Virtue ethics is a fairly well-known theory within moral philosophy. Summarized quickly, virtue ethicists believe that “cultivating virtue” is what matters morally. Many virtue ethicists agree that there are at least a few different kinds of cookie-cutter virtues that someone could/should cultivate: things like courage, wisdom, generosity, patience, and so on. Sounds pretty good!1
However, I’m not satisfied with these virtues! Today, I’m becoming a follower of virtue ethics2, and I’m defining the first virtue that I’ll be cultivating: the virtue of doing things3. I want to be a person that, when I have a task I want to accomplish, I get it done.
This is not as simple as it might sound.
I do not want to be a person that merely says they are going to do things, and then fails to follow through (this includes procrastinating).
I do not want to be a person who gives an outward appearance of doing things, so that others become impressed or proud of me (while, all the while, I am not actually accomplishing what I’m aiming for).
I do not want to be a person who writes a Substack post about actually doing things, but then decides that that was enough doing things for the day, and stops.
Rather, I want to be a person who accomplishes what I seek to accomplish, regardless of how it looks from the outside. By making thing-doing a priority, I’ll be practicing my ability to find solutions that work, rather than solutions that look or sound good on paper.
What are some implications of cultivating the virtue of doing things?
The default solution may not always be the best solution. Rather than the most-expected action, the action that will actually get me closest to my goal may be off the beaten path; it may require me to defy entropy.
E.g. If I want my future career to involve conducting novel research, I might be told that I should attend a 6-year PhD program to hone down my research skills. However, there could be (there probably are) faster, cheaper4 and more efficient ways to obtain the skills that I would get from a PhD. I shouldn’t do this just because my peers are doing it, or because some adults5 recommended it. I should (and will) independently evaluate the pros and cons on my own before making a decision.
Action is better than inaction.
If I want to become the best thing-doer, then the best way to practice is to get out there and do things!6 (this is in contrast to saying I will do things; planning to do things; thinking about how to do things, and other actions that fall into that category; “fake action”)
This mindset will help to address what some people call “analysis paralysis”— worrying that I’ll be doing the wrong thing and, as a result, doing nothing instead. In most cases7, taking action will be more beneficial than thinking more, or waiting for the perfect opportunity.
Much more information is gained from doing things than from reflecting on how to do things. One example: you could read many books about how to best study in order to retain information, but until you actually test the strategies and methods mentioned in the books, you won’t know how well they work for you8.
This is related to the fact that failure is a large step towards success. We can often learn much more from failing our goals than from succeeding at them… but the only way to do either is to try in the first place!9
An Exercise:
To those who may also be interested in becoming thing-doers, I pose a question: what are you actually trying to accomplish? Some examples might be:
Finding a fulfilling career
Helping as many people as you can
Living a long and healthy life
Take 2-5 minutes to think about this, maybe jotting your answers down.
Some things that probably don’t count as valid answers:
getting good grades
Earning $1 000 000/year
I don’t mean to say that these latter things aren’t helpful steps towards one’s goals, but they aren’t goals in and of themselves. $1 000 000 might be able to help you pay for medical support which allows you live a long and healthy life, and it might be able to be donated to help many people, but having $1 000 000 is probably not what you are really after. Similarly, achieving good grades might be one way towards gaining credentials that allow you to land a fulfilling job, but good grades are not the end goal; they are not the fulfilling career itself.
To cultivate the virtue of doing things, nay, to cultivate the virtue of actually doing things, one has to know what they are actually trying to do. It is easy to get caught up in trying to reach proxy goals10, or pursuing things that we've been told are the right way towards our goals, rather than taking a step back and trying to truly understand what action will help get us to our True Goals the fastest11.
Now that you have your list, reflect on how you can best obtain these goals (as opposed to reflecting on the preconceived plan which you had already set out in your mind, which probably has at least a few things that could be improved).
To aid with this reflection, it could be helpful to think about one or more of the following prompts/questions:
Action Now: What things can I do right now that will get me closest to one of these goals?
Imagine/plan for failure: If I took this action, and it turned out that I wasn’t much closer to my goals, why did it fail? How can I prevent that failure?12
Similarly, if I took this action and failed, what would I have learnt from that failure? Better to learn from a hypothetical failure than to deal with the real-life setback.13
10x Improvement: Imagine a world where I accomplished this goal 10x better than I otherwise would have (whatever that means in this situation). I.e. my job is 10x as fulfilling as it otherwise would have been, I’m 10x healthier, or my actions help 10x as many people. What changed in this situation, if anything? How can I make this world come to fruition instead of the former?
Limited Time Frame: If I only had a year to achieve this goal, what would I do? Why am I not doing that instead?14
If I only had 6 months to achieve this goal, what would I do?
If I only had 3 weeks to achieve this goal, what would I do?
If I only had 5 minute to achieve this goal, what would I do? (this is not impossible!)15
One Obvious Caveat:
It’s not healthy to always be doing things, but that’s not my intention by trying to grow in this newfound virtue. I find that, on net, my life could use more goal-directed action than less, so moving in the direction of “doing things” is something that will be positive for me (even though I don’t intend to always be taking action).
Maybe it will be positive for you, too!
I actually don’t think virtue ethics makes a lot of sense, and it’s probably pretty far from moral truth, if such a thing exists. However, I haven’t looked into it very much. Regardless, applying virtue ethics to one’s life can yield good results for consequentialists and deontologists alike, so I’ll call it good.
Not actually, but saying this for dramatic effect.
Some people call this “agency”
For example, working a job that involves research rather than just being a paid student.
I mean, technically I’m an adult too, but let’s redefine adult as “An individual over the age of 35” for the sake of this post.
After all, if doing things is a virtue under this new theory, then being a thing-doer is intrinsically valuable!
Barring situations where the unilateralist’s curse might smite us all, and situations with high downside risks more generally.
That’s not to say that this sort of research/reading/theorizing has no place. For example, if you’ve never heard of spaced repetition, it’s an incredible tool for remembering what you learn, and doing some research about it could be a much better use of your time in the long run compared to just staring at a text book during your next study session.
Though I guess you could argue that you also “fail” by not doing anything. This is the worst possible situation, given that you A) learn next to nothing and B) don’t accomplish anything.
Though proxies can be useful for tracking your success, I’ll admit. Of course, they are always susceptible to Goodhart’s law as well. proceed with caution when using proxies.
(and the actions that will get us there with the highest probability of success)
https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/murphyjitsu
This doesn’t always work; It’s not always possible to predict how you will fail. However, often there are some glaring problems with a plan that are revealed if you’re honest with yourself about how you think it will turn out.
This question isn’t always applicable for long term goals, but it can be useful to think about even if you think it’s not.
Mostly useful for smaller goals; see https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/jiJquD34sa9Lyo5wc/resolve-cycles
love this energy