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Motor Skill and Moral Virtue

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 May 2017

Ellen Fridland
Ellen Fridland*
Affiliation:
King's College London
*
ellen.fridland@kcl.ac.uk
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Abstract

Virtue ethicists often appeal to practical skill as a way of understanding the nature of virtue. An important commitment of a skill account of virtue is that virtue is learned through practice and not through study, memorization, or reflection alone. In what follows, I will argue that virtue ethicists have only given us half the story. In particular, in focusing on outputs, or on the right actions or responses to moral situations, virtue ethicists have overlooked a crucial facet of virtue: namely, that through practice, virtuous agents develop a cache of perceptual skills that allow them to attend to, detect, and identify the relevant features of a perceptual array, the selection of which is central to recognizing and categorizing a situation as a moral situation of a particular type. In order to support this claim, I will appeal to empirical studies of motor expertise, which show that an expert's capacity to attend to and recognize relevant perceptual inputs differs in important respects from the layperson's. Specifically, I will argue that performing the right action in the right circumstances improves an agent's ability to attend to and identify the morally relevant features of a moral situation.

Type
Papers
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 80: Philosophy of Action , July 2017 , pp. 139 - 170
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 2017 

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References

1 See, for instance, Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)Google Scholar; Annas, J., Intelligent Virtue (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McDowell, J., Mind Value and Reality (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001)Google Scholar; Stichter, M., ‘Ethical Expertise: The Skill Model of Virtue’, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 10 (2007), 183–194 Google Scholar; Stichter, M., ‘Virtues, Skills, and Right Action’, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 14 (2011), 73–86 Google Scholar.

2 I will discuss exceptions to this generalization below. See especially: Murdoch, I., Sovereignty of Good (New York: Schocken Books, 1970)Google Scholar and Blum, L., ‘Moral Perception and Particularity’, Ethics 101 (1991), 701–725 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Annas, Intelligent Virtue, 22–23.

4 ‘From the start then, the child will learn by copying the role model… But this will not lead to bravery, as opposed to foolish repetition’ (Annas, Intelligent Virtue, 23) and ‘virtue cannot be adequately understood just as a disposition to perform actions: the virtuous person is a person whose actions are performed for certain reasons’ (Annas, Intelligent Virtue, 28).

5 Annas, Intelligent Virtue, 20.

6 Likewise, Annas writes that, ‘the need to learn does justice to the fact that virtues are always learned in particular embedded contexts’ (Annas, Intelligent Virtue, 25).

7 Jacobsen, D. ‘Seeing by feeling: Virtues, skills, and moral perception’, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 8 (2005), 387–409 Google Scholar.

8 McDowell, Mind, Value and Reality, 85.

9 McDowell, J., ‘Virtue and Reason’, The Monist 62 (1979), 331–350 Google Scholar; McDowell, J., Mind Value and Reality (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001)Google Scholar.

10 ‘So the deliverances of this sensitivity constitute, one by one, complete explanations of the actions which manifest the virtue. Hence, since the sensitivity fully accounts for its deliverances, the sensitivity fully accounts for the actions. But the concept of the virtue is the concept of a state whose possession accounts for the actions which manifest it. Since that explanatory role is filled by the sensitivity, the sensitivity turns out to be what the virtue is’ (McDowell, ‘Virtue and Reason’, 332). See also, ‘the position I am describing aims… at an epistemology that centres on the notion of a susceptibility to reasons’ (McDowell, Mind, Value and Reality, 162).

11 ‘The deliverances of a reliable sensitivity are cases of knowledge; and there are idioms according to which the sensitivity itself can appropriately be described as knowledge: a kind person knows what it is like to be confronted with a requirement of kindness. The sensitivity is, we might say, a sort of perceptual capacity’ (McDowell, ‘Virtue and Reason’, 332).

