality is marching onwards toward Utopia!"
Like every generalization there are holes and very big in this case: Plato. Plato believed in the unity of being and ought in the form of knowledge of the Good which was the supreme Idea. According to him, this was implicit in Socratic intellectualism.
Thus, when the rules of the Polis were established - and in this the Platonists were experts - a political morality was being applied that developed into rules. Although the perfect ideal was unattainable in the cave world (ours), the constitutions that were drawn up in the Academy tended towards that Good that begins with a capital letter.
Therefore the moral rules are not alien to Greek world.
Aristotle is more complex but he also speaks of “a standard and measure”. This is so because in my opinion the appeal to virtue is not contradictory to the search for moral rules. In any case, it qualifies the dogmatic vision of them.
I don't understand this opposition. And the civic virtue that was the basis of modern revolutionary morality? Wasn't it a virtue oriented towards the collective?
In your opinion. I have a different opinion of your outburst.
To put it briefly: a reasonable morality is justified on the basis of a network of virtues, duties and consequences that cannot be formalized as if it were a problem of logic. The proportion is random and depends on circumstantial factors that are impossible to predict and systematize. To try to do so would be to enter into casuistry, which is the usual vice of those who have a bureaucratic concept of ethics and little moral sense.
Surely, if one is to be responsible for one's actions, moral ones too, we need to be completely free as regards choices pertaining to our actions and another way of saying the exact same thing is we shouldn't be under the yoke of an, any, obligation.
It seems clear then that, as I stated in the first paragraph, the idea of moral obligation nullifes the notion of moral responsibility. Given that, people can't be judged as either good or bad if their actions are performed as a matter of obligation, it follows no one deserves either praise or blame in a obligatory moral code. Perhaps losing moral responsibility is a small price to pay for peace attained through a moral system that is obligation-based.
I don't get what you mean by "moral virtue". Do you mean those moral actions that are good but not obligatory? If yes, then I fully support a moral theory that deals exclusively with such entities. Moral responsibility would be retained to the chagrin of bad people and good people would be worthy of the praise given them.
All that said, consider the fact that morality is ultimately about, not solitary existence, communal living; morality is about how one interacts with others with the specific objective of creating and maintaining a harmonious society. If that's the case then the individual interest of moral responsibility must be less important than the collective interest of a harmonious society. If so, we can safely jettison moral responsibility in favor of a moral code that puts us under obligation to either perform or not perform certain moral acts.
Again, I'm not saying that virtue can have no eye for the collective, I'm just saying that it goes further than that.... it a wider idea.
And plato was no example of the traditional Greek view on morality... he was a radical break from it. If you don't get this, I don't think we can much progress in this discussion.
Moral obligation and psychic necessity are different concepts. Moral obligation functions on the level of duty and necessity on the level of causality. Therefore, moral obligation implies free will. You can do what you think is your duty or not for different motivations. If you are psychically determined to kill your father, you will kill your father yes or yes. You can do bad things even though you think they are bad in a moral sense. Because of selfishness, unwillingness, bad passions or other reasons.
It is another thing to claim that every psychic decision is determined, but this is a different problem.
The Greek tradition was not uniform. There were several opposing tendencies. The Platonic tradition was one of the most important. As you know it reached Hypatia of Alexandria or St. Augustine in the Christian era through Neoplatonism. You have no reason to exclude it.
Quoting ChatteringMonkey
I am talking about the civic virtue of the revolutionaries and enlightened people who exalted the duty of citizenship towards the country and the people. See the famous paintings of David, The Oath of the Horatii and The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons . They are very graphic representations of that civic philosophy that they exemplified in the Roman virtue, which was not individual, but collective.
Quoting ChatteringMonkey
Every moral system includes the individual and the collective. Whether it is a system based on virtue, duty or consequences. When you talk about "it's wider" I don't know what you mean. If you don't mind, you could explain. Thank you.
