Virtue ethics are character-based ethics. Rather than placing emphasis on each individual action, this theory tends to be concerned with a person's life as a whole. It takes into consideration a person's morals, reputation, and motivation when assessing the extent of their morality. Virtue ethics argues that qualities which are considered morally good are used to make ethical decisions. Essentially, a moral act is the action that a virtuous person would make in the same situation. A moral person is one who lives virtuously.
This is a quite simple and less nuanced theory, but it as a few main principles:
⇰ Moral actions are those which a virtuous person would carry out.
⇰ A virtuous person is one acts virtuously.
⇰ To act virtuously is to have and practice the virtues.
⇰ A virtue is a moral characteristic that a person needs to live well.
→ The traditional list of virtues are: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance.
⇰ A moral person takes into consideration both means and ends: Who am I? Who ought I to become? How ought I to get there?
And now it's time to look at Snape again. I'm gonna go through these backwards because otherwise, it will become super circular.
List of virtues.
Let's just start by considering whether Snape tends to practice the four virtues.
⇰ Prudence (govern oneself by the use of reason): actually, I'd say that in many cases, Snape does show prudence, but there are key cases where he doesn't: becoming a Death Eater, calling Lily a Mudblood, threatening to poison Trevor. Even some of his good actions like pleading that Voldemort save Lily is ruled purely by emotion and is arguably unvirtuous.
⇰ Justice (treat everyone equally): are we even going to consider this one?
⇰ Fortitude (bravery and strength): I will grant Snape this one. I'm not stupid enough to argue that putting your own life at risk and spying on and lying to Voldemort was not brave and that it doesn't require ridiculous strength of character. However, some people try to justify him becoming a Death Eater due to peer pressure and fear of not being accepted, and this is pure cowardice.
⇰ Temperance (restraint of action, thought, and feeling): in my opinion, Snape lacks this. Early on, he could not stop himself from trying to get into the Shrieking Shack to see whatever the Marauders were up to which shows the lack of self-control when it came to his curiosity/hatred, and we see that throughout the books, he seems to lack anger management.
Once again, though there are exceptions, the majority of the time, Snape seems to not act in a way that is in accordance with the traditional virtues. Of course, these virtues may be outdated but that is a whole other discussion. He does not practice the virtues and therefore does not act virtuously, and therefore is not a virtuous person.
Moral actions are those which a virtuous person would carry out.
Would a virtuous person become a fascist radical terrorist? No. Would a virtuous person bully his students, no? Would a virtuous person lie? No. So even spying on Voldemort on behalf of the Order becomes immoral when one subscribes to this theory.
On the other hand, there are a few scenarios where Snape does act virtuously such as countering Quirrell's jinx on Harry's broom, shielding Harry & co from Remus's wolf form, contacting the Order to see if Sirius was okay when Harry gave him the warning, and persuading Bellatrix to not harm Harry.
Who am I? Who ought I to become? How ought I to get there?
Virtue ethics has elements in common with both deontology and consequentialism because it does argue that ends have intrinsic value, but also takes into consideration, the motivations and means that those ends are achieved through.
If we consider Snape asking that Voldemort spare Lily, we have already concluded that it had a positive outcome, but with virtue ethics, we have to also consider why he made that request, which we have also already concluded to be selfish reasons. Here we see virtuous outcomes, but unvirtuous motivations. On the flip side, if we assume that Snape was so against Remus teaching at Hogwarts due to genuine worry, we see him have virtuous motivations but not virtuous outcomes.
One of these is true for most of Snape's actions, but there are very few where he has both a virtuous motivation and a virtuous outcome. Shielding the trio from a werewolf is like the only one that comes to mind and I'm pretty sure that only happened in the film.
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In the end, this theory would not allow Snape to be considered moral either. Whilst some of his action may have been moral, virtue ethics considers a person and their life as a whole, rather than just a series of good or bad actions. I don't think anyone could possibly argue that Snape lived a virtuous lifestyle, and therefore, he is not a hero.
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The conclusion is that Snape is not a good or moral person. People can go on forever about their grey characters and what not because we know that they will, but philosophy says that Snape is more toward the immoral side than the moral side of the spectrum and is therefore not a hero. Of course, lots of this is up to interpretation and there are several assumptions we need to make due to a lack of canon-information, but there is absolutely nothing that justifies becoming a fascist in any theory of ethics, and whether or not he eventually turned to the good side, a moral person would just never have become a Death Eater in the first place, unless they were coerced into it like Draco for example.
