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8/17/2019 Tiberius, Valerie- A Prudential Virtue
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North merican Philosophical Publications
Perspective: A Prudential Virtue
Author(s): Valerie TiberiusSource: American Philosophical Quarterly , Vol. 39, No. 4 (Oct., 2002), pp. 305-324
Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of the North American Philosophical
Publications
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20010082
Accessed: 25-04-2016 17:47 UTC
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American Philosophical Quarterly
Volume 39, Number 4, October 2002
PERSPECTIVE: A PRUDENTIAL VIRTUE
Valerie Tiberius
-L/o prudence and morality coincide? To
answer this question, philosophers have
tended to focus on the moral virtues and
to ask whether they are in a person's inter?
est. The focus is, therefore, on the question,
is developing and exercising the moral
virtues good for the person who does it?
Many contemporary philosophers are in?
clined to be skeptical about finding a
positive answer.1 This skepticism is fueled,
in part, by the lack of a substantive account
of prudence that does not simply build
moral virtue in at the outset. A rich and
detailed account of the virtues whose point
is to promote (or to constitute) one's own
good is, therefore, an important first step
in establishing that prudence and morality
do coincide. Furthermore, an account of
the prudential virtues is an important con?
tribution to our understanding of individual
well-being or prudence itself.2
A study of the prudential virtues is cru?
cial for understanding both the relationship
between prudence and morality and the
nature of prudence. This paper begins such
a study by providing an account of one
prudential virtue, the virtue of perspective.
In section 1, two examples of perspective
are provided in order to give an intuitive
sense of the nature of the virtue and the
conditions under which we attribute it to
others. Sections 2 and 3 contain an account
of perspective as a prudential virtue. A
prudential virtue, we shall say, is a char?
acter trait?a set of dispositions to think,
feel, and act in certain ways?whose end
is the agent's own good.3 Section 4 con?
tains a discussion of the ways in which per?
spective as characterized does indeed
promote the agent's own good.
Finally, it will be argued in section 5 that
perspective is a quality that tends to make
the people who have it better moral agents.
The aim in this last section of the paper is
to show that the person with perspective
will be more inclined to value certain moral
ends and more able to act on the moral
commitments she has. Admittedly, the ap?
proach taken in this paper cannot establish
the coincidence of morality and prudence
until we have a complete picture of the
prudentially virtuous agent. In providing
an account of one virtue and its relation?
ship to morality, the more immediate aim
is to enrich our understanding of what a
prudentially good life is for beings like us.
3 05
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1. Examples
In her advice column, Tell Me About
It, Carolyn Hax recently advised one of
her readers to get some perspective. The
reader had written to Carolyn complain?
ing bitterly about the pain and suffering
she was enduring after being dumped by
her boyfriend. The relationship with this
boyfriend had lasted only about three
months. Carolyn did not think the woman's
complaints were entirely unfounded, but
rather that they were out of proportion to
the value this relationship could have for
her, given its short duration. Carolyn sug?
gested that the letter writer take up some
volunteer work for a worthy cause as a way
both to meet other people and to help her
gain some perspective.
Phrases such as get some perspective
are probably familiar to most people.4 We
do advise people to do this, and it seems
that there is some wisdom in this advice.
Part of the wisdom is that there are things
not worth worrying about, and that to ex?
pend time and energy worrying about such
things leads only to unhappiness. The per?
son who is emotionally devastated by
something that is not actually all that im?
portant lacks perspective. For her to gain
perspective, it seems, would be for her to
develop a better sense of what is worth
worrying about, and an ability to bring her
thoughts, feelings, and actions into accor?
dance with this better sense.
A more complex example is to be found
in Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood
Bible. Leah Price is one of four daughters
who was taken to the Congo by her fierce
missionary father. While in the Congo,
Leah's youngest sister is bitten by a snake
and dies. The day that Leah's sister dies
happens to be the same day that the newly
elected leader of the Congo is murdered,
an event that has very tragic consequences
for the Congolese people. Later, Leah
marries a Congolese revolutionary. On the
day that Leah mourns her sister's death,
her husband, Anatole, mourns his country's
loss of independence and the thousands of
people who have been taken political pris?
oner, beaten, and killed. Leah reflects on
the differences between their griefs and she
remembers an incident from the village in
which her father was a missionary.
I can recall, years ago, watching Rachel
[Leah's older sister] cry real tears over a burn
hole in her green dress while, just outside
our door, completely naked children withered
from the holes burning in their empty stom?
achs, and I seriously wondered if Rachel's
heart were the size of a thimble. I suppose
that's how he [her husband Anatole] sees me
today. Any other day I might pray ... to lose
my self-will in the service of greater glory.
But January 17, in my selfish heart, is Ruth
May's only.5
Most readers will be inclined to think, with
Leah, that Rachel is completely lacking in
perspective: clothes are not valuable
enough to warrant distress even at the best
of times. Leah, however, does have per?
spective. Leah recognizes that her sister's
death is worth grieving and she allows her?
self to grieve. At the same time, she sees
that she must not lose herself in grief to
such a degree that she cannot appreciate
or be motivated to act on other value com?
mitments she has, such as the commitment
to the cause of the Congolese people.
2. Perspective
When we advise people to get perspec?
tive we are usually advising them to get
perspective on some particular thing or
things they value. Carolyn advises her
reader to get perspective on the relation?
ship she had with her boyfriend. Had Leah
advised her sister Rachel to get some per?
spective, she would have wanted Rachel
to gain perspective on the value of her
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PERSPECTIVE: A PRUDENTIAL VIRTUE / 307
dress. Leah seems to have perspective on
her love for her sister and her commitment
to the Congolese cause. Having perspec?
tive is something we do with respect to
commitments we have.
Part of what it is to be committed to
something, or to find it valuable, is to be
disposed to think and feel in certain ways
in various circumstances.6 To be commit?
ted to a friend is to care about her well
being, to want to spend time with her, to
feel angry when she is wronged, and to take
her into account in one's plans. To be com?
mitted to one's career is to want to suc?
ceed in it, to give it weight in one's plans,
to feel anxious when it is threatened and
proud when one gets a raise or promotion.
The thoughts, feelings, and dispositions
that make up one's commitment play a vi?
tal role in planning and action. We plan to
act in accordance with our value commit?
ments and we succeed in acting in accor?
dance with these plans when we are
motivated by the desires or other motiva?
tional states that are constitutive of the
value commitments.
Having a perspective on some value com?
mitment, we can say, is a matter of that
commitment's playing a particular practi?
cal role in one's life. To take a new
perspective on a value commitment is to
change that practical role. For example, if
the lovelorn writer to the advice column
were to take a different perspective on her
failed relationship, she would no longer be
inclined to write letters to advice colum?
nists nor to wallow in her own misery.
Taking different perspectives, that is,
changing one's perspective, on a value
commitment is possible because of fluc?
tuation in the components of a commitment
and the interaction between different com?
mitments. Although one might remain
committed to something one values, the
various thoughts, feelings, and dispositions
to action that make up a particular value
commitment do not remain constant. Varia?
tions in the intensity, duration, and vivacity
of our thoughts and feelings, and the im?
mediacy and gravity of relevant action
seem to be part of normal life.
