Marginalized Knowledge: An Agenda for Indigenous Knowledge Development and Integration with Other Forms of Knowledge

Conclusion

Virtue ethics is about personal dispositions and thus has to do with the character of a person or a person him/herself. Without dismissing other ethical theories as useless, I am taking a position here and encouraging you the reader to do the same and that is to opt for the only moral theory that proves to be based on rationality and thus bring about moral responsibility (i.e. Koopman’s (2007:107), development of an ethics of responsibility) flowing from the moral agent whose principles are based on human reasoning. Van der Ven (1998:344) came up with the model of engaging deontological categorical imperative and virtue ethics, this in my opinion is a good example of how these theories could work together. Van der Ven refers to this model as the two complementary aspects of the same morality’. Ethical decisions that people must make are complex in their nature, but nonetheless, they must be taken. Therefore in order to ensure that these decisions do not bring about regret they require a lot of wisdom and discernment; that is where the character of the moral agent becomes important. Character in all walks of life helps the moral agent to conquer even those situations where making a decision can be a tormenting challenge of life.

It was suggested that theories of ethics could be divided into two; namely the question of action and the question of character; or theories which provide rules for conduct that is, utilitarianism and deontological theories and on the other hand virtue ethics, which provides the wisdom necessary for applying rules in a particular instances. Strength of character involves both feeling and action; virtue seeks the mean between two exaggerations that is excess and deficiency relative to mankind. Virtue promotes human flourishing.

Deficiency, that is, cowardice is understood as the inability to do what is necessary to have those things in life, which we need in order to flourish. Deficiency includes too much fear or too little confidence. Excess on the other hand, is characterized by too little fear, and too much confidence and poor judgement about ends worth achieving. The mean between these two vices is courage. Courage involves willingness to take calculated risks.