Virtue Ethics

Plato, Aristotle, MacIntyre

 Ethical theories

• Kant – duty
• Utilitarian – greatest good for greatest
number
• Relativists – no moral laws
• Emotivists – follow emotions
• Virtue Ethics – concentrate on how we can
be better people
 Plato
• born 427 – pupil of Socrates “man is wisest
• who knows he knows little”
• Euthypro – do humans do what the gods command or do
the gods command what is good
• 1) So commands of God are obligatory – absolute – god
could command vicious actions to us see to be wrong -
Divine Command Theory – or goodness in accordance with
commands of loving god – what is loving (hurting too?)
• 2) Goodness is independent of God – God not ultimate
standard of morality – forms are – God not supreme
• Plato sets out idea he then argues against – all things are
relative – cold means one thing to x and another to z – is it
the same for morals?
• Suggests Moral absolutes in each society but not universal
• Resorts to forms – forms of all things
including goodness which can be
recognized as absolutes by all
• For Plato knowledge creates goodness
(virtue) but can have knowledge and
choose to do opposite - smoking
• How do we know we’ve emerged from the
cave and aren’t still in it (ignorance)
• Advice in day to day actions?
•
Aristotle
Ancient Greek – Homer’s the Odessey c 800bce explores virtue or arête –
moral achievement of realizing potential as a human being
• Aristotle – Book 2 Nichomachean Ethics 350 BC
• foundation of morality is development of good character traits or virtues and
lacking vices
• when we say someone is good we mean there actual disposition not just
their choices they make – what kind of person we hope to be
• happiness is our aim but about living a good life – development of qualities
is for social development
• developing virtues is a necessary feature of living alongside others – social
moral and political feature of life
• Moral virtues occur at a mean – midpoint – between extreme character traits
• Mid point between fear (cowardly) and courage (rashness)
• Mean not about actions but about virtues – blanced personality – reason
gives us balance and objectivity
• Aristotle – human kinds chief characteristic is ability to reason
• Not about rules but about trusting a virtuous person to do right thing in
variety of situations – each of which is unique
• See p 31 for mid point table
• Is it difficult to find the mean between the extremes?
 Virtues we aspire to have
• Medieval times – virtues became known as cardinal virtues (card –
hinge) – hinge for all moral virtues
• Plato, Aristotle and St Thomas Aquinas –
• 1) Prudence – make good judgements in personal affairs
• 2) Justice – excellence of the soul – relate properly to others
• 3) Courage – courage – regulate pain and strive to mean
• 4) Temperance – self control
• Represent human qualities reaon suggest re required in order to live
a moral life and to achieve final cause or overall purpose in life.

7 Capital vices – pride, avarice (greed), lust, envy, gluttony, anger and
sloth
• All based on reason and on sense of purpose in life
 Problems with the theory
• Hugo Grotius (dutch philosopher) – fails to explain properly basic
moral concepts such as truthfulness and justice – no special moral
insight because one is virtuous – morality fixed in natural laws –
rationally perceived by al
• Revived in mid 20th C – developed it as an approach to ethics
based on qualities or virtues that are associated with someone who
lives a good life- moves moral debate away from general rules and
principles of behaviour and toward more general questions about
value and meaning in life
• Utilitarianism and Kantian Ethics – inadequate and lacked sound
foundation but no God as external law giver o need to move back to
looking at ways to live well
• Alasdair MacIntyre – we live in ethical and moral confusion
• something has undermined moral reasoning ripping words such as
good etc from original context and surviving as relics – mean
nothing any more
• MacIntyre define virtue as ‘ acquired human quality the
possession and exercise of which tends to enable us to
achieve those goods which are internal to practices ad
the lack f which effectively prevents us from achieving
any such goods’
• VE – requires personal responsibility – secular –
recognizes value of relationships
• VE – naturalistic – not obeying rules but expressing own
nature
• Takes into account- needs and desires of individuals and
society
• Virtuous person becomes so by behaving well and in
doing so benefits society – VIP for Aristotle
• BUT – do we all act based on rationality or other
motives?
• Why no consensus – no basic agreement to deal with
moral chaos – society needs to reassert Aristotle’s
virtues in society
• Characters in society evolving from society lacking virtue
– profit not principle – eg managers – think they are
morally neutral- teaching us to value others less and
ourselves more
• But – ethical system built on virtue underemphasizes the
substance of a persons action (consequences) and just
the mere style of an agents conduct
• no precise guidelines of obligation and does not address
modern dilemmas that arise
• more modern ethical theories have worth too
• virtue ethics does not provide a list of prohibited actions
such as murder