One cause of these variations is the in?
teraction between different value commit?
ments. The dispositions that make up our
commitments are expressed in different
ways and have different roles in planning
and action depending, in part, on the other
attitudes we have. For example, consider
Matt's disposition to feel disappointed
when he fails to get a deserved promotion,
which is part of his commitment to his ca?
reer. This disappointment will be expressed
and experienced in different ways, depend?
ing on other facts about him. Because Matt
has normal moral convictions, he does not
express his disappointment by murdering
his boss or sabotaging the career of the
person who did get the promotion. Simi?
larly, the character of the experience of
disappointment can change because of
other attitudes Matt has. If on the same day
he gets the bad news about his job Matt
also learns that the lump in his neck is a
benign cyst rather than cancer, the disap?
pointment about his career might be much
less intense than it would otherwise be.
The fact that a particular commitment is
located in a web of commitments and val?
ues means that we can try to alter our
thoughts and feelings, and thereby to
change the role they will play in planning
and action, by shifting our attention in such
a way that the force of the original com?
mitment diminishes. When we want to, and
(sometimes) with some effort, we can fo?
cus intensely on a particular commitment
so that our thoughts and feelings are only
about that commitment, we can calm the
effect of these thoughts and feelings on us
by turning our attention to other things, or
we can reject the commitment altogether.7
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2.1. Perspective and Prudential Good
What we seem to be recommending
when we advise someone to get perspec?
tive is to bring her thoughts and feelings
in line with what really is important. Per?
spective as a virtue would seem to require
having the right perspective on one's com?
mitments, the right dispositions to thought,
feeling, and action in the right strength.
That is, perspective seems to consist in tak?
ing our commitments to be no more and
no less important than they really are.8 But
we might mean different things by what
is really important. In order to distinguish,
we need to consider the theoretical work that
the virtue of perspective is meant to do.
A philosophical account of a prudential
virtue must show that the dispositions and
skills that constitute the virtue contribute,
non-accidentally, to the agent's own good.
In order to characterize perspective as a
prudential virtue, then, we need to make
some assumptions about the good for a
person or well-being. Fortunately, it is not
necessary to provide a complete account
of the good for a person; two assumptions
about this notion will serve the purposes
of this paper without ruling out different
ways of filling in the details of such an
account. First, we will assume that the
good for a person requires the pursuit of
reflective values. It is quite plausible to
claim that the good for you requires achiev?
ing certain ends that have value to you, or
to your life. But, when we set out to pur?
sue our own good, we typically do not take
whatever ends we happen to have to deter?
mine what is good for us; rather, we tend
to think that the good that is worth pursu?
ing is constituted by a more refined set of
ends. Reflective values are this refined set
of ends. Second, let us assume that a
person's good requires that she not be per?
sistently miserable, or suffer pointless
distress. An argument for these assump?
tions would be beyond the scope of this
paper, but it is to be hoped that they are
broad and attractive enough to garner wide
agreement and to characterize (at least in
part) a conception of the good that most
people will recognize as a compelling and
familiar goal.9
The first assumption is the crucial one for
the characterization of perspective as a pru?
dential virtue; therefore, it will be helpful
to elaborate on the notion of reflective val?
ues employed in this assumption. Reflective
values are the commitments we choose in a
reflective moment when our attention is
focused on evaluating how important vari?
ous things should be to us. The idea is that
in a reflective moment we are not caught
up in the dispositions particular to one com?
mitment, and therefore these dispositions to
think and feel do not have us under their
sway. In a reflective moment we see things
as they are without being swept away or
blinded by powerful patterns of beliefs,
ideological convictions, and emotions. This
is not to say that in a reflective moment we
are completely detached or disengaged from
our values. The point is that in a reflective
moment our attention is turned to evaluat?
ing or reflecting on the commitments we
have, rather than on acting for the sake of
those commitments.
Notice that reflective values are subjec?
tive in the sense that the appropriate
ordering of values for a person depends,
at least in part, on the attitudes of the per?
son doing the reflecting. Reflection
operates against the background of a
person's prior commitments. Therefore,
some people, upon reflection, will judge
that traveling the world is as important as
their careers, while others will judge that
their careers are much more important
than anything except their families. Dif?
ferent reflective judgments about the
importance of various commitments will
yield different standards for appropriate
related dispositions.
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PERSPECTIVE: A PRUDENTIAL VIRTUE / 309
One might object to the claim that pur?
suit of reflective values is part of a person's
good because one thinks that the second
order attitudes that result from reflection
are not reliable indicators of what is good
for us. Such objections have been made to
a variety of theories that attempt to under?
stand normative notions in terms of second
order attitudes.10 Some of the concern
about the gap between what is good and
what is reflectively endorsed is due to the
particular notion of reflection that is as?
sumed by the normative theories. The as?
sumption made here about a person's good,
however, does not imply any particular
account of the nature of reflection. Reflec?
tion, for the purposes of this paper is what?
ever process is appropriate for refining and
improving our initial commitments. Given
the apparent unreliability of vivid reflec?
tion on the facts and the susceptibility of
judgment to ideological pressures, appro?
priate reflection will probably include
thinking carefully about which facts one
ought to consider and giving special atten?
tion to emotional cues.11
Still, it is true that the process of reflec?
tion is subjective in the sense that people
with different initial commitments can
reach different sets of reflective values;
reflection is not guaranteed to arrive at
particular objective values.12 Some con?
cerns about the gap between reflective
values and objective values, therefore, re?
main. In the remainder of this section it will
be argued that, despite this concern, there
is good reason to accept the assumption that
pursuit of reflective values is a component
of prudential value or well-being.
First, we have not assumed that pursuit of
reflective values is the only component of
well-being, nor that well-being is entirely
subjective. Given this allowance of other,
objective components of well-being, it
should be noted that the assumption that pur?
suit of reflective values is part of well-being
would be accepted by many objective theo?
rists. Martha Nussbaum, for example, takes
practical reasoning and reflection to be one
of the most important human functions, the
capacity for which is a component of flour?
ishing.13 One can hold that there are ob?
jective values and that well-being requires
pursuit of these values, then, without re?
jecting the claim that reflective values are
also part of well-being.
Second, it is difficult to deny that pur?
suit of some ends or other is necessary for
well-being. If we accept this assumption,
but reject reflective values as relevant to
well-being, the alternative is to claim that
only the pursuit of objectively valuable ends
is constitutive of well-being. This is an un?
desirable move for the following reasons.
First, the subjective nature of the concept
of well-being provides a prima facie rea?
son for accepting the claim that the ends
that partly constitute well-being are relative
to subjects. According to L. W. Sumner,
What distinguishes welfare from all other
modes of value is its reference to the propri?
etors of the life in question: although your life
may be going well in many respects, it is pru?
dentially valuable only if it is going well for
you. This subject-relativity is an essential fea?
ture of our ordinary concept of welfare.14
The need to justify the claim that perspec?
tive is good for the person who has it, that
is, good from her own point of view, pro?
vides some reason to accept a subjective
characterization of the ends that are part
of a person's well-being.