You seem to be saying:
1. Duty is an obligation
2. There's a freedom of choice that comes into play before duty i.e. we're free to decide what our duty will be
Fantastic. Never thought of that. Every moral code/theory comes with a list of do's and don't's that are obligatory. No one can deny that. The entries in such lists follow, as of necessity, from some key assumptions of whatever moral theory we're considering. There is no choice as to the contents of the list. Ergo, the only point in moral theories where we do have a choice is the assumptions/axioms themselves. Making a choice regarding the assumptions only allow us to switch moral theories which differ from each other as per their assumptions/axioms. So, are you claiming we can choose which moral theory to adopt and practice?
If yes, probably yes, does this mean then moral obligation and free will are compatible?
I liken this state of affairs to a man who's forced (obligated) to behave in a certain way by force, say, with a weapon. He is told he has a choice - he may exercise his free will - and the choice available is the weapon (a gun or a knife or a bomb) that'll be used to force (obligate) him to behave in certain ways. It can be said of this unfortunate man that he had a choice in the matter of what weapon will be used to force his behavior - his obligations (duties) - but are we warranted to praise or blame him for his actions? Is such a man free?
Wider conceptually, like the concept 'fruit' is a wider concept than 'apple'.... it includes more things.
Quoting David Mo
Sure Plato was Greek and so what he produced is technically part of the Greek tradition... And yes, in retrospect, he has to be considered one of the pillars of Greek philosophy, because of the massive influence he had on the later Christian European culture. But what's more interesting to me is how it fit into Greek culture back then. Let's not forget that philosophy as a whole is only a small subset of culture to begin with, that is the case right now and it was also the case back then. Greek culture was among other things, the Homeric myths, tragic plays, a pantheon of flawed Gods etc. etc... and then came Socrates and Plato. They were in direct opposition to the culture of their time. Socrates got his hemlock for corrupting the youth, and Plato was explicitly trying to replace existing Greek culture by his Philosophy of ideal forms. It was not merely an extention of Greek culture or one of the many different strands... Check his views on music and poetry and how he sought to minimize their 'bad' influence on people. And to be clear this is not akin to someone lamenting the bad influence of 'pop culture' right now. In a predominately oral tradition, music and poetry were the main vehicles for the propagation of the culture. I could go on... but the point is that Plato, notwithstanding his huge legacy, is probably not a very good example of the traditional Greek view on morality.
Another way of looking at this would be to look at where exactly free will matters.
To begin with, the postulates of moral theory are supposed to be self-evident truths which means we don't actually have a choice. These postulates are then used to infer logically necessary conclusions regarding what course of action we must take given any situation. Here too we lack choice in the matter.
If it's the case that we can pick and choose our moral postulates then all that means is we have options in which moral theory we select to abide by. Isn't that interesting? We can freely choose, for instance, either consequentialism or deontology.
However, this freedom is not enough, rather not in the right spot, to qualify as freedom, no?
Freedom should be at the level of our actions for that's where morality matters. Moral theories are either true or false but actions are good or bad. Firstly, this affects what we said earlier about having a choice regarding which moral theory to select - surely if we want a true moral theory, there can be no choice. Secondly, choice is absent where it matters - at the level of our actions.
Do we lack a choice, or are we limited by the scope and extent of our own reason? Moral theories may entail or at least imply action consequences, but only to the extent that they are comprehended. Most people in fact suffer from a host of insidious cognitive biases which may (have been proven to) prevent the drawing of accurate conclusions.
So how can we assume the standpoint of successful and deliberate rational choice. when even attaining this level of pure objectivity is itself problematic?
Indeed, each of us is beset by our own clouded judgments but that is a minor issue compared to what the real problem is - obligatory moral codes rob us of freedom, freedom of will to act the way we wish to act so that we may own them and bear their consequences, good or bad, with the full conviction that the fruits of our actions are well-deserved.
I think what you are saying amounts to a contradiction.
On the one hand, you suggest that in order to be responsible, we must act freely. On the other hand, you suggest that if a moral code is obligatory, that contradicts the premise of moral action being freely chosen.
But moral obligation is volunteeristic. Yes, it is an "obligation," but an obligation is not a cause. This is clear from that fact that people can and do ignore their obligations.
If, as I suggested, however, we usually only grasp our obligations imperfectly (due to whatever limitations of our own knowledge), then the "necessitation" of moral obligations is really a function of the degree of our understanding of same.
So if we do, in some sense, lose our autonomy in submitting to moral choice, it is in the form of embracing a higher rationality. So how is acting in accordance with the dictates of reason any different in the moral sense than in a positivistic sense? We choose to do anything because our reason leads us to the choice.
Your objection would apply equally to the very concept of free-will: I cannot choose X if there are independent reasons for choosing X....
To improve on democratic laws and regulations all the time (Kantian Ethics) and so to achieve a greater being-in-nature, a stronger in-touch presence in the World (Virtue Ethics).
But to improve laws and regulations until they are perfect, require cognition and the way I see it, the greater being-in-nature, a stronger in-touch presence in the World actually has the cognition of improving laws and regulations as cause.
Consequently, the virtue ethics of greater being-in-nature, a stronger in-touch presence in the World is the effect of improving the democratic laws and regulations in this self-reinforcing circle!
Good?
You keep mixing two different concepts of obligation or necessity.
If I adopt a rule (not just a moral one) that I believe I must fulfill for a certain purpose because it is the best, I am not giving up my freedom. I am making my freedom concrete in the world in the form of possibilities to carry it out in one act. I insist, this happens with any norm for action.
My freedom is still present at any time because I can either renounce to the norm, to the proposed end or modify the conditions of application of the rule. This has taken place not only at the time of choosing the rule, as you say, but also while I am still applying it. I insist that this refers to any rule.
In other words, the rule is valid only as long as I freely accept it.
As I am constantly accepting and applying standards, both instrumental and moral, political, social, etc., your theory would make freedom abstract, totally inapplicable.
Your example of the gun diverts attention from a different problem.
Sure, but what I was asking was what.
Quoting ChatteringMonkey
Are we talking about Greek culture or Greek morality theories? The problem started when someone spoke of the Greeks' concept of morality being more Aristotelian than Platonic. We weren't talking about cults and myths.
As for concepts of morality, leaving aside religious and mythological concepts, which do not have a theory of morality, properly speaking, it is a problem that arises with Greek democracy. There are three basic conceptions: the Sophistic, the Platonic, and the Aristotelian. All three were later developed in different forms and all three were rooted in Hellenistic culture as fundamental pillars. Along with the other cultural traditions you cite, of course. To say that Socratism was not a component of Greek culture is not very accurate. And to base your argument on the fact that it was condemned, even less so. Its survival in subsequent centuries implies that it was not so far removed from Greek culture. And Platonism was even less so when it coalesced into such important forms of culture as Neo-Platonism which affected Christianity itself.
Indeed, Athens erected a wake condemning the death of Socrates years after his death. But this doesn't mean anything. Socrates' death was political and his subsequent vindication was political too.
A simple question: Can one be obligated to do something AND free to not do it? The answer to this question will settle our difference.
As I said, it is clear that people do not always fulfill their obligations.
What would be the point of having the concept of obligation if it dictated action? There would be no "cognitive gap" - obligation would become just another kind of behaviouristic causation.
The "Greeks' concept of morality" is the morality as lived by the Greeks, right? What else would it be? And myths, like those of Homer, are historically, among other things stories to preserve and instruct the morality of a culture. So if we are talking about morality as lived by the Greeks, the myths are certainly relevant it seems to me.
Referring to Aristotle as a source of information about that Greek morality makes sense because he was a kind of proto-scientist/empirist, case in point being all those elaborate taxonomies he was so fond of making... Referring to Plato as a source doesn't make as much sense, because he was a rationalist/idealist. And either way I don't think his ideas about morality where all that representative of Greek morality, for the reasons I explained earlier.
And i'm not talking about how Greek idea's have been received and used later on, that's not Greek culture, but European Christian culture.
Yes. Because moral obligation is not a physical necessity. Pantagruel answered you in the same way. In the moral sense you decide what rules you must follow. Even if you say reason obliges you, you can choose irrationally. In the physical sense of necessity your decision is previously determined by cause. Only in this sense "obligation" is opposed to freedom. I don't know if it's the same in English, but in Spanish to call physical necessity an obligation sounds strange.
Quoting Pantagruel
In behaviorism the decision to do anything is determined. There is no such thing as freedom. Therefore the concept of obligation is just a euphemism for a series of hidden causes: conditioned reflex. Skinner tried to demonstrate this in a very popular book: Beyond Freedom and Dignity. In its time it impacted me, but today that behaviorism seems untenable to me.