12 ‘Moreover, the primary-quality model turns the epistemology of value into mere mystification. The perceptual model is no more than a model; perception, strictly so called, does not mirror the role of reason in evaluative thinking; which seems to require us to regard apprehension of value as an intellectual rather than a merely sensory matter. But if we are to take account of this, while preserving the model's picture of values as brutally and absolutely there, it seems we need to postulate a faculty – intuition – about which all that can be said is that it makes us aware of objective rational connections; the model itself ensure that there is nothing helpful to say about how such a faculty might work, or why its deliverances might deserve to count as knowledge’ (McDowell, Mind, Value and Reality, 132–3).

13 ‘In moral upbringing what one learns is not to behave in conformity with rules of conduct, but to see situations in a special light, as constituting reasons for acting; the perceptual capacity, once acquired can be exercised in complex novel circumstances…’ (McDowell, Mind, Value and Reality, 85).

14 McDowell, ‘Virtue and Reason’, 333.

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20 Selective attention can be defined as: the ‘preferential detection, identification and recognition of selected stimulations’ ( Woods, D.L., ‘The physiological basis of selective attention: Implications of event related potential studies’, in Rohrbaugh, J.W., Parasurasman, R. and Johnson, R. (eds), Event-Related Brain Potentials (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 178 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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22 Mann et al., ‘Perceptual-Cognitive Expertise in Sport: A Meta-Analysis’, 460

23 In these studies, it is assumed that visual fixation is a sign of attention. For instance, as Just and Carpenter write: ‘The more information which has to be processed, the longer the fixation duration.’ ( Just, M.A. and Carpenter, P.A., ‘Eye fixations and cognitive processes’, Cognitive Psychology 8 (1976), 441–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar). Though, not without its problems, this interpretation seems plausible. For problems see chapter 5 of Williams, A.M., Davids, K., and Williams, J.G., Visual perception and action in sport (New York: Routledge, 1999)Google Scholar.

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25 Williams et al., Visual perception and action in sport, 157.

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27 Williams et al., Visual perception and action in sport, 158.

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36 For further support for the claim that expert perceptual skills are domain-specific, see section 2.b.

37 Mann et al., ‘Perceptual-Cognitive Expertise in Sport: A Meta-Analysis’.

38 Though there are task relevant differences depending on the nature of the sport. See Mann et al., ‘Perceptual-Cognitive Expertise in Sport: A Meta-Analysis’ for more.

39 Mann, et al, ‘Perceptual-Cognitive Expertise in Sport: A Meta-Analysis’, 458.

40 Williams et al., Visual perception and action in sport, 32.

41 See Williams et al., Visual perception and action in sport.

42 Ibid.

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46 Williams et al., Visual perception and action in sport, 98.

47 For instance: ‘It appears that skilled basketball players encode task-specific information to a deeper and more meaningful level, thus facilitating the recognition of particular patterns of play. Similar findings have been obtained in American football ( Garland, D.J., & Barry, J.R., ‘Cognitive advantage in sport: The nature of perceptual structures’, American Journal of Psychology 104 (1991), 211–28Google Scholar), gymnastics ( Imwold, C.H., & Hoffman, S.J., ‘Visual recognition of a gymnastics skill by experienced and inexperienced instructors’, Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport 54 (1983), 149–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar), snooker ( Abernethy, B., Neal, R.J., & Koning, P., ‘Visual-perceptual and cognitive differences between expert, intermediate, and novice snooker players’, Applied Cognitive Psychology 8 (1994), 185–211 CrossRefGoogle Scholar), and soccer ( Williams, A.M., Davids, K., Burwitz, L., J.G. & Williams, ‘Visual search and sports performance’, Australian Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport 22 (1993), 55–65 Google Scholar; Williams, A.M., & Davids, K., ‘Declarative knowledge in sport: a byproduct of experience or a characteristic of expertise?’, Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology 17 (1995), 259–75)Google Scholar, Williams et al., Visual perception and action in sport, 98.

48 Williams et al., Visual perception and action in sport, 99.

49 For a recent review of visual perceptual learning, see: Lu, Z., Tianmiao, H., Huang, C., Zhoue, Y., & Dosher, B.A., ‘Visual Perceptual Learning’, Neurobiology of Learning and Memory 95 (2011), 145–151 Google Scholar.