Second, the assumption that well-being
requires the pursuit of objective values
makes for a less desirable starting point
than we have if we assume only a subjec?
tive account of well-being. On the assump?
tion that we must pursue objective values
to achieve well-being, we could establish
that prudential virtues are essential to
well-being by direct appeal to these val?
ues. The challenge here would not be in
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establishing the relationship between pru?
dential virtue and well-being; rather it
would be in proving the claims about ob?
jective values in the first place. Since
claims about objective values are contro?
versial and difficult to establish, we do
better to argue that prudential virtues are
essential to living well without assuming
any claims about objective values.
Further, establishing a link between moral
agency and prudential virtue is more sig?
nificant if we begin with a subjective
conception of well-being and reflective val?
ues. Objective accounts of well-being that
take friendship or community or civic in?
volvement to be components of well-being
can argue for the coincidence of prudence
and morality on the basis of these values.
The connection to morality is less obvious
for subjective accounts of well-being, but
if such a link can be established it will be
significant because of the close relationship
between subjective well-being and motiva?
tion. Part of the interest of an argument that
provides prudential reasons for moral be?
havior is that it can provide reasons to be
moral that are widely shared. If well-being
is characterized so that it requires the pur?
suit of objective values, then the prudential
reasons to pursue one's own well-being will
not be shared by those who have no interest
in the objective values in question.
Of course there is a sense in which the
person with perspective cannot be entirely
confined to her own limited, subjective
point of view because she must have a cer?
tain kind of sympathy with the experiences
of others. We will turn to this point in the
next section.
2.2. Perspective Defined
With these assumptions about a person's
good in hand, we can now return to our
discussion of the nature of perspective. If
we take a person's good to include the pur?
suit of reflective values, and we conceive
of the prudential value of our commitments
as determined, at least in large part, by re?
flection, then we can see that the right
perspective to have is the one that is com?
patible with one's reflective judgment
about the actual importance or value of
one's projects and commitments. When we
take perspective to be a prudential virtue,
to advise a person to get perspective is to
advise her to bring her thoughts and feel?
ings in line with her reflective values,
rather than reacting to her circumstances
by succumbing to the most powerful
thoughts or feelings of the moment. Our
reflective values entail standards of appro?
priateness for our attitudes, choices, and
actions. The advice that one ought to have
perspective amounts to the recommenda?
tion that one conform one's attitudes,
actions, and choices to what is appropri?
ate given one's reflective values.
If the ultimate goal for the person of per?
spective is to achieve this kind of align?
ment, we can see that having perspective
for normal human beings will require hav?
ing certain skills and abilities that help to
bring us to this ideal state. First, because
the person with perspective must have re?
flective values, she must have the ability
to reflect on her values and make judg?
ments about how they are to be organized.15
Without this, there is no appropriate role
for her thoughts and feelings to play.
Second, because acquiring perspective
occurs in the context of the temptation to
become absorbed by something trivial, the
virtuous person must be capable of sym?
pathizing with the experiences of others at
least to the minimal extent that would al?
low her to be reminded of her own reflec?
tive values. The person with the virtue of
perspective must be open to experiences that
remove temptations to lose perspective. To
have such experiences, a person must be
capable of taking threats to someone else's
important interests to remind her of her
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PERSPECTIVE: A PRUDENTIAL VIRTUE / 311
own. In the case of Rachel, one reason we
want to say that she lacks perspective is
that she fails to take the suffering of chil?
dren outside her door to remind her of what
is important to her. Similarly, we are in?
clined to think that Leah does have per?
spective, in part, because she recognizes
the significance of other people's experi?
ences. Perspective may not require com?
passion or empathy, but it does seem to
require sympathy enough to identify the
values that are at stake in others' experi?
ences. This minimal sympathy, as we
might call it, allows the person of perspec?
tive to remember her own important val?
ues and therefore to see that she is
succumbing to the temptation of obsession
with the trivial.
Third, the person with perspective has the
ability to shape her attitudes in response
to what she learns from the above experi?
ence. She can shift her attention away from
what does not matter and, importantly, she
can actively appreciate those things that
she really does value. Having the appro?
priate attitudes does not simply mean re?
fraining from becoming engrossed in
inappropriate reactions, it also means ex?
periencing the thoughts and feelings ap?
propriate to finding valuable what one
thinks is important on reflection. The per?
son with perspective, therefore, will not be
passionless or perpetually moderate; it is
frequently appropriate to be wrapped up
in a project, emotionally charged and ex?
cited.16 The virtue of perspective, then,
consists in the ability to reflect on one's
values, to learn from the experience of oth?
ers when one's attitudes are inappropriate,
and to bring one's attitudes and actions into
line with one's reflective values.
To say that a particular constellation of
dispositions is a virtue is to say that it is
reliably correlated with well-being or pru?
dential value.17 Given human tendencies to
obsess about immediate but relatively
trivial concerns and our receptiveness to
the experience of others as relevant evi?
dence, perspective the virtue is best
characterized as including the above three
mechanisms for achieving appropriate at?
titudes and actions. We should say, then,
that the virtue of perspective consists in
these three abilities aimed at bringing one's
attitudes and actions into line with one's
reflective judgment.
3. Refining the Account of
Perspective
The person with perspective has appro?
priate attitudes, given the standards she
endorses, toward the objects of her value
commitments. We might think that the
standards people would endorse if they
reflected on the matter would form a fairly
inclusive ordinal ranking of possible ex?
periences in terms of the appropriateness
of various emotional responses. The tor?
ture or painful death of our loved ones
would be at the top of the list, holes in our
clothes and hangnails would be much
closer to the bottom. While it is true that
our standards for the appropriateness of the
thoughts and feelings that constitute our
value commitments do constitute a rank?
ing of some sort, things are not as simple
as the above description suggests.
It does seem that, if we were to set about
to create such a ranking, there are many
occurrences that we would judge more
worthy of despair, grief, fear, etc. than the
experiences toward which we typically feel
these emotions. If we reflect vividly on the
variety of experiences to which people
around the world are subject?starvation,
torture, severe oppression?our own anxi?
eties about our careers, vacation plans,
taxes, and such like, often pale in compari?
son. We do very often gain perspective on
one of our own problems by thinking about
how lucky we really are relative to the state
of most of the world's population.
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Nevertheless, it would be wrong to as?
sume that we can or should be able to
construct an ordinal ranking of the impor?
tance of all possible events or experiences.
This is because making sharp distinctions
between these events can impoverish our
own value commitments by preventing us
from honoring them in the required way.
For example, if a person were to judge that
it is far worse to be the victim of torture
than it is to be diagnosed with an often
curable form of cancer, she would also
judge that the perspective she ought to take
on her friend's cancer diagnosis is one ac?
cording to which she does not react very
strongly because, after all, things could be
much worse. But to take this perspective
does not seem to be a good thing for her to
do if she loves her friend. To react to the
diagnosis of a friend's possibly fatal ill?
ness by proclaiming that things could be
worse does not seem to leave room for the
appropriate fear, sympathy, and compas?
sion that are required by real friendship in
this case. If achieving one's own good re?
quires not only having good experiences
and feelings, but also valuing important
things to one's fullest ability, and if valu?
ing entails the disposition to feel negative
emotions when what one values is threat?
ened, then the correct judgments about
appropriate emotional responses must take
this into consideration.
