Virtue and Deontology

I am at crossroads once again. I'm currently making my way through a series of lectures on Macintyre's After Virtue and I find myself unprepared to defend Kant's deontology. Previously, I would have never thought to associate the concept of teleology with the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition, virtue ethics, and natural law. I find both virtue ethics and deontology to be especially convincing, and I understand that there is no easy answer to reconcile the two. I think Utilitarianism is the only ethical theory that I can rule out safely for adopting myself. I was wondering what your thoughts were. I really want to integrate both theories. 

1. Derivation of duty -- I was investigating how each ethical theory bridges the is-ought gap that Hume discusses. Kant derives his duties from pure practical reason, which I don't think I enjoy. I think that there are duties that are "good-in-and-of-themselves" but I don't think they come from reason. I think duties are brute facts (or something akin to moral platonism) about what things are and should be (existence and essence) to be a better explanation. I think having built-in normativity towards reality is a better explanation for why I hold certain duties so deeply. 

2. Explaining the wrongness of things -- Linville considers the case of rape, which is intuitively evil. He asks the simple utilitarian to explain why rape is bad -- the action is wrong not because a direct duty is owed to the victim, but because it would be "generally injurious" towards society. This, to me, is counterintuitive, as it seems like rape is bad not because it is bad for society, but because I owe direct duties towards the victim. So under utilitarianism, rights are merely a result of social utility, and not because individual persons are owed this respect. 

Now, consider the case of rape under virtue ethics. If the highest good is the pursuit of virtues, then it seems to be the case that rape is bad only because it damages my own character, which I think is kind of abominable. Imagine if the offender, standing before a judge, repents by saying: "I was wrong for raping this woman because it hurt my own moral character"!! I think that this is a clear case of violating my intuitions about why certain acts are wrong on virtue ethics. 

This problem of explaining the moral standing of others poses a big problem of why I am hesitant of accepting virtue ethics. 

3. Richness and end goals -- Kant identifies the citizens of the Kingdom of Ends as those who follow the categorical imperative. However, in my understanding, the "flourishing good life" doesn't seem to be part of Kant's theory. After one follows all the rules of duty, how should we go about achieving a flourishing good life? I think if we turn to Kant's hypothetical imperatives, chosen not on rationality but based on one's subjective preferences, I am not sure if I would agree that this is the highest good. However, if I am to pursue the virtues and my ideal character, even if this is not universalizable in the sense that not everyone needs to pursue the same moral virtues equally, is this not morally better than the one who pursues their subjective preferences? For example, the firefighter who pursues courage, teacher that pursues patience with his or her students, or the husband that pursues gentleness and kindness with his wife. Does Kant say that all of these are hypothetical imperatives that are ultimately subjective in the sense that what is the good flourishing life subject to the will and autonomy of the individual? If so, I am not convinced of Kant's deontology. I think it is better for us to say that every individual has a purpose, even if it may be different, but what makes it objective is the telos.

 4. Binding towards all rational agents -- I remember how we discussed that if aliens were rational agents, they would also be bound by Kant's deontology as a matter of pure practical reason. 

The main difference I can see between this and teleology is that under natural law, everything would have a telos, and those that have free will need guidance to reach the telos. In this sense, if aliens have moral autonomy, they would be rational agents. However, they would likely have an telos that is separate (but not necessarily different) from that of humans. I don't have an issue with either, but if I could somehow have duties towards moral agents in virtue ethics, I don't see why aliens can't have "human" rights. Is it possible to have persons on virtue ethics that hold moral standing? I don't see why not. The whole aliens having duties and moral standing is an issue that I can go either side on. 

5. Integrating the two -- The question is if we can avoid the pitfalls of classical virtue ethics and ground virtue ethics in some external duty or principle; namely, the principle of humanity. I think having some integration between the two would be deeply satisfying for me. Feel free to correct me if I have misrepresented any theories.