50 See, for instance: Snowden, P., Davies, I., & Roling, P., ‘Perceptual learning of the detection of features in X-ray images: A functional role for improvements in adults' visual sensitivity?’, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 26 (2000), 379–390 Google Scholar; and Parolini, B., Soardi, G., G. & Panozzo, ‘Do radiologists develop perceptual learning contrast sensitivity?’ Radiology Medicine 88 (1994), 852–6Google Scholar.

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56 Abernethy & Russell, ‘Expert-novice differences in an applied selective attention task’; Buckolz, et al. ‘Advance cues and their use in predicting tennis passing shots’; Jones & Miles, ‘Use of advance cues in predicting the flight of a lawn tennis ball’

57 Mann, et al, ‘Perceptual-Cognitive Expertise in Sport: A Meta-Analysis’, 463.

58 Williams et al., Visual perception and action in sport, 104.

59 See for instance, programs like Step Up (http://stepupprogram.org), which conduct ‘bystander trainings’ that provide individuals with the skills to able to intervene in difficult situations, when appropriate. See the Washington Coalition of Sexual Assault programs (http://www.wcsap.org/bystander-intervention-programs) for a list of bystander intervention programs.

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64 Pylyshyn, Seeing and Visualizing: It's not what you think, 85.

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66 Murdoch, I., Sovereignty of Good (New York: Schocken Books, 1970)Google Scholar.

67 Blum, L., ‘Moral Perception and Particularity’, Ethics 101 (1991), 701–725 Google Scholar.

68 Blum, ‘Moral Perception and Particularity’, 701.

69 Blum, ‘Moral Perception and Particularity’, 703.

70 The same goes if we think of the capacity developed through learning and training as a refined sensitivity to reasons for action – that is, a sensitivity capable of distinguishing when it is right to and when it is not right to take steps in alleviating another person's discomfort. That is, if one has the ability to distinguish which reasons are legitimate reasons for action and which are not but one has not developed the ability to detect and identify when those reasons obtain, then one will not be poised to engage in moral situations appropriately.

It seems to me that McDowell's theory is the closest theory to getting this right – since we can naturally find a place for attending, recognizing and identifying moral situations on his account. Nevertheless, the features that one becomes sensitive to in order to detect moral situations and how that sensitivity develops needs to be added to the account that McDowell presents.

71 Blum, ‘Moral Perception and Particularity’, 704.

72 Think of Aristotle on virtue here: ‘To be virtuous is to feel [passions] at the right times, with reference to the right objects, towards the right people, with the right motive, and in the right way’ (Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, 1106b, 21–23).

73 Railton, P., ‘The Affective Dog and Its Rational Tale’, Ethics 124 (2014), 813–859 Google Scholar.

74 Nichols, S., ‘On The Genealogy Of Norms: A Case For The Role Of Emotion In Cultural Evolution’, Philosophy of Science 69 (2002), 234–255 Google Scholar.

75 Prinz, J., ‘The Emotional Basis of Moral Judgments’, Philosophical Explorations 9 (2006), 29–43 Google Scholar; Prinz, J., The Emotional Construction of Morals (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007)Google Scholar.

76 Prinz, ‘The Emotional Basis of Moral Judgments’

77 Prinz, ‘The Emotional Basis of Moral Judgments’, 32.

78 Ibid.

79 As Prinz writes, ‘Psychopaths acknowledge that their criminal acts are ‘wrong’ but they do not understand the import of this word’, Prinz,‘The Emotional Basis of Moral Judgments’, 32.

80 Prinz, The Emotional Basis of Moral Judgments’, 31.

81 Dretske, F., Explaining Behavior: Reasons in a World of Causes (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988)Google Scholar.

82 Prinz, The Emotional Construction of Morals, 63.

83 See Railton, ‘The Affective Dog and Its Rational Tale’ (Ethics 124(4) (2014)Google Scholar) for more on how affective intuitions are best construed as attuned competencies.