A person with perspective certainly must
make comparative judgments about the
appropriateness of emotional responses.
But she need not make judgments that
would result in an inclusive ordinal rank?
ing. The person with perspective need only
make rough divisions among different
events or experiences. She must group
these events according to their relevance
to similar, not identical, degrees of value.
Events that make a profound difference to
the quality of one's life will be at the top
of the ranking, and the measure of profun?
dity will, by necessity, be rather imprecise.
Further, she must allow herself to experi?
ence the thoughts and feelings required by
her own value commitments, provided that
these values are ones she really thinks are
important, without diminishing her com?
mitment to other similarly important
values. A return to the example of Leah
Price will help us better understand these
complexities.
On the one hand, there is a sense in which
Leah believes her grief is less appropriate
than the grief her husband, Anatole, feels
for his people. But on the other hand, de?
spite the fact that she has labeled her
emotion selfish, there is a certain right?
eousness in her attitude. If she really
thought she was behaving wrongly, we
would expect her to feel ashamed of her
reaction, but she does not. Rather, she ap?
pears defiant and even a little bit proud.
In truth, Leah makes two different value
judgments from two different points of
view. From her own point of view she
judges that her sister's death is of profound
importance to her. Leah cared deeply about
her sister and therefore her grief is entirely
appropriate. But from another point of
view?the point of view of the world, or
of morality?Leah judges that the tragedy
of the Congolese people is more important
than the death of her sister. She judges that
the suffering of thousands is more impor?
tant from a global point of view and this is
a point of view with which she herself iden?
tifies. But the fact that the suffering of the
Congolese matters more according to the
impartial morality Leah endorses does not
imply that her sister's death is not really
very important to her. The facts about the
world that Leah recognizes do not make
her value her sister any less.
Given all of Leah's value commitments,
she is concerned to express her grief in
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PERSPECTIVE: A PRUDENTIAL VIRTUE / 313
such a way that she honors her love for her
sister without losing her ability to sympa?
thize with the plight of others. Leah's
virtue is displayed in two facts about her:
first, that she allows herself to experience
grief over her sister's death, thus honoring
that commitment, but she does not allow
this grief to overshadow and prevent the
appreciation of other value commitments;
and second, that both of the values she is
responding to are really, on reflection, im?
portant to her. Leah's commitment to her
sister and her commitment to the Congo?
lese cause surely differ in terms of their
appeal to other people, but they are simi?
lar in terms of the depth of commitment
and the bearing on her happiness. To have
the virtue of perspective, then, Leah is not
required to rank the importance of her sis?
ter and the Congolese cause. For Leah,
these values might both be in the category
of values of the highest importance.
Which perspective Leah takes, and when
she changes her perspective will depend
on many things: how her attitudes will
manifest themselves, how her grief will
affect other people, what the expression of
these attitudes will mean in the context,
and the effects that allowing herself to re?
spond in a particular way will have on her
self-respect or on her ability to continue
to pursue her goals. The virtue of perspec?
tive requires judgment and discernment to
understand and account for these details
and it includes a disposition to act in ac?
cordance with the judgments one makes.
Here we find that the virtue of perspec?
tive manifests features of the traditional
conception of virtue. According to Aristotle,
We can be afraid, e.g., or be confident, or
have appetites, or get angry, or feel pity, in
general have pleasure or pain, both too much
and too little, and in both ways not well; but
[having these feelings] at the right times,
about the right things, toward the right
people, for the right end, and in the right way,
is the intermediate and best condition, and
this is proper to virtue.18
On the Aristotelian conception of virtue,
virtuous agents must use their own power
of judgment to ascertain the right time and
place for their emotions.19 So, too, with the
virtue of perspective?it seems that agents
will have to have the capacity to take into
account the many details of their circum?
stances in order to make the required
judgments. This judgment will not be ar?
bitrary, of course. A person's judgments
about what constitutes having perspective
should be guided by her reflective values.
At this point we should consider an ob?
jection to the account of perspective here
defended. One might observe that, given
the notion of perspective above, according
to which a person has perspective if she
responds in accordance with subjective
standards of appropriateness, even Rachel
might count as having perspective if her
green dress happens to be what is most
important to her on reflection. Given the
account of perspective defended here, it
seems that Rachel would count as having
perspective if, even in a reflective moment,
she cannot be made to see the relative
unimportance of her green dress. This will
seem quite unintuitive: first, because there
seems to be something seriously wrong
with Rachel's reaction to the hole in her
dress; and second, because Rachel seems
to be a paradigmatic case of someone who
lacks perspective. Given these two claims,
why should we accept an account of per?
spective that allows someone like Rachel
to have it?
The primary reasons to accept an account
of perspective according to which Rachel
might have it are the same reasons that we
should accept an account of well-being that
requires the pursuit of subject-relative, re?
flective values. If we make perspective
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dependent on an appreciation of the objec?
tively correct values, we loosen our grasp
on the subjectivity of well-being. In so
doing we invite unnecessary skepticism by
resting the argument that virtue is essen?
tial for well-being on a defense of particu?
lar objective values. We also run the risk
of proposing an account of well-being and
prudential virtue that many people are not
motivated to pursue.
There is more we can say about Rachel,
however, to explain our reactions to her
behavior. First, regarding the claim that
there is something wrong with Rachel's
reaction to her dress, we can still criticize
her, from the moral point of view, for hav?
ing the wrong values. Moreover, Rachel
might very well lack other prudential and
moral virtues. She certainly lacks deep
compassion that would allow her to grasp
what is important to other people from
their own points of view. The fact that her
own values are trivial and shallow implies
that she lacks imagination and mental culti?
vation. That she has all these shortcomings
should make us less uncomfortable with the
possibility that she has perspective: she is
not a paradigm of virtue by any means.
The claim that Rachel seems a paradigm
case of someone who lacks perspective is
more difficult to explain on the current
account of perspective, of course. The first
thing to notice here is that Rachel does not
have perspective if she is entirely unreflec
tive. The virtue of perspective presupposes
a reflective set of values with which one's
attitudes can be consistent. Reflective val?
ues are the values one would endorse in a
reflective moment. But if Rachel is inca?
pable of the kind of reflection needed here,
then she cannot have perspective. It is plau?
sible to say that some people?and Rachel
is a likely candidate?are incapable of this
kind of reflection. We might conclude that
Rachel is such a person if it is the case that
she cannot distance herself from her cur?
rent concerns, or entertain and consider
criticisms of her values. Second, given the
role of sympathy in perspective, if Rachel
is to count as having perspective, it cannot
be the case that she values the satisfaction
of her own basic needs and simply does
not take the hunger of others to be at all
relevant to her own reflective values. Such
a person would lack perspective because
she lacks the main capacity by which she
can be reminded of her own reflective val?
ues in times of temptation. The Rachel
under consideration here would have to
find the condition of her clothes more valu?
able than the satisfaction of her own basic
needs on reflection.