It's not like that. It's one thing what you do, it's another what you know about what you're doing. I doubt very much that in archaic Greece there was any discussion about whether morality was based on wisdom or truth. Or something similar. At least I don't remember it in Homer.
Morality for them was between religion and tradition. If that is what you mean by traditional Greece, that limits it to the world of myth, in which case any reference to moral reflection is superfluous, including Aristotelian. And our debate is also superfluous.
Ok fine, I suppose we were talking past eachother then.
Don't you think it is strange though to view those two as seperate from eachother?
I do think Aristotle for example was conceptualizing morality as lived in Greece at the time.
You also seem to insist on using myth as a pejorative. Those weren't written overnight, I think plenty of reflection, moral and other, went into them.
No. I'm talking about myth as something different from philosophical reflection on morality, including that of Aristotle.
If you don't define what morality is as the Greeks of the time lived it, there's no way to know its relationship with Aristotle and Plato.
I have taken as a reference something concrete that I know: Homer. So, neither Plato nor Aristotle correspond to Homer's mytho-poetic thought. In Homer we do not find the classic concepts of moral reflection and those that are similar are seen in a different way. Homer's concepts of timé, diké, areté and the like do not refer to moral responsibility, but to civic cohesion based on honour and shame. There can be no concept of virtue as character, because the concept of psychological character is alien to Homer. And much less of the Aristotelian virtue that refers to nature, a philosophical concept and not a mythical-poetical one.
If we take the classics of the Greek theatre that we know, there is no concordance either, although Sophocles is usually related to the democratic movement of the polis and Euripides to the sceptical reaction. In general, the plays I know deal with the polis-gods conflict, especially in connection with the hybris, in a non-aristotelian way.
The values of the Homeric man do not obey to desirable conducts and according to a certain human nature (as will be the case of the ethics of virtue of the classic Greek philosophy), but, rather, those values respond to certain conditions, especially, social conditions
We do not find in the Homeric poems an 'ethical theory', a systematic and well-founded reflection that justifies human acts, but rather, in the words of Aristotle, an energy, an action that determines our being.
Let's unpack, for the sake of clarity, what you mean by "Yes. Because moral obligation is not a physical necessity.
To begin with, there's no point in discussing physical necessity. Surely if something is a physically necessary, then it either is or will be no matter what.
Let's talk about moral obligation. My understanding of it is that if an action is morally obligated one has no choice in the matter - we must either do or refrain from doing what is our obligation (morally). Are we on the same page here?
Then you said, "In the moral sense you decide what rules you must follow".
The only way I can make sense of your statement is we have a choice in which among the various moral theories available we adopt. Perhaps you mean something else and if you do, then please elaborate.
If I understood you correctly then my previous post addresses this point. Anyway...moral theories maybe chosen, yes, but a couple of observations:
1. Moral theories are either true or false. Are you saying we can choose to adopt a false moral theory? If yes, then your actions as obligated by the false theory will differ from those obligated by the true theory, making them morally wrong. So, given that a true moral theory exists, there's actually no choice at all. You must adopt, without choice, the true moral theory unless of course you want to commit immoral acts, that too, as obligated by the false moral theory.
I think the idea of choice in moral theories comes to you because a true moral theory, if it exists, has not been discovered till date. Given this is the case, indeed, we're free to choose one that we feel is better. Nevertheless, once adopted, all extant moral theories will obligate that you either acting or refrain from acting in certain ways.
2. Picking up from the last sentence above, we see that all [extant] moral theories directly control our actions - we're obligated to either act or not to act by them. It seems then your story of "choice" in morality can be summed up with the statement, we're free to decide how to be not free.
I pretty much agree with your argument, but here, mightn’t it be said we chose immorally, rather than irrationally? Reason does obligate, but merely some other reason is sufficient to negate moral conformity.
Hmmm....maybe the choice is immoral, but the judgement which then facilitates the act which follows from the choice, is irrational. Could you live with that?
