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Virtue ethics

Virtue ethics (also aretaic ethics,[a][1] from Greek ἀρετή [aretḗ]) is an approach that treats virtue and character as the primary subjects of ethics, in contrast to other ethical systems that put consequences of voluntary acts, principles or rules of conduct, or obedience to divine authority in the primary role.[2]

Virtue ethics is usually contrasted with two other major approaches in ethics, consequentialism and deontology, which make the goodness of outcomes of an action (consequentialism) and the concept of moral duty (deontology) central. While virtue ethics does not necessarily deny the importance to ethics of goodness of states of affairs or of moral duties, it emphasizes virtue, and sometimes other concepts, like eudaimonia, to an extent that other ethics theories do not.

In the 1976 paper "", Michael Stocker summarises the main aretaic criticisms of deontological and consequentialist ethics.[21]

The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories

Philosopher, psychologist, and encyclopedist appealed to Aristotelian ethics, and the virtue theory of happiness or eudaimonia throughout his published work.

Mortimer Adler

published a collection of essays in 1978 entitled Virtues and Vices.[22]

Philippa Foot

made an effort to reconstruct a virtue-based theory in dialogue with the problems of modern and postmodern thought; his works include After Virtue and Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry.[23]

Alasdair MacIntyre

accorded an important place to Aristotelian teleological ethics in his hermeneutical phenomenology of the subject, most notably in his book Oneself as Another.[24]

Paul Ricoeur

Theologian found the language of virtue helpful in his own project.

Stanley Hauerwas

and Michael Slote edited a collection of important essays titled Virtue Ethics.[25]

Roger Crisp

and Amartya Sen employed virtue theory in theorising the capability approach to international development.

Martha Nussbaum

wrote The Morality of Happiness (1993).[26]

Julia Annas

identified current virtue theory with Greek Stoicism in A New Stoicism. (1998).[27]

Lawrence C. Becker

published On Virtue Ethics (1999).[28]

Rosalind Hursthouse

Psychologist drew on classical virtue ethics in conceptualizing positive psychology.

Martin Seligman

Psychologist opens his book on Emotional Intelligence with a challenge from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics.[29]

Daniel Goleman

discusses Aristotelian ethics to support his ethical theory of justice in his book Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?

Michael Sandel

Gnome (good sense) – passing judgment, "sympathetic understanding": VI.11 

[7]

Synesis (understanding) – comprehending what others say, does not issue commands

(practical wisdom) – knowledge of what to do, knowledge of changing truths, issues commands[7]: VI.8 

Phronesis

Techne (art, craftsmanship): VI.4 

[7]

There are several lists of virtues. Socrates argued that virtue is knowledge, which suggests that there is really only one virtue.[31] The Stoics identified four cardinal virtues: wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance. Wisdom is subdivided into good sense, good calculation, quick-wittedness, discretion, and resourcefulness. Justice is subdivided into piety, honesty, equity, and fair dealing. Courage is subdivided into endurance, confidence, high-mindedness, cheerfulness, and industriousness. Temperance or moderation is subdivided into good discipline, seemliness, modesty, and self-control.[32]


John McDowell argues that virtue is a "perceptual capacity" to identify how one ought to act, and that all particular virtues are merely "specialized sensitivities" to a range of reasons for acting.[33]


Aristotle identifies approximately 18 virtues that demonstrate a person is performing their human function well.[7] He distinguished virtues pertaining to emotion and desire from those relating to the mind.[7]: II  The first he calls moral virtues, and the second intellectual virtues (though both are "moral" in the modern sense of the word).


Aristotle suggested that each moral virtue was a mean (see golden mean) between two corresponding vices, one of excess and one of deficiency. Each intellectual virtue is a mental skill or habit by which the mind arrives at truth, affirming what is or denying what is not.[7]: VI  In the Nicomachean Ethics he discusses about 11 moral virtues:


Aristotle also mentions several other traits:


Aristotle's list is not the only list, however. As Alasdair MacIntyre observed in After Virtue, thinkers as diverse as Homer, the authors of the New Testament, Thomas Aquinas, and Benjamin Franklin have all proposed lists.[34]

Topics in virtue ethics[edit]

Virtue ethics as a category[edit]

Virtue contrasts with deontological and consequentialist ethics (the three being together the most predominant contemporary normative ethical theories).


Deontological ethics, sometimes referred to as duty ethics, places the emphasis on adhering to ethical principles or duties. How these duties are defined, however, is often a point of contention and debate in deontological ethics. One predominant rule scheme used by deontologists is divine command theory. Deontology also depends upon meta-ethical realism, in that it postulates the existence of moral absolutes that make an action moral, regardless of circumstances. Immanuel Kant is considered one of the foremost theorists of deontological ethics.


The next predominant school of thought in normative ethics is consequentialism. While deontology places the emphasis on doing one's duty, consequentialism bases the morality of an action upon its outcome. Instead of saying that one has a moral duty to abstain from murder, a consequentialist would say that we should abstain from murder because it causes undesirable effects. The main contention here is what outcomes should/can be identified as objectively desirable.


The greatest happiness principle of John Stuart Mill is a commonly adopted criteria for what is objectively desirable. Mill asserts that the desirability of an action is the net amount of happiness it brings, the number of people it brings it to, and the duration of the happiness. He tries to delineate classes of happiness, some preferable to others, but there is a great deal of difficulty in classifying such concepts.

(1998). "Virtue: Confucius and Aristotle". Philosophy East and West. 48 (2): 323–47. doi:10.2307/1399830. JSTOR 1399830.

Yu, Jiyuan

Devettere, Raymond J. (2002). Introduction to Virtue Ethics. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.

Taylor, Richard (2002). An Introduction to Virtue Ethics. Amherst: Prometheus Books.

Darwall, Stephen, ed. (2003). Virtue Ethics. Oxford: B. Blackwell.

Swanton, Christine (2003). Virtue Ethics: a Pluralistic View. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Gardiner, Stephen M., ed. (2005). Virtue Ethics, Old and New. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Russell, Daniel C., ed. (2013). The Cambridge Companion to Virtue Ethics. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Homiak, Marcia. . In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

"Moral Character"

Virtue Ethics – summary, criticisms and how to apply the theory

by Larry Solum.

Legal theory lexicon: Virtue ethics

The Virtue Ethics Research Hub

The Four Stoic Virtues