Taking Ethical Disability Seriously

Aristotle's ethical theorizing contains resources for explaining what I call 'ethical disability'. In theories such as Kant's and Mill's it is important that criteria of right action be accessible to anyone. Aristotle's moral psychology yields a plausible account of how they are not available to everyone. Unless a correct appreciation of good is part of the agent's second nature, the agent will not recognize ethical requirements, and will not have the resources to alter his judgments. Often, bad action is not a matter of agents' flouting or violating criteria of right action that they recognize, but is a matter of agents' regarding as choiceworthy things that are in fact no good, and the agents are unable to appreciate this because of their vices. However, on the Aristotelian view, this is not a condition that diminishes responsibility, because of how voluntariness is interpreted. Some of the views of Susan Wolf and Bernard Williams are discussed in the development of this view of the moral landscape.