Chris Dillow — Building Character

The fact that we are discussing this itself shows the depth of the problem. Aristotle decided this issue in the Nichomachean Ethics, summarizing the classical education of Aristotle's day. It's the staple of virtue ethics based on the progressive unfolding of excellence (Ancient Greek: ἀρετή). 

Virtue ethics was not only the key classical teaching about development in the West but also in China and India, and judging from what we know of tribal cultures, there as well. 

In tribal cultures the hero is the great distributor rather than the great accumulator. Recall the scene in Lawrence of Arabia where the shaykh says to Lawrence, "I am a river unto my people," and the tribe cheers wildly.

Virtue ethics and deontological (rule-based) ethics overlap in many cases, since cultural institutions make arrangements though rules, customs, and conventions for education based on building character. 

Since the Golden Rule (reciprocity) is the most predominant deontological principle historically, the overlap with virtue ethics should be evident. Human beings are social animals. Hence, reciprocity, fairness and justice are key elements in character. All parents — or almost all parents anyway — teach their children sharing as part of the socialization process.

Consequentialism was considered to follow from developing excellence since a person of character would act in accord with the good of all and not chiefly out of self-interest. However, some versions of consequentialism are based on pursuit of self-interest. Classical authors like Aristotle addressed and rejected such arguments, showing why the pursuit of fame, fortune, power or pleasure cannot be considered the summum bonum.

BTW, without understanding this debate over approaches to ethics it is difficult to critique the contemporary assumption of utility maximization based on so-called rationality fully. It has been dismissed by the wise for ages as puerile and leading to bad character.

“It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question.”
― John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism

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Building Character
Chris Dillow | Investors Chronicle