The Inseparability of Morality and Well‐being: the duty/virtue debate revisited

Abstract

Abstract One characterisation of the duty/virtue debate contrasts an ethics of duty that provides us with the moral knowledge to know what is right because it is right, to an ethics of virtue that enables us to choose what is right only because we want to, and not because we know that we must (Baron, 1985). This paper provides an account of the practical reasoning that moral agents employ in the pursuit of valuable goals based on Raz (1986) that undermines the basis for this contrast. The account shows how acquiring practical knowledge of our own valuable pursuits instructs us in the duties that we owe to others, just as being able to identify the duties we owe to others requires knowing what is necessary for living a meaningful and fulfilling life. It is argued that the interdependence of these two important aspects of moral development puts into question attempts by moral educators to distinguish sharply between them.