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Virtue ethics is currently one of three major approaches in normative ethics. It may, initially, be identified as the one that emphasizes the virtues, or moral character, in contrast to the approach that emphasizes duties or rules (deontology) or that emphasizes the consequences of actions (consequentialism). Suppose it is obvious that someone ...
Three of virtue ethics' central concepts, virtue, practical wisdom and eudaimonia are often misunderstood. Once they are distinguished from related but distinct concepts peculiar to modern philosophy, various objections to virