Tony Stark's Unity Of Virtue (UVT)

The “unity of virtue thesis” or UVT claims that because someone possesses a single virtue that they must also be in the possession of all the other virtues. However, many superheroes have flaws, most notably Iron Man/Tony Stark. They are incredibly courageous which is a virtue, however, he is arrogant, an alcoholic and cannot have a healthy relationship. Plato argued that to in fact be in the possession of a virtue, one also had to be in the possession of practical knowledge that was related to that particular virtue. However, that leaves room for another mistake because villains can be in the possession of the practical knowledge of courage but that does not make their actions courageous. Aristotle argued that for the UVT to be true, a person

Additionally, there is utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics of which people can choose to base their own moral compass. However, for some, their moral compass is not immediately visible, such as Tony Stark. It is especially difficult for Tony Stark because he does not fit any of the criteria for the three major schools of philosophy, in fact he is “Aristotelian because [he] joins the person with the deeds” (112). Others, such as Batman, clearly have a moral compass but it is a mix of more than one school of philosophy especially when he trains Robin. Both with Dick Grayson and Jason Todd, Batman’s moral compass allowed him to decide that the right thing to do would be to adopt the child and train him to become his sidekick. Conversely, it is not obvious which school of philosophy Batman is looking to when he makes this decision. It cannot be deontological ethics because otherwise Batman would be okay with everyone else not reporting a missing child and training them in a dungeon. It cannot be utilitarian because by training Robin to fight crime he has also accepted that he will die sooner or later, yet Batman would never let an innocent bystander die. So, by training Robin he is not treating him equally to everyone else. Finally, there is virtue ethics; Aristotle affirmed that people should have a mentor to look up to when training to be virtuous. Kant added that that if Batman was to train Robin of the right virtues that he would have to possess all the qualities of morality. It is therefore difficult to attribute a certain moral philosophy to Batman’s moral compass; even the author ends the chapter by not giving a definitive answer on what moral philosophy to attribute to