Creativity and the Value of Virtue

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Notes

1 I am grateful to the contributors to this volume who engaged with part 1, ‘What Virtue Adds to Value’, with such care and depth. They have given me much to think about. Unfortunately, I lack the space to address all their questions. The challenge of responding to everyone is compounded by the fact that several contributors disagree with each other about fundamental assumptions. Rather than trying to a say a little about a lot, I have decided to focus on the two most frequently voiced questions. But in the course of answering them, a number of other concerns will also be addressed.

2 David Sobel [2016: 217], e.g., recommends an account of virtue that ‘would seek to explain why virtue is admirable on the basis of the value of the attitudes that are intrinsic to virtue, including attitudes to right action and to moral goods and bads, and … explain the value of these attitudes on the basis of the values of their objects. In this sense it would take the goods and bads and rights and wrongs that are extrinsic to character as more basic than the admirability of character’.

3 The term ‘value’ encompasses both positive and negative, good and bad qualities (conditions, objects, attributes, states of affairs). But when we speak of ‘promoting value’ we only have the positive end of the value spectrum in view. Thus, ‘promoting value’ and ‘promoting [the] good’ will be used interchangeably.

4 Swanton [2021: 221] parts company with Hurka by arguing that value is only one of the ‘fundamental bases of ethical response’. The others are bonds, status, and the good for an individual. However, when value is in play, virtues are defined in terms of a disposition to respond to it (and similarly for the other ‘evaluatively significant features’).

5 The priority of the epistemic over the ethical is reflected in Garrett Cullity’s reasons-responsive account of virtue, as well. According to Cullity [2022: 186], virtues are ‘states of responding well to the evidence of our reasons’ (compare Russell [2009: 371]).

6 For detailed defences of the claim that creativity is a virtue, see Zagzebski [1996], Gaut [2014], Kieran [2014], and Swanton [2022].

7 In recent years there has been a lively debate about whether the objects produced by the creative person must be valuable. The standard position has been the one expressed by Boden [2013: 432]: ‘creativity is the capacity to generate ideas or artifacts that are both new and positively valuable’. And one finds this thought echoed by numerous others (see, e.g., Novitz [1999]; Stokes [2016]; Audi [2018]; and Kieran [2018]). However, Hills and Bird [2018], Livingston [2018], and others have ‘reject[ed] the requirement that what is created has value’ [Hills and Bird 2018], arguing that one could be a creative torturer or a creative thief. The way some have tried to resolve this is by arguing that the creativity of the torturer still achieves goodness of a kind, even if it is not all-things-considered goodness [Gaut 2018]. Wherever one lands with respect to this debate, one might think the value condition plausible in the case of virtuous activity. Unlike the torturer, one might expect the object at which the virtuously creative aim to be not only good of a kind but also of a good kind.

8 The idea that a virtue reliably succeeds in achieving its aim is common even in theorists who would not endorse the MDM. Swanton [2003: 233], for example, makes success in hitting its target a defining feature of a virtue. If the target of the virtue of creativity is the production of novel items of value, then success in achieving this aim will be a defining feature of having the virtue. Linda Zagzebski [1996: 137] defines virtue as ‘a deep and enduring acquired excellence of a person, involving a characteristic motivation to produce a certain desired end and reliable success in bringing about that end’. However, she appears to drop the reliability condition for creativity and other ‘virtues of originality’ [ibid.: 181–2].

9 Larry Briskman [2009: 29–30] suggests that a process of figuring out what you are up to as you go, such O’Connor, Robinson, and Saunders describe, is a common part of creating.

10 ‘The conscious mind plays an important role in scrutinizing, rejecting, or approving the ragbag of ideas thrown up by the unconscious’ [Elster 2000: 213].

11 Berys Gaut [2018] argues that what he calls ‘the ignorance principle’ applies to all creative endeavours: ‘If someone is creative in producing some item, she cannot know in advance of being creative precisely both the end at which she is aiming and the means to achieve it’.

12 Friedrich Kekulé’s dream of a snake eating its tail, which provided the breakthrough in his search for the structure of the benzene molecule, is such a case.

13 For a discussion of different ways in which virtuous creativity might be motivated, see Kieran [2014].

14 And, as Christine Swanton [2003: 167] notes, expecting the result to be harmful, either to oneself or to others, would ordinarily rule an activity out as an exercise of virtuous creativity.

15 I am grateful to Fiona Macpherson for pressing me on this point.

16 In March 2023, DeAndre Jordan leads the NBA with a career field goal percentage of 0.6748. The worst shooting percentage by a player in the 2022–23 NBA season is 0.372.

17 Ty Cobb is the current record-holder with a career batting average of 0.366.

18 Christine Swanton [2022: 106] observes that ‘self-confidence, resilience, perseverance in the face of obstacles, and persistence in getting the job done’ are all ‘virtues essential to successful creativity’.

19 I am grateful to Nicolas Côté for bringing this point to my attention.

20 One reason it would be unsatisfying is because of how much luck it would write into the conditions for the possession of the trait. To some degree, every trait will be subject to luck. Whether one learns to face one’s fears or hide from them will depend, in part, on who one’s teachers are and how dangerous one’s environment is. Creativity will be subject to such luck. But the kind of luck envisioned above is not just affecting the psychological dispositions Edison develops in 1900 and 2000. Even developing the same dispositions to the same degree, Edison in 2000 will be less creative than he was in 1900. And this will be due not to qualities of Edison but solely to qualities of his environment.

21 If, as Peter Goldie [2007] contends, many virtues are best thought of as ‘clusters of interlocking traits’ then we should expect something similar to be true of virtues other than creativity, as well.

22 Group membership may also affect whether we trust the author. As Daniel Abrahams and Gary Kemp [2022] argue, this trust is more than just a matter of whether we think the author has access to the relevant facts.

23 I have highlighted why one might think some of an author’s qualities influence how we view some qualities of their works, but I doubt I have persuaded those who insist we evaluate works completely independently of their makers. And that is okay. Those who accept (a) will find (b) more plausible, but one could endorse the latter without endorsing the former. Since (b) is what is crucial for the argument I am developing here, one could find the overall case I am making persuasive even if one wishes to draw a sharp line between the qualities of an artwork and those of its artist.

24 Another reason I don’t follow Cullity comes into focus when we think about those qualities of a creator’s M.O. that I have suggested contribute to their creative excellence. In many cases it is implausible to think these are the reasons for which they act or to which they respond. They are not thinking, ‘It would be good to develop this character in my distinctive way’ or ‘Let me introduce my signature plot twist on page 321’. They are just developing the character or spinning the yarn. Indeed, were it pointed out to them that they pursue their artistic ends in a recognisable manner, some of them might take that as a reason to create differently than they characteristically do. The upshot is that at least some of what we appreciate about their creativity cannot be explained solely in terms of their responsiveness to (the evidence of) reasons.

25 If you don’t know Robinson’s story, substitute Tom Oakley from Michelle Magorian’s Goodnight Mister Tom, who displays a slightly different flavour of gruff kindness.

26 In Pettigrove [2018], I argue that this is the best way to interpret Robert Adams’ virtue theory.