CHAPTER ONE

1.0 INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF STUDY

        The moral content of virtues is explored by Peter Koller (2009), who has produced a useful typology of different forms of virtue. Following Aristotle, Koller conceives of some virtues as having an intellectual function while others have a more explicitly moral character.

The first are designed to arrive at correct knowledge and technical ability operate well within a practice, that is, diligence, patience, modesty in the field of diplomacy. The second, moral virtues, are described as ‘conduct that seems desirable from a general and impartial point of view’; for instance, justice, benevolence or honesty (Koller, 2009: 192).7 Intellectual virtues are viewed as instrumental and privileging the individual — or the group the individual represents — foremost. In other words, they do

not of themselves suggest acceptance of a wider society’s values.8 Moral virtues further the goods of the society at large. As such, they require a greater degree of fellow feeling among the participants.

According to Aristotle (1976: 91), intellectual virtues can be instructed whereas moral virtues ‘are acquired by practice and habituation’ and so are linked to the extent to which an individual has absorbed the appropriate attitudes of the culture he inhabits. Thus, the more complex and dense the society, the more its participants are required to develop appropriate moral virtues in order to function well within it.

Later in this article, suggestion was that the more solidarist form of international society represented by the International Criminal Court requires that states people and officials exhibit different virtues to those historically privileged in the practice of international relations. Emphasis on habituation highlights the inevitable structurational aspects of virtue (Giddens, 1984). No account of the virtues can be purely individualist since a significant part of virtue theory is about individual agents being receptive to the ethical demands of the society they inhabit. Nevertheless, it is a useful corrective to those approaches that ignore or downplay the important role that individuals can play in ethical practice, and which imply that most moral choices are to all intents and purposes socially determined (see Wight, 1999: 114, 123–124). The normative structure of a society will shape the virtues expected and required; in turn, these norms are affected by how far individual agents demonstrate the relevant virtues and whether they choose to express alternative ones that challenge and perhaps undermine those norms.

Thus, focusing on individuals as moral agents allows an understanding of how a society is constituted by the actions of its participants.Recalling my earlier discussion of the IR literature, a virtue-centred approach can therefore take two distinct but complementary lines of analysis. One sees discussion of virtue as a superior tool for understanding and appraising statecraft than normative analysis as it tells us how individuals choose between norms and why individuals act in ways that deontological reasoning can only see as inconsistent and so irrational (Brown, 2007; Jackson, 1995).

 In a situation where an individual has to decide which norm to put into action, the virtues of that individual decision-maker most obviously their practical wisdom and judgement  are paramount. In examining the moment of decision(or change), this analysis, an explicitly ‘virtue ethics’, offers prescriptions as to what virtues are more likely to be useful in different decision scenarios and critiques statespeople who fail to recognize or exhibit such traits. From the emphasis this line of inquiry places on the choices made by policymakers, this might be labelled a ‘decision-oriented virtue ethics’ (DOVE). In seeing the exercise of virtue as paramount in decision-making, it gives the virtues a more autonomous role in ethical reasoning than deontologism or consequentialism.

A second mode of analysis might locate virtue as an important corollary of other ethical theories rather than a branch of ethics in its own right. According to this argument, virtues are not capable of transplanting norms as the focus of analysis since we need to establish the moral parameters that exist prior to the exercise of virtuous behaviour. The virtuous agent inhabits a wider structure of rules and principles that shapes their attitudes and determines the range of decision options from which they must choose. Unless we understand these, we cannot gain a full appreciation of the form or content of any ethical choice.

Nevertheless, Koller (2009: 193) stresses that: ‘virtues are extremely important because a moral practice can never rely on the insight in moral norms alone, but also requires appropriate human attitudes that motivate people according to these norms’. In other words, norms will presuppose certain virtues in order for them to be operationalized.

To understand how social norms function we need to appreciate the individualized ethical attitudes they demand of participants within the practice. Only by seeing this will we gain a fuller account of the way morality actually works in the real world. Such an approach might more appropriately be described as a ‘constitutive virtue ethics’ (CVE), since it is concerned with analysing how virtues constitute and sustain the norms of a society.

1.2   STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM:

The study virtues in the society: a platonic defense of Awolowo’s mental magnitude came about as a result of high level of indecency and other vices in the society thereby making the citizens of such society to live in fear, disbelieves etc. Secondly most of the research has been carried out virtues but not even a single research has been done on virtues in the society: a platonic defense of Awolowo’s mental magnitude.

1.3   AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF STUDY

 The main aim of the research work is to determine the effect of virtues in the society: a platonic defense of Awolowo’s mental magnitude. Other specific objectives of the study include:

1. to determine the effect of indecency in the society.
2. to determine the effect of self control negligence in the society.
3. to determine the effect of integrity in the society.
   1. RESEARCH QUESTIONS               

1      In what ways does indecency affects the society?

2      How does self control negligence affect the society?

3      What are the ways lack of integrity affect the society?

1. STATEMENT OF RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS
2. Indecency and other vices does not play any significant role in the society.
3. Indecency and other vices play a significant role in the society.

1. SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY

The study on virtues in the society: a platonic defense of Awolowo’s mental magnitude will be of immense benefit to the entire country. The findings will reveal how negligence of virtues affects the society.

1. SCOPE OF STUDY

The study on virtues in the society is limited to a platonic defense of Awolowo’s mental magnitude.

1. LIMITATION OF STUDY

Financial constraint- Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).

Time constraint- The researcher will simultaneously engage in this study with other academic work. This consequently will cut down on the time devoted for the research work.

1. DEFINITION OF TERMS

Virtue      Behaviour showing high moral standards.

Society.   The aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community.    

Platonic. Of, relating to, or characteristic of Plato or his doctrines.

Defence   The action of defending from or resisting attack.

Mental     Relating to the mind.

Magnitude       The great size or extent of something.