Ethics of Character

"The greatest penalty of evildoing, namely, to grow into the likeness of bad men.” -Plato

Contemporary ethics has become largely concerned with issues of power, semantics and rules which attempt to force a moral or ethical choice on the actor. I will argue that not only should we not seek to force such choices, but that it is not logically possible to do so, since the only possible standard to measure such choices against is the moral agent in question.
If we are to take ethics, and especially normative ethics, as answering the question “how should we behave?” or perhaps “how do we lead moral lives?”, we are accepting that the answer is a prescription.

“Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.” -Plato

Moral Force
Much is made in contemporary ethics of the reason giving force of moral judgments. In fact the primary weight of the variety of deontological views, it seems, is the force that the rules of any deontic systems are supposed to carry. As Foot says: “No one, it is said, escapes the requirements of ethics by having or not having particular interests or desires.”1 The philosopher who would make an argument for such a system of morals often feels that the burden of proof that is placed upon them is in finding exactly what it is (be it desires, practical reasoning, edicts from the gods or something else entirely) that gives weight to the rule system. What exactly is it that gives binding force to the rules. What changes the “should” to what is effectively a “must”?
By contrast the consequentialist view in many ways sidesteps this issue by telling us exactly what gives the weight or force to the argument, specifically the end result. Our actions are ethical if and only if they achieve specific goals. While these goals might be to achieve an overall good for all of society, or for the moral agents specific tribe, or even the agent herself with no further consideration, they remain means to an end. To support such ethical constructs, it is assumed that we must show that some force, such as practical reason, dictates that these ends are the most rational choice. Again, the philosopher is searching for reason giving force.
The Nature of the Question
I would argue that both methods are in pursuit of something that should not be considered “ethics” at all. This is a fairly strong claim, and will, no doubt, not be looked upon kindly by a great many people who feel that they are involved in the important philosophical inquiry into ethics. Some explanation is thus in order.
The deontological systems, as has been said, are identified by an attempt to boil ethical choices down to specific rule sets. I would maintain that this is an exercise in futility, due to the sheer scope of human behavior and the multitude of choices involved. An examination of a typical legal system in the modern world will show literally hundreds of thousands (if not more) of rules that have been codified into laws in what is a very similar pursuit. Now it may be argued that legality and morality are different pursuits, and I would readily agree. It is my assertion however that a rule system of meaning can only be derived from one of two points of view: 1) a social system which attempts to adjudicate various subjective points of view into a coherent social system (i.e. laws and treaties) and 2) a spectator or universalist view. Let us take each of these in turn.
While a social contract into which parties enter for the purposes of a social system and the bettering of living conditions (like food gathering, safety, etc.) is a noble enterprise, and it maybe argued, necessary for survival, social rules are, much as Foot has claimed, no more matters of ethics, than are rules of etiquette.2 It is my argument that while these might be considered matters of descriptive ethics, they are better consider issues of law, socialization, or cultural indoctrination. They allow us a means to live together. They do not give an individual agent a personal normative ethic.
As for the quest for universal rules, I think that it is enough for my purpose here to point in the direction of Gilbert Harman3 and his comparison of moral issues to the physical theory of relativity. While a great deal of objection may be leveled against the moral relativist camp, I will not and indeed could not give a full defense of the position here. Suffice it to say that I find the argument that there is no universal moral framework, but rather a number of relative frameworks, convincing enough that I will not pursue a universalist approach myself. I suspect that the majority of universalist rule claims are, much like the motivation for postulating desires as the root of all behavior, based on an attempt to wield a power of judgement and blame over others (or even ones self) in order to require a specific behavior from them. This is a curious move. We would not be tempted to blame someone for actions she committed under duress. Nor would we feel an agent to be acting in a moral way if they are forced to do so. We do not ascribe moral behavior to the young child who admits to stealing a candy bar only after their mother has forced the action. Why then should we accept that a action is moral if it is forced upon us by a universal rule or ‘inescapable’ reasoning?
Utility
The consequentialist and utilitarian argument is similar in nature, to my thinking, to the social contract, in that while there may be some validity there, it fails to rise to the level of an ethical pronouncement. Utility is an observable phenomenon, as far as it goes. To suggest that agents should act in ways that serve to further specific survival goals or meet needs is reasonable. But these are matters of practical reason, logic, and perhaps epistemology. While ethics may have to function within the bounds of reason and understanding, it must be more than this in order to avoid being an empty tautology. Agents do not necessarily have moral ends. That an act will achieve a specific end or pursue specific desires should not be used as a rational for labeling it as moral. An act that is intuitively felt to be wrong can hardly be expected to change its nature simply because the outcome of the act produces a good. And yet this is the heart of the consequentialist view.
Again I would argue that a large part of the motivation of offering consequentialist theories of ethics is an attempt to sway or exert some power over other agents. As Bernard Williams said of external reasons, “we launch them and hope that somewhere in the agent is some motivation that by some route might issue in the action we seek.”4 Similarly, I think that many philosophers (and others) are tempted by the hope that we can influence people to choose what we see as moral aims by “launching” the various ‘goods’ that they might bring into the world, and hoping that one of these goods resonants with agents in such a way that they might act as we wish them to.

"I care not what others think of what I do, but I care very much about what I think of what I do. That is character!" -  Theodore Roosevelt

Conclusion
I have given an account of why I feel that two major branches of thought in ethics are deficient in their approach, namely that their method is a rigid and power based and their field of concern is more along the lines of practical reason or law than ethics, but I have perhaps not fully defined what I believe normative ethics should be. While I am only able to give the most vague outlines here, I hope that it will suffice.
As was intimated in the rejection of universalism, I take all moral statements to be made from a relative moral framework. My impression is that the majority of moral relativism makes the assumption that the moral framework changes as we move from agent to agent, and that while an individual agents moral framework may change over time, this is less of a concern. I would like to suggest that just as the moral framework differs from agent to agent, so to the framework differs from situation to situation. Just as I think that we are forced, by our nature, to take a subjective point of view, (we are finite beings with finite senses) so that subjective point of view changes, from moment to moment, dependent on the situation.
The long accepted view in both science and philosophy has been that we must take a detached “observer” standpoint rather than interacting with the world. Developments in science have generally debunked this view. In biology, for example, making observations of a specific organism without descriptions and relations to the wider environment it is in are no longer even attempted. Philosophers however, in many ways, continue to treat moral agents as detached observers that are able to act according to deontic rules or utility without losing a certain detached quality.
As Heidegger suggested, I think that a certain concern for the world is implied in our interactions with it. This concern, rather than an emotional issue (as Kant might argue) to be avoided or suppressed is in fact the key to the beginnings of a true ethical system. While the nature of the specific concern will vary from framework to framework, and agent to agent, the key measurement in such a system is that an ethical choice is a conscious choice, made by immersing ourselves in the situation and acting within the context we find ourselves in, and as a reflection of the character that we wish to display. Ethics must be more than intentional. It is our awareness of an ethical choice and our active pursuit of how that choice reflects on our entire existence that gives ethical value to an action. Being forced into a choice by a supposed universal value, rational line of thought, or external reason is in fact the opposite of ethics. It is a lack of choice. It is the choice that defines an ethical opportunity.
Normative ethics does us a disservice when it is concerned with rules and ends rather than with helping us learn to discern the nature of ethical situations and how to determine what virtues can then come into play.