Mandevillian Virtues

Bibliographic Data

ID21701675
AuthorsMandi Astola (0000-0002-0684-7662, Eindhoven University of Technology, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume24
Issue1
Pages19-32
Publication date2021-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEthical Theory and Moral Practice (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1386-2820 • E-ISSN: 1572-8447
PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1007/s10677-020-10141-9
OpenAlexW4207027455
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited29

Studies in collective intelligence have shown that suboptimal cognitive traits of individuals can lead a group to succeed in a collective cognitive task, in recent literature this is called mandevillian intelligence . Analogically, as Mandeville has suggested, the moral vices of individuals can sometimes also lead to collective good. I suggest that this mandevillian morality can happen in many ways in collaborative activities. Mandevillian morality presents a challenge for normative virtue theories in ethics. The core of the problem is that mandevillian morality implies that individual vice is, in some cases, valuable. However, normative virtue theories generally see vice as disvaluable. A consequence of this is that virtue theories struggle to account for the good that can emerge in a collective. I argue that normative virtue theories can in fact accommodate for mandevillian emergent good. I put forward three distinctive features that allow a virtue theory to do so: a distinction between individual and group virtues, a distinction between motivational and teleological virtues, and an acknowledgement of the normativity of “vicious” roles in groups

Epistemic virtue · Epistemology · Morality · Normative · Sociology · Virtue · Virtue ethics · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Free Will and Agency · Philosophy · Psychology · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment

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