2.1: Seeking the Good

During my 28 years as a Police Chief, my character and members of the police agency I headed was critical to service delivery. Therein lies the foundation of success in attaining goals and objectives is selecting the best members to serve. Further, understanding the theories surrounding virtue ethics is inescapable by the leader. Members of the community have the absolute right to expect higher moral standards of their centurions than they, the community is willing to live. This is discussed in detail later in selection processes.

Virtue is commonly associated with good character, good judgment, and good ethical decision making. Obviously these are characteristic sought in criminal justice employees and leadership roles. Virtue is behavior showing high moral standards and Virtue Ethics (or Virtue Theory) is an approach to Ethics that emphasizes an individual's character as the key element of ethical thinking (Deontological Approach), rather than rules about the acts or consequences of the act themselves (Teleological Approach) (Carr, & Steutel, 1999). Adler, (1991) maintains Moral Virtue can be defined as “the habit of right desire” (p.1).

Virtue ethics or Virtue Ethics Theory has its roots situated in the works of Plato, Socrates and Aristotle. Socrates engaged his followers in a battery of question answer dialogue, forcing his students to develop their own theory. This has become known as the Socratic Method. He viewed knowledge, wisdom, and virtue as identical (Albanese, 2010). Plato committed his study to writing attributing Socrates virtue as the knowledge of good and evil that is a prerequisite for achieving the ultimate good or eudemonia. Eudemonia is defined as a person's state of excellence characterized by objective flourishing across a lifetime, and brought about through the exercise of moral virtue, practical wisdom, and rationality, which is what all human desires and actions aim to achieve (Collins English Dictionary, 2014).

Plato became disillusioned with government corruption following the death of his mentor, Socrates at the hands of the government. He felt few laws were necessary due to highly developed morality and character of inhabitants (Albanese, 2010). Aristotle, a student of Plato, formed his own school, The Lyceum where he produced more than 400 works ranging in several topics. One such work, the Nicomachean Ethics provided the earliest study of the history of ethics in Western Civilization (Albanese, 2010). According to Aristotle, all human pursuits are aimed at some good, complete life is needed to achieve happiness because many changes occur in life; there are ups and downs. In other words, “how ought people live their lives”. This is established, not by honor, wealth or power, but by rational activity in accordance with virtue over a complete life, not unlike self-actualization asserted in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Need (Aristotle, 1998).

This rationale has manifest itself throughout history to include contemporary disciplines of study such as, theology, political science, sociology, criminology, and criminal justice. A few other major contributing philosophers of ethics that followed Socrates, Plato and Aristotle are: Emmanuel Kant (1724-1804) deontological ethics (duty); John Stuart Mills (1806-1873) teleological (action is judged in the results); Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) consequentialism (promotes happiness and absent of pain); and consequentialism may also be found in the works of Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794) free choice. Beccaria an early prison reformist brought attentions to punishment in Criminal Justice Systems during the Enlightment Period in Europe (Albanese, 2010). The works of these philosophers are rooted in Natural Rights that is the fundamental rights of life, liberty, and property.

Consequentialism or Consequentialist theories, unlike virtue and deontological theories, hold that only the consequences, or outcomes, of actions matter morally. ... The most common form of consequentialism is utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is also distinguished by impartiality and agent-neutrality (Utilitarian Theories, n,d,).