Virtue Ethics
Virtue Ethics
Virtue ethics is one of the three major approaches in Ethics, alongside Utilitarianism and deontology (see Categorical Imperative). Instead of asking "what should I do?" it asks "what kind of person should I be?" The focus is on character — the stable dispositions of thought, feeling, and action that constitute excellence (arete).
Core Idea
A morally good action is not one that follows a rule or maximizes a consequence — it is what a virtuous person would do in the circumstances. Moral development is not learning rules but cultivating character over a lifetime.
"We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts." — Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
Aristotle's Virtue Ethics
Aristotle is the founding figure. His Nicomachean Ethics develops the most systematic ancient account.
Eudaimonia
The goal of ethics is eudaimonia — human flourishing or "happiness" (more accurately: doing and faring well as a human being). Eudaimonia is not a feeling but an activity — living and acting in accordance with virtue.
Virtues as Means
Virtues are character traits developed through habituation — practice, repetition, moral education. Each virtue is a mean between two vices:
| Virtue | Deficiency | Excess |
|---|---|---|
| Courage | Cowardice | Rashness |
| Generosity | Miserliness | Prodigality |
| Temperance | Insensibility | Self-indulgence |
| Justice | — | — |
| Truthfulness | Understatement | Boastfulness |
Practical Wisdom (Phronesis)
Virtue is not a mechanical formula — it requires practical wisdom (phronesis): the ability to perceive what is morally salient in a situation and to deliberate and act well. Phronesis is the "master virtue" that guides all others.
The Role of Emotion
A fully virtuous person does not merely act rightly despite feelings — they feel the right way too. Genuine generosity means giving willingly and gladly, not reluctantly.
Socrates and Plato
Socrates held that all virtue is knowledge — knowing the good leads automatically to right action; evil is always a result of ignorance. This intellectualist view was modified by Aristotle, who emphasized the role of trained emotional response alongside rational knowledge.
Plato identified four cardinal virtues: wisdom (prudence), courage, temperance, and justice — corresponding to parts of both the soul and the city in the Republic.
Confucian Virtue Ethics
Parallel traditions exist outside Greece. Confucius (551–479 BCE) similarly grounded ethics in character virtues — especially ren (benevolence/humaneness) and li (ritual propriety) — and in the moral cultivation of the junzi (exemplary person).
The Revival: MacIntyre and Neo-Aristotelianism
Virtue ethics was largely dormant in modern philosophy, which focused on rules and consequences. G.E.M. Anscombe's 1958 paper "Modern Moral Philosophy" argued that concepts like "moral obligation" are incoherent without their theological background — we should return to Aristotelian ethics.
Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue (1981) was the most influential revival: modern moral philosophy (Kant, Utilitarianism) is a failed project because it tries to do Ethics without a conception of human nature and its telos. Only virtue ethics — embedded in a tradition and community — makes sense.
Feminist Virtue Ethics
Carol Gilligan and Nel Noddings developed care ethics — a virtue-based approach emphasizing relationships, care, and responsiveness to particular others, challenging Kant's abstract, universal ethics.
Criticisms
- Circularity — the virtuous act is what the virtuous person does; how do we identify the virtuous person independently?
- Conflict — virtues can conflict (honesty vs. kindness); no algorithm for resolution
- Cultural relativism — virtue lists vary across cultures; which is correct?
- Action-guidance — virtue ethics gives less specific guidance than rules or calculations
Related Topics
- Ethics — the three major normative frameworks
- Aristotle — the founding figure of virtue ethics
- Socrates — virtue as knowledge
- Plato — the cardinal virtues
- Utilitarianism — the consequentialist rival
- Categorical Imperative — the deontological rival
- Nietzsche — whose account of excellence and character has affinities with virtue ethics
- Existentialism — authenticity as a kind of character virtue