Are we talking about moral theories or moral systems? A moral theory tells us what is the nature of what we call "good" and a moral system dictates to us the moral norms, that is, those that allow us to do good. That is, the difference between ethics (moral philosophy) and morality. Moral theory is not normative. It is descriptive, and can be false or true, at least in theory. A system of moral norms is neither true nor false. It is good or bad, convenient or inconvenient, advisable or inadvisable, that is, imperative or prescriptive. Here there are no criteria of truth except as regards means and ends.
I thought we were talking about systems of morality. Didn't you?
I was thinking of those who think that there is no rationality in morality and that we make decisions based on our emotions or particular tastes. The amoralists, the cynics or the vitalists. But it's also true that one can choose a system that seems more rational than another. Because we must recognize that definitive reasons in morality are not very apparent. Unless you are a convinced intellectualist like Socrates or a dogmatic rationalist. But these seem philosophies of other times.
So.....no causa sui? With respect to moral systems based on an autonomous will, rather than ethical theories based on cultural norms, I mean.
Quoting David Mo
Not very indeed.
Moral/Ethical Theories
:chin:
??
1. Why is something a moral obligation?
There is nothing you can learn for yourself. Everything you learn is mediated by language and social environment. When you learn something through "personal" experience you cannot let go of all the cultural preconcepts and views that form the "I" that you are. Originality is just the way you mix your cultural background in a personal way. This is especially true of moral issues because the social pressure for conformity is strong on this ground.
That is why virtue is something that is taken from certain models that can be found within your reach. That is why an attack against one of the models we have chosen is often responded to with great violence. Because we ourselves are being attacked.
I think the difference between virtue and moral rules is that the model is more visible in virtue than in rules. It's just a difference in visibility.
Any action that represents a good thing to do is virtuous if it is done for the right reason, that is without an ulterior motive. A morally virtuous action requires the right intention and the right disposition. Saving that drowning child because it blocks your path would not be virtuous nor would a donation to charity if it was done only to secure a tax reduction. But given that the right disposition is in place, any good action would also be a virtuous action.
An obligation, on the other hand, has a narrower extension. All virtuous acts are not obligations, but any fulfilled obligation is virtuous (if done for the right reason).
An obligation is a possibility for a virtuous act that is given particularly to you. You acquired it when you were placed in a particular circumstance. Since you happened to pass that child in the pool the obligation to rescue it was given. At other times we acquire an obligation by committing ourselves to something. If you marry or have children, you are obligated to take care of your family, but you probably have no obligation towards other people’s children (although it would certainly be virtuous if you took care of them anyway).
I can define ad hoc an ethical system consisting entirely of moral obligations and sins and wrt that system, yes, there's no merely virtuous act. That doesn't eliminate morally virtuous acts from ethics, merely from that one of a potentially infinite number of ethical systems.
I can also more easily and more acceptably define a system of ethics containing no obligations whatsoever. It would look pretty similar to modern secular Western ethics. Wrt that, finding morally virtuous but not obligatory actions would be a piece of cake.
It would be interesting to hear you defend either ethical system. Of course it’s a piece of cake to put a label on something and claim that it’s something that really exists, it’s a lot more difficult to say why it is so.
I think we should accept @JacobPhilosophy’s premise for this thread and assume that both obligations and virtuous acts exist.
An ethical system that emphasizes obligations might also acknowledge virtuous acts. You could say that whenever an act is an obligation, it is virtuous to perform it, although that probably involves playing down the significance of virtue.
The other way around is also possible, any virtuous act may be considered an obligation and that’s probably what puzzles @JacobPhilosophy since obligations seem to carry a stronger force which would push the significance of virtue aside. (You say “Do!” or “Don’t!” and all doubt is removed.)
However, even if you call all virtuous acts an obligation, the nature of the obligation would necessarily vary in strength. No one can seriously think you have the same strong duty to take care of any child as you have toward your own child. Virtue covers everything that’s good, but strong obligations must be limited in number.
You misunderstand. It was precisely because Jacob suggested he could refer to an unconventional system of ethics in order to promote a virtue into an obligation that I made the above point. I'm not in favour of such trickery. Your response---to assume that both virtues and obligations exist---is precisely what Jacob is questioning, so I think you misunderstand him also.