So, the objector would have to be think?
ing of a Rachel who has the wrong values,
who is capable of sympathizing with
threats to those values in the experience
of others, and who is reflective. But this
person is an unusual character. First, it is
unusual to find people who are reflective
and yet care more about clothes than their
own basic needs. Second, it is unusual to
find people who can sympathize with oth?
ers enough to take their experiences as
reminders of their own reflective values,
and yet who do not appreciate in the slight?
est that the others care most about entirely
different things. The capacity for minimal
sympathy is not easily contained: once we
appreciate others' experience enough to see
its relevance to our own decisions, the
natural tendency is to begin to see and ap?
preciate what the others value, rather than
just seeing their experiences through the
framework of our own values.
It does follow from the present account
that someone who is reflective and mini?
mally sympathetic would count as having
perspective even if she has the wrong val?
ues, as long as her thoughts and feelings are
appropriate given these mistaken values.
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PERSPECTIVE: A PRUDENTIAL VIRTUE / 315
The point of the preceding discussion has
been to show that this implication of the
account of perspective is not as problem?
atic as it may seem.
4. The Value of Perspective
Perspective includes the ability to reflect
on one's values, the capacity for minimal
sympathy, and the disposition to have one's
values play an appropriate practical role
given the judgments arrived at in this re?
flection. What can be said in defense of
the claim that perspective is a prudential
virtue? In other words, how does perspec?
tive promote a person's good?
First, if a person's good requires, in part,
that she pursue values that she would en?
dorse in a reflective moment, we can see
that perspective is a constitutive part of a
person's good, and an inherently valuable
quality. Perspective includes the ability to
reflect on your values and to bring your
thoughts, feelings, and dispositions to ac?
tion into accordance with these reflections.
Insofar as a person has the virtue of per?
spective, then, she is disposed to act in
accordance with her reflective values. In
effect, the case for thinking that perspec?
tive has this kind of value was made in the
first half of the paper because we brought
considerations about well-being to bear on
our characterization of perspective as a
prudential virtue.
Second, perspective has an instrumental
role in bringing about a person's good. This
claim is the focus of the current section. It
will be helpful to begin thinking about this
question by considering Philippa Foot's
characterization of a virtue in terms of a
corrective for common human weak?
nesses.20 There are three weaknesses that
perspective helps to overcome: first, the
tendency to become distressed for a pro?
longed period when things we care about
are threatened; second, the fragile nature
of our ability to appreciate the good; and,
third, the tendency in deliberation to be
overly influenced by violent emotional re?
sponses or vivid but ungrounded thoughts
that are out of proportion to the actual
value of that to which we are reacting.
These weaknesses and the ways in which
perspective corrects for them to promote
our good will be discussed in the remain?
der of this section.
4.1. Preventing Unnecessary Distress
The Stoics noticed that people are made
miserable when the things we value are
threatened. We suffer painfully when we
lose our health, when our friends and loved
ones are sick or hurt, or our reputations are
tarnished. The Stoics' advice was to care
very little about anything except that over
which we have control: our character.
While we might think that the Stoics' no?
tion of what really matters was too lim?
ited, we can appreciate their advice if we
reflect on the fact that we are made miser?
able by our attachments to things that do
not matter as well as our attachments to
things that do. We frequently become over?
wrought and unhappy when our projects
are not going smoothly, even when we
know that these particular projects are not
as important to us as other things we value
that are not threatened. If perspective is,
in part, the disposition to respond in pro?
portion to the value one attaches to one's
commitments in a reflective moment, then
perspective can prevent some of the mis?
ery we have over things that do not matter.
Another lesson to be learned from the
ideal of the Stoic sage is that our natural
tendencies to form attachments and re?
spond emotionally do not always corre?
spond to our reflective judgments of what
is important. The Stoic sage is an ideal
because he or she really does care about
things in proportion to the value they have.
This is something that needs to be
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achieved; it is not the natural state for most
people. Part of the problem here is that we
care too much about things that do not
matter (money, power, external goods),
and, as we have discussed, we are disposed
to become miserable when these things are
lost or threatened. But this is not the end
of the story. Just as the non-Stoic tends to
fail to appreciate the value of her own char?
acter, so too we tend to fail to appreciate
the value of the things that we judge on
reflection to be most important. This brings
us to the second way in which perspective
compensates for human weaknesses to pro?
mote our good.
4.2. Encouraging Appreciation
When you ask people what really mat?
ters they say that the things that are truly
important are things such as their friends,
their health and the health of those they
love, some measure of success in their cho?
sen projects, and doing something that
makes the world a better place.21 But then
if we observe the practice of these same
people, we find that their behavior and their
emotional responses do not correspond to
their judgments that these are the things
that really matter. Health, although most
of us would list it as something that really
matters, is something we do not even no?
tice until it is in jeopardy. Many of us are
prone to take for granted the values that we
are succeeding in realizing; we get caught
up in other things and we do not take the
time to appreciate the value of friendship,
health, or the successes we have had.
There seems to be a human tendency to
worry about the things that are not going
smoothly, and to ignore the things that are.
Of course, this kind of tendency makes a
certain amount of sense. After all, if we
were to ignore the things that really need
our attention we would certainly be frus?
trated in our pursuits. But this tendency
makes our ability to appreciate the value
that is available to us somewhat fragile.
Consider the fact that when one spends a
long time not appreciating the good in
things, one can become depressed and un?
able to find anything pleasant, fun,
stimulating, or in some other way worthy
of a positive response. The capacity to find
value in the world is one that must be cul?
tivated and used, or else it is at risk of
deteriorating.
Since having perspective requires appre?
ciating the value that we find, the person
with the virtue of perspective has, to some
extent, overcome the weakness in her abil?
ity to appreciate value. Overcoming this
weakness requires making an effort to turn
one's attention to things that are not de?
manding that attention. It requires, in other
words, a commitment to appreciating
value. The connection to our good is not
difficult to see: finding and appreciating
good things, in general, makes people
happy and prevents misery.
At this point we can notice the way in
which the virtue of perspective is like a
skill because the ability to appreciate value
is an ability that one can cultivate. To see
this we must think about why it is that some
values do not demand our attention, and
require an active effort on our part to ap?
preciate them. First, as already mentioned,
these values are by hypothesis ones that
are not threatened: nothing dramatic is
happening to them that would command
our attention. Second, it is also true that
many of these values are subtle, and re?
quire some training to appreciate. For
instance, the aesthetic value of some kinds
of natural beauty is quiet and delicate; it
is not as imposing as the aesthetic value of
a dramatic film, nor as entertaining as the
value of enjoying fine wine with a good
friend. The value of a peaceful moment, a
painting, a long walk, or the sensation of
one's health are what we might call quiet
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PERSPECTIVE: A PRUDENTIAL VIRTUE / 317
values insofar as they do not demand
strong responses.
The ancients thought that virtues were
similar to skills in two respects: both re?
quire practice and habituation, and both
require intellectual grasp, or some level
of understanding what it is that you are
doing in exercising your skill. 22 Unobtru?
sive or quiet values take skill to appre?
ciate in the sense that we can train
ourselves to appreciate them. We can prac?
tice achieving the peace of mind that en?
ables us to appreciate a walk in the woods.
