What am I missing about virtue ethics/deontology that implies I shouldn’t categorize them both into “means”?
I find this grouping weird as I think of virtue ethics (which, full disclosure, is most like the way I intuitively approach applied ethics) as the only one that’s really about means rather than ends because it’s about what generates your observable behaviors rather than the observable behaviors themselves.
To see what I mean, a deontological ethical system might say “don’t kill other humans” so you don’t kill other humans based on that rule. In a certain sense this is a means to an end that is similar to what a consequentialist ethics might select for—humans end up not being killed, but because you followed the rule—but it is also an end in itself—you don’t do any killing. The only difference between deontological systems and consequentialist systems in this case is that a consequentialist system places the emphasis on (or, if you like, optimizes on) the global outcome while the deontological system focuses more directly on ones observable behavior. It’s a question of where you put the pressure in this sense: either on the observable, desired outcomes in the world that imply the actions that generate the desired outcomes (consequentialism) or on the observable behaviors that generate the desired outcomes (deontology).
Virtue ethics is to me the odd-man-out here because it’s focused on behavior that is not observable, or at least not observable by anyone other than the subject who is experiencing it. You can observe the outcomes of one who has virtue, which is intended to generate behaviors that will cause desirable outcomes in the world, but it pushes back the focus a level so that you optimize/emphasize the spontaneous generation of normative behavior rather than rules that generate normative behavior or normative behavior to produces a particular outcome.
Is it actually true that philosophers (generally) give the 3-category version over the 2-category version?
Philosophers use lots of different categorization methods for different reasons. The thing to keep in mind is that any groupings are always serving some purpose, so talking in terms of virtue, deon, and consequences is simply one useful way approaching ethical systems that helps us understand them. Other categorizations are possible and frequently used, and there is frequent disagreement among philosophers over where to draw particular lines or whether this or that ethical notion really belongs in some particular category.
Personally I find it helpful to think of these categorizations found throughout philosophy as useful for certain purposes in academic philosophy but not necessary useful to the objectives of philosophy itself except inasmuch as you are addressing your readers and helping them understand an idea in the context of other ideas they are familiar with. It’s tempting to get caught up in constructing detailed models of philosophical ideas at the expense of the philosophical act itself.
Whatever the answers to #1 and #2, what do you find to be the most helpful categorical breakdown of normative ethics?
All that being said, I tend to think about descriptive vs. prescriptive approaches. As Hume argued, we can’t directly derive the normative from what is normal without metaphysical speculation, and for myself I find no reason to believe it is necessary to speculate in a way that ends up implying any particular norms. Therefore I tend to think about categorizing ethics in terms of whether we are trying to discuss norms in terms of what we find (descriptive) or what we wish we found (prescriptive), my own inclinations running towards the descriptive.
I find this grouping weird as I think of virtue ethics (which, full disclosure, is most like the way I intuitively approach applied ethics) as the only one that’s really about means rather than ends because it’s about what generates your observable behaviors rather than the observable behaviors themselves.
To see what I mean, a deontological ethical system might say “don’t kill other humans” so you don’t kill other humans based on that rule. In a certain sense this is a means to an end that is similar to what a consequentialist ethics might select for—humans end up not being killed, but because you followed the rule—but it is also an end in itself—you don’t do any killing. The only difference between deontological systems and consequentialist systems in this case is that a consequentialist system places the emphasis on (or, if you like, optimizes on) the global outcome while the deontological system focuses more directly on ones observable behavior. It’s a question of where you put the pressure in this sense: either on the observable, desired outcomes in the world that imply the actions that generate the desired outcomes (consequentialism) or on the observable behaviors that generate the desired outcomes (deontology).
Virtue ethics is to me the odd-man-out here because it’s focused on behavior that is not observable, or at least not observable by anyone other than the subject who is experiencing it. You can observe the outcomes of one who has virtue, which is intended to generate behaviors that will cause desirable outcomes in the world, but it pushes back the focus a level so that you optimize/emphasize the spontaneous generation of normative behavior rather than rules that generate normative behavior or normative behavior to produces a particular outcome.
Philosophers use lots of different categorization methods for different reasons. The thing to keep in mind is that any groupings are always serving some purpose, so talking in terms of virtue, deon, and consequences is simply one useful way approaching ethical systems that helps us understand them. Other categorizations are possible and frequently used, and there is frequent disagreement among philosophers over where to draw particular lines or whether this or that ethical notion really belongs in some particular category.
Personally I find it helpful to think of these categorizations found throughout philosophy as useful for certain purposes in academic philosophy but not necessary useful to the objectives of philosophy itself except inasmuch as you are addressing your readers and helping them understand an idea in the context of other ideas they are familiar with. It’s tempting to get caught up in constructing detailed models of philosophical ideas at the expense of the philosophical act itself.
All that being said, I tend to think about descriptive vs. prescriptive approaches. As Hume argued, we can’t directly derive the normative from what is normal without metaphysical speculation, and for myself I find no reason to believe it is necessary to speculate in a way that ends up implying any particular norms. Therefore I tend to think about categorizing ethics in terms of whether we are trying to discuss norms in terms of what we find (descriptive) or what we wish we found (prescriptive), my own inclinations running towards the descriptive.