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con tex t lo r e th ica l d e c is io n -m a k in g—befo re we ask what shall we do , he sug
gests th a t we ask, “W h a t shall I be?”
The question of what I ought to
do
is actually about what I am or ought to be.
“Should I or should I not have an abortion?” is not a question about an “act”
but about what kind of person I am going to be .3
This is not to say that ethics is unconcerned with decisions or with prin
ciples which can guide decisions. But it is to say that decisions and princi
ples for making them grow out of a history, or as Hauerwas would put it, a
narrative, which is more about what kind of people we are than about par
ticular acts.
Thus for the Christian what will be distinctive about our ethics is not so
much the acceptance of certain principles such as “life is sacred,” but the
fact that we are who we are, that is, the people of Jesus Christ. Because of
who we are we may have certain principles, but it is not those principles
which define us. It is our commitment to follow Jesus Christ which defines
us both individually and as a community.
Christian ethics, then, is to be the practice of being a certain kind of peo
ple. It is to learn to embody a character which is defined in relation to the life
of Jesus Christ. This kind of ethic still involves making decisions, but indi
vidual acts are placed in their context as the acts of people with a particular
history and character. More often than not, what we do is not really decided.
We act and then see that our action has shown what kind of person we are
. . . or are not. Hauerwas tells the story of a friend who traveled a great deal
and often fantasized the possibility of an adulterous encounter while travel
ing. Yet when the opportunity for such an encounter actually became avail
able, his friend rejected the possibility without even genuinely considering it.
His fantasies aside, his action came simply from a character which had
already been developed. In other words, having already become the kind of
person for whom an extramarital affair was not an option, his decision not
to engage in such an affair simply manifests what kind of person he is.
To be sure, there is a kind of circularity in the acquisition of virtue. For it
is by acting virtuously that we acquire a virtue, yet it is the possession of vir
tue which allows us to act virtuously. This circularity was recognized by Aris
totle, but it was not considered a particularly significant problem for the clas
sical conception of virtue ethics. For the circularity involved is a bit like the
infamous hermeneutic circle. The meaning of a text may not be discerned
without some background presuppositions about the text, yet all of our pre
suppositions about the text must be tested in light of what the text actually
says. And, just as the movement back and forth between my understanding
3. Ibid. , 117.