We can cultivate the habit of noticing the
value of a peaceful moment rather than
allowing the moment to be filled up with
mental clutter. It is not as plain that appre?
ciating value requires understanding of
what one is doing, but there is a compari?
son to be made here too, at least with re?
spect to certain kinds of values. Notice that
we can deepen our appreciation of the
kinds of quiet values mentioned above by
learning about the value in question. We
can develop a greater appreciation for
works of art, for example, when we know
something about the art form. Although we
can appreciate the value of nature without
knowing much about it, we might think that
some knowledge of the ecosystem we en?
counter can help to sustain our apprecia?
tion and keep us from becoming bored or
indifferent.
The skill of appreciating quiet values and
the commitment to appreciating the value
that is available can promote a person's
good in several ways. First, appreciating
the value of nature, for example, can add
to our happiness and deflect misery pre?
cisely because of its relative serenity. If,
as Mill thought, we need a balance of tran
quility and excitement in our lives, then
achieving some serenity by appreciating
the value of nature might be an important
part of our good.23 Furthermore, these quiet
values are often available to appreciate
when other things are not. A person who
has the ability to value what is around her,
and to take pleasure in the more perma?
nent features of her environment, is less
likely to be miserable and unhappy than
those who do not have these skills. Finally,
the ability to appreciate and the commit?
ment to find value can overcome the
psychological inertia that makes us con?
tinue worrying about what we do not have
rather than cherishing what we do.
4.3. Aiding Deliberation
The emphasis on serenity and calm ap?
preciation of nature (or any subtle value,
for that matter) that is part of the virtue of
perspective recalls the advice that is often
given to practical reasoners to deliberate
in a calm, cool moment. This brings us to
the third way in which the virtue of per?
spective conduces to a person's good by
compensating for a weakness. Having per?
spective can help us to deliberate better
about our own good.
Why is the common wisdom that we can
make better decisions in a calm, cool mo?
ment? Making good decisions, whether
these decision are moral or prudential, re?
quires (among other things) appreciating
the facts, and giving each consideration the
right amount of weight. When moral phi?
losophers invoke the notion of a cool
reflective moment they seem to be trying
to compensate for fleeting and violent pas?
sions that can distract our conscience, or
our faculty of reason, from what facts are
relevant, and what importance the various
facts actually have.24 Butler's point in in?
voking this notion is not that we make our
best decisions when we feel no emotions
or sentiments at all. On the contrary, But?
ler thinks we need to be guided by cool
self-love and benevolence.25 Butler's point
is that there are passions that distort or
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conceal the facts about what is really at
stake in our choices.
We can see, then, how perspective would
aid us in making better decisions. The per?
son with perspective has emotional re?
sponses that are in proportion given her hi?
erarchy of values. This means that the
psychological forces that sometimes dis?
tort our sense of what is important are, in?
stead, counteracted by perspective. The
person with perspective is not misled by
inappropriate emotions or distracted by
disturbing thoughts because her emotional
responses are appropriate to the various
values that are at stake in her choice. For
example, consider a graduate student who
is distraught because he has received some
insulting and vituperative comments from
one of his professors. In the midst of feel?
ing most hurt by the comments, and most
insecure about his own abilities, he con?
siders whether he ought to stay in gradu?
ate school. Most of us who have encoun?
tered such a student have advised the student
to postpone deliberating about major life
choices until the immediate sting of the ex?
perience subsides. We do this because we
do not think that one set of nasty comments
warrants the student's response, and we
think that the student's perception of the
facts is distorted by his immediate, inflated
reaction.26 Violent passions, as Butler re?
alized, can lead us astray from correct
judgments about our own good, just as they
can lead us morally astray. The person with
perspective is disposed to recognize that
nasty comments from one person are not
worth the kind of despair that would move
him to reevaluate a major decision.
One might think that a person could
achieve these three benefits of perspective
without actually possessing the virtue, or
that one could, unluckily, fail to achieve
them despite possessing the virtue. This is
true, but it is not an objection to the present
account. First of all, we can point out that
perspective is inherently valuable for the
living of a life in pursuit of reflective val?
ues, independent of its likely effects. And
secondly, a defense of the virtues should
not be required to establish that each vir?
tue is necessary and sufficient for flour?
ishing. This puts the bar too high. As
Rosalind Hursthouse puts it,
[T]he claim is not that possession of the vir?
tues guarantees that one will flourish. The
claim is that they are the only reliable bet?
even though, it is agreed, I might be unlucky
and, precisely because of my virtue, wind up
dying early or with my life marred or ruined.27
To establish that a particular trait is a vir?
tue we must establish that it is reliably
correlated with well-being or flourishing
and that, therefore, it is a trait we all have
reason to cultivate from the point of view
of reflection on the development of our
own characters.
5. Perspective and Morality
The argument thus far was intended to
establish that perspective is a prudential
virtue in the sense that possessing it helps
one achieve one's own good. Because of
their very nature, it is easy to see why pru?
dential virtues are the kinds of virtues
people have an interest in developing.
Since most people are concerned about
their own good, most people have a reason
to develop the virtue of perspective. As we
begin to draw a connection between pru?
dential virtues and moral behavior, it is
important to start with reasonable expec?
tations for what can be accomplished. We
should not hope to establish that pruden?
tial virtue necessarily entails moral
behavior, nor should we hope to establish
that the virtue of perspective in particular
has implications for all kinds of moral
agency. Grand conclusions will have to
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PERSPECTIVE: A PRUDENTIAL VIRTUE / 319
await a full account of the prudential vir?
tues and their relationship to morality. In
the meantime, what we can hope for here
is to show that people with the virtue of
perspective have dispositions that make it
more likely that they will be moral in some
respect. Perspective does play this role in
three ways.
First, a person who has perspective tends
to act in accordance with her own judg?
ments about what matters and therefore,
likely, with her moral judgments. This is
so because her emotions conform to her
judgments about what matters, and actions
are (at least in part) motivated by emotions
and feelings. Further, such a person is able
to make discerning judgments about the
relative merits of her values. Now consider
that most people do rank moral values high
in their hierarchies of values, when they
are being reflective. If the person with per?
spective tends to act in accordance with
these reflective judgments, then she will
be disposed not to sacrifice moral values
for the sake of other things she judges to
have less value. The person with perspec?
tive has a vivid sense of the importance of
her own moral commitments, and, insofar
as these commitments do figure promi?
nently in her own set of values, they have
more influence on her behavior than they
will for the person who is committed to
morality but who tends to get carried away
by the concerns of the moment.
In this way, the person with perspective
is disposed to avoid unreflective actions.
This is significant because it seems that in
many cases immoral action is the result of
acting on motives that are inconsistent with
one's judgments of appropriateness, or
motives that would be inconsistent with
these judgments if one made them at all.
Immoral actions, in other words, often re?
sult from rash decisions and facile judg?
ments about appropriate responses. To see
that this is so, consider that often when
people lie, cheat, or break promises it is
because they are narrowly focused on the
troublesome spots they are in, and they give
no thought to their commitment to treat?
ing others well, or even to the long term
consequences for their own interests of the
immoral action. Or, consider people who
ignore their friends, or their children, for
the sake of attaining financial security un?
til they reach the point at which they have
time to step back and think about what
there is of value in their lives. Mid-life and
existential crises often seem to happen to
those who have sacrificed what they really
would find important, on reflection, for the
sake of pursuing goals that demand their
immediate attention.
Second, the person with perspective has
the ability and the incentive to appreciate
moral values. Such a person cultivates her
ability to find value in the world by appre?
ciating the value that is available rather
than letting her emotional landscape be
dominated by the negative emotional re?
sponses to assaults on some of the things
she values. Now certain moral values are
more reliable objects of our commitment
than, for example, money or power. Money,
power, fame, reputation and, to some ex?
tent, success in our careers are very much
at the mercy of forces beyond our control.
Threats to our possession of these things
are frequent and somewhat unpredictable.
Finding value in our own character, or in
moral actions such as helping others, is
much less risky. Acting morally and de?
veloping moral virtues gives us a sense of
pride and the approval of our community,
and the commitment to morality is typi?
cally less subject to bad fortune than is the
commitment to getting rich or becoming
famous or powerful.28
Furthermore, the capacity for minimal
sympathy that is part of perspective will
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incline its possessor to find the interests
and concerns of others to be important. As
was suggested in the discussion of Rachel,
the capacity for sympathy is not easily con?
fined to taking away a reminder of one's
own reflective values. Once one appreci?
ates that another person is experiencing a
threat to an important value, it is difficult
not to have compassion for that person, to
want this threat to stop and to be willing
to act for this reason. Sympathetic appre?
ciation of other people's experiences is
needed for perspective because it forces us
to see beyond our present concerns and,
frequently, causes us to see that our prob?
lems are actually quite trivial in compari?
son with what is at stake in the concerns
of others. But once we see that another
person has bigger problems, and we are
committed to the values at stake in that
other's situation, it is difficult to stop the
progression from minimal sympathy to
compassion and action. A person who lacks
this aspect of perspective is unlikely to
perceive when others are experiencing cri?
ses or threats to their interests, nor is she
likely to appreciate others' circumstances
as relevant to her own life at all. For this
reason, the person with perspective is,
other things equal, a better moral agent
than the person who lacks it.
Finally, the person with the virtue of per?
spective has a skill that is also necessary
for moral deliberation, namely, the ability
to reflect and make judgments without be?
ing overcome by her current concerns. If
we take the ideal point of view for moral
deliberation to be the impartial point of
view, then it is easy to see how the person
with perspective will be a better moral de
liberator. She is capable of considering
what is best without having her delibera?
tion determined by her own short term
self-interest and she is disposed to act in
accordance with this reflection. This does
not guarantee, of course, that she will be
completely impartial; however, at least one
common source of partiality?short term
self-interest?will be diminished in the
person with perspective. Even if we reject
the view that the moral point of view is
impartial, we can still agree that perspec?
tive is useful for moral deliberation. If the
ideal moral point of view is characterized
by attachments to particular others, the
ability to abstract from current short term
self-interest is necessary for giving those
particular attachments their due.
Having perspective does not guarantee
that the person with perspective will al?
ways act morally. However, those with
perspective tend to be free from some com?
mon motives for neglecting moral duties
and good deeds and they tend to be well
suited to engage in the kind of reasoning
that is required by morality. If perspective
is a virtue we have reason to cultivate in?
sofar as we are interested in our own good,
then most of us will have reason to culti?
vate it, and this means that those of us with
some commitment to morality will also
have reasons to avoid the moral pitfalls
mentioned above. Moreover, because of
her commitment to appreciating available
value and her capacity for minimal sym?
pathy, the person with perspective will be
more likely to endorse certain moral val?
ues in the first place.
One might object that perspective does
not give us moral reasons at all, but rather
that it only gives us a reason to develop
traits that happen to produce moral behav?
ior in people who have moral commit?
ments.29 This would not be quite fair. Some
of the particular reasons we will discover
when we take on the project of developing
perspective will be reasons to act morally.
For example, imagine that Rachel does
have some common moral concerns and
that her sister persuades her to get some
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PERSPECTIVE: A PRUDENTIAL VIRTUE / 321
perspective. One thing she will find her?
self with reason to do is to reflect on what
really matters to her and to pay more at?
tention to it. This in turn might give her a
reason to pay more attention to the needs
of her family. In this case it would be natu?
ral to say that Rachel has a reason to act
better, morally speaking, by taking her
family's needs into account, that arises di?
rectly from the reason she has to develop
perspective.
Moreover, if it is correct that minimal
sympathy is not easily constrained and that
the person who acknowledges the experi?
ences of others will also tend to care about
those others, then perspective can do more
than merely produce moral behavior. The
virtue of perspective, according to this line
of argument, is conducive to having com?
mitments to moral ends. These commit?
ments, in turn, provide their own reasons
for action. In the case of Leah, her coming
to care about the interests of others would
give her reasons to promote their good and
these reasons would not be narrowly self
interested.
6. Conclusion
The virtue of perspective consists in
three abilities: the ability to reflect on your
values, the ability to learn from the expe?
riences of others, and the ability to bring
your thoughts, feelings and dispositions
into accord with these reflections. Accord?
ing to the argument provided above,
perspective thus defined helps us to achieve
good lives.
The goal of this paper has been to illu?
minate the kind of reflective life that is
good for human beings. It has also been
argued that there are reasons to think that
the conflict between morality and prudence
will be diminished in a person with per?
spective. If this argument is correct, then
an investigation of the prudential virtues
and the way that they complement each
other is a promising way to build a bridge
between morality and prudence.30
University of Minnesota
NOTES
1. See for example, Brad Hooker, Does Moral Virtue Constitute a Benefit to the Agent? in How
Should One Live? Essays on the Virtues, ed. Roger Crisp (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), pp.
141-155; L. W. Sumner, Is Virtue Its Own Reward? in Virtue and Vice, ed. Ellen Frankel Paul,
Fred D. Miller Jr., and Jeffrey Paul (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 18-36;
and Thomas Hurka, The Three Faces of Flourishing, in Human Flourishing, ed. Ellen Frankel
Paul, Fred D. Miller Jr., and Jeffrey Paul (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp.
44-71. Philippa Foot recommends at least taking seriously skepticism about the claim that jus?
tice is in one's self-interest and she objects to the tendency of modern moral philosophy to reject
this claim and yet to continue to see justice as a virtue. See her Moral Beliefs, in Foot, Virtues
and Vices and Other Essays in Moral Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell, 1978), pp. 125-131.
2. For the purposes of this paper, no distinction will be made between well-being, prudential
value, and the good for a person.
3. This characterization of prudential virtues is in agreement with Julia Driver's characterization
of prudential virtues as character traits that produce good consequences for oneself. Julia Driver,
The Virtues and Human Nature, in Roger Crisp, editor, op. cit., p. 113, fn. 4. The characteriza?
tion assumed in this paper is not intended as a complete theory of virtue, but rather as a working
account that includes at least some necessary conditions. This rough account does, of course,
rely on the notion of a good for an agent. To provide a complete philosophical account of the
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good for an agent is far beyond the scope of this paper, as is the task of relating and comparing
the concept of the agent's own good to the concepts of happiness, self-interest, and well
being.
4. There might be other ways of putting the same point, or of giving the same kind of advice. For
example, don't sweat the small stuff is closely related.
5. Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible (New York: HarperCollins Books, 1998), p. 430.
6. No particular thesis about the nature of value is assumed here. Rather, what is intended is the
psychological claim that we typically respond emotionally in these ways to what we value. Ac?
cording to some philosophers, valuing something is simply responding emotionally to it. This is
a stronger claim than the one assumed in this paper. For this stronger view see Elizabeth Ander?
son, Value in Ethics and Economics (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1993); and
Gerald F. Gaus, Value and Justification: The Foundations of Liberal Theory (Cambridge: Cam?
bridge University Press, 1990).
7. This is not to say that we can always change all of our dispositions toward some person or
project we once held dear. Emotional dispositions, for instance, can persist despite our wishing
they would not. Nevertheless, we can usually change the ways these dispositions are expressed in
action, and we can often cause them to lessen over time.
8. There is, then, a mean to be reached in attaining perspective on a particular commitment. It is
not obviously helpful, however, to characterize perspective itself as a mean. One might say that
perspective is the mean between obsession and indifference, but this seems to make perspective
into a static state according to which there is one correct attitude to take toward any and every
commitment. As will become more clear in the following sections, this is not how perspective
ought to be understood.
9. In its defense, the partial characterization of a person's good employed here is compatible
with many different accounts of the good for a person. The assumption that the pursuit of a set of
reflective values is (at least) necessary for the good sits very easily with informed or idealized
desire accounts of a person's good. For such accounts see James Griffin, Well-Being: Its Mean?
ing, Measure and Moral Importance (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986); Peter Railton, Moral
Realism, in Moral Discourse and Practice, ed. Stephen Darwall, Allan Gibbard, and Peter Railton
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 137-163; John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cam?
bridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971), pp. 395-433. It is also
compatible with other subjective accounts such as L. W. Sumner's account of welfare in his
Welfare, Happiness and Ethics, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996). The assumption made here
would also find agreement among those who defend objective list theories that include autonomy
or reflection as one of the objective goods that makes up the good life for a person. For example,
see Thomas Hurka, Perfectionism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993). The second as?
sumption, that the good for a person requires that she not be persistently miserable, distressed or
suffering, is also compatible with the theories above, although the informed desire accounts of a
person's good would take this claim to be contingent on the fact that people desire not to be
miserable.
10. See for example, Gary Watson's discussion of Frankfurt's account of free will in Free Agency,
in his Free Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), pp. 96-110. For an innovative critical
discussion of second order desire accounts of praiseworthiness and accountability, see Nomy
Arpaly and Timothy Schroeder, Praise, Blame and the Whole Self, Philosophical Studies, vol.
93, no. 2 (1999), pp. 161-188. For criticisms of second-order-desire theories of value see Allan
Gibbard, A Noncognitivistic Analysis of Rationality in Action, in Social Theory and Practice,
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PERSPECTIVE: A PRUDENTIAL VIRTUE / 323
vol. 9, nos. 2-3 (Summer-Fall 1983), pp. 199-221; and Thomas E. Hill, Darwall on Practical
Reason, Ethics, vol. 96 (April 1986), pp. 604-619.
11. For an account of appropriate reflection developed along these lines, see Valerie Tiberius,
Full Information and Ideal Deliberation, Journal of Value Inquiry, vol. 31, no. 3 (September
1997), pp. 329-338.
12. Objective values here are ends that are good for a person independently of her attitudes
toward them.
13. Women and Human Development, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 79
83. See also footnote 9.
14. Sumner, Welfare, Happiness and Ethics, p. 42.
15. It might be that one could respond appropriately just by luck, without making such judg?
ments. But this would not be paradigmatic of the virtue of perspective since virtues are not supposed
to lead to their good outcomes merely due to luck.
16. Sometimes it may even be appropriate to get carried away. The author is grateful to Cara
Nine for helpful discussion on this point.
17. See Rosalind Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 172.
18. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Terence Irwin (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Com?
pany, 1985), 1106M5-25.
19. Martha Nussbaum emphasizes this point in The Discernment of Perception: An Aristotelian
Conception of Private and Public Rationality in Love's Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and
Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 54-105. Nussbaum and other
Aristotelians make the further claim that the discernment of the virtuous person cannot be cap?
tured by talking about universal rules or principles. This further claim is not assumed here; the
point is simply that having the virtue of perspective will require the ability to make judgments on
the basis of a fine appreciation of a complex set of facts.
20. See Foot, Virtues and Vices in her Virtues and Vices and Other Essays in Moral Philosophy,
pp. 1-18.
21. This is not a compete list, of course, but these things are likely to be on most people's lists.
Even among philosophers with various theoretical commitments, there is substantial agreement
about what matters. See for example, Thomas Hurka, Perfectionism, and James Griffin, op. cit.
22. See Julia Annas, The Morality of Happiness (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), pp.
66-70. As Annas points out, different philosophical schools disagreed about how closely virtues
resembled skills. The Stoics thought the virtues simply were a type of skill, while Aristotle thought
that the virtues were like skills in some respects but unlike them in others.
23. John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1979), p. 13.
24. See, for example, Bishop Joseph Butler, Sermon 1 Upon Human Nature in Five Sermons,
ed. Stephen Darwall (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1983); Stephen Darwall, Im?
partial Reason (Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University Press, 1983), pp. 93-98; and David Falk, Hume
on Practical Reason, in his Ought, Reasons and Morality: The Collected Papers ofW. D. Falk
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1986), pp. 153-154.
25. Bishop Butler characterizes conscience as the ability to reflect coolly upon one's actions,
which corrects for our tendency to focus on consequences to ourselves. See Butler, op. cit., p. 30.
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26. Notice that it is not always our emotions that lead us astray in this way. We could imagine a
similar student who responds with (appropriate) anger at the professor, but who dismisses his
anger as inappropriate because he has constructed an elaborate system of (unwarranted) beliefs
about his lack of ability.
27. Rosalind Hursthouse, op.cit., p. 172.
28. This is not to say that whether one can live up to one's commitment to morality and find value
in acting well is not at all subject to fortune. There might be what Williams has called moral
luck. The point here is simply that our commitment to morality is less subject to luck than other
commitments we have, and that, therefore, morality is a more reliable source for appreciating
value than some of these other commitments. See Bernard Williams, Moral Luck in his Moral
Luck (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 20-39.
29. This objection is due to Michelle Mason.
30. For helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper the author would like to thank Julia
Annas, Tom Christiano, Lori Gruen, Sarah Holtman, Michelle Mason, Elijah Millgram, Patricia
Ross, David Schmidtz, J. D. Walker, C. Kenneth Waters, and audiences at the Central Division
meeting of the American Philosophical Association (April 2000), and the Department of Philoso?
phy at the University of Arizona, and two anonymous referees for American Philosophy Quarterly.