Burdened Virtues Virtue Ethics for Liberatory Struggles (review)

Lisa Tessman asks whether virtue is possible in an oppressive society, and if so what it is like. She identifies a set of virtues that make it possible to resist, or at least survive, oppression, but in other ways interfere with their bearer's well being. She calls these traits "burdened virtues."

Tessman works within certain lacunae in Aristotle's thought.

Something grim emerges when one tries to work with a eudaimonistic moral theory while examining oppression, for one centers the importance of flourishing and then confronts the terrible fact of its distortions or absence under conditions of oppression. . . . The moral trouble appears in two forms. The first . . . is that the self under oppression can be morally damaged . . . The second [is that some virtues under these conditions are] disjoined from their bearer's own flourishing.

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Aristotle knew this disjunction could exist occasionally; courage is the obvious example. But he did not consider the possibility that a separation between eudaimonia and virtue could be common, Tessman says, because he theorized from and for those in a privileged position. Nevertheless, he recognized that virtue is only necessary for a good life, not sufficient, leaving conceptual space for lives systematically incapable of eudaimonia.

Tessman's first three chapters analyze moral damage to the self. Her discussion resists two opposing errors: on the one hand, identifying the victims of oppression as the problem, because of their damaged selves; on the other hand, elevating the vices of those who have been damaged into virtues. In the second half of the book, she examines virtues that under oppression are virtues, but which compromise rather than promote their bearer's flourishing.

Chapter 1 is called, poignantly, "Regretting the Self One Is." Oppression interferes with a full life not only by limiting resources like power, respect, and money but also by fostering habits and desires that deform one's own choices. Developing Bernard Williams's concept of moral luck, Tessman distinguishes incident luck—specific actions one might take—from constitutive luck, that is, the person one has become. She also distinguishes systemic luck (the result of a social system, humanly created) from natural or accidental luck. Changing the self created and damaged in this way, let alone changing the society, will be difficult or impossible. Tessman wants an ethical theory that is of use within such situations that encourages attempts to change them but does not assume that success is possible. The virtues she describes, and prescribes, are complex, and include, for instance, not only anger at what has been done and resistance to it but also regret at the necessity of inflicting pain on others. On the one hand, both anger and regret are burdensome, obstacles on the path to a full human life. On the other hand, another virtue required under oppression—self-understanding: "This really is the best I could do"—is liberating, both for the person released from undue guilt and for the community freed to accept each in her limitations. In a culture whose moral theory focuses so much on duty and obligation, it is important to be able to separate assessment of harm from responsibility for that harm.

Chapter 2, "The Damage of Moral Damage," extends the analysis of the first chapter, tracing the ways in which images of "damaged" African Americans have been used to oppress them. Speaking of moral injury is dangerous because of that history, yet what makes it dangerous also makes it important: today only conservatives talk about character. Those on the Left, Tessman argues, must recognize that criticizing institutions does not rule out evaluating character. On the contrary, the two projects inform one another: character traits usually seen as deficiencies may, in a context identified as oppressive, be recognized as virtues if they contribute to resistance; conversely, character traits that appear to be virtues should sometimes be seen as vices, because they uphold such institutions.

In chapter 3, "The Ordinary Vices of Domination," Tessman argues that oppressors are themselves damaged by their role. She focuses not...