Accountability’s Relation to Other Virtues and Vices

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter suggests that accountability is part of a cluster of virtues that support each other, such that someone lacking one of these virtues completely would find it very difficult to have the other virtues in the cluster. The vices that are contrary to these supporting virtues would thus also be characteristics that block or impede the virtue of accountability. The main supporting virtues that are analyzed are humility, honesty, and practical wisdom. Humility, following the work of Robert Roberts, is seen as a lack or low degree of the desire for self-importance, the quality of a person who gets a false sense of worth by comparison with others. Self-importance is connected to such “vices of pride” as arrogance, domination, and snobbery. Honesty is understood, following Christian Miller’s work, as the quality of someone who does not distort reality (or “the facts”) as that person sees reality. Honesty, both to oneself and towards those to whom one is accountable, is essential to excellence as an accountable person. Finally, practical wisdom, again following Christian Miller, is seen as an indispensable help to exercising accountability, enabling a person to understand standing and its limits, and recognize when expectations are reasonable and what ways of fulfilling them are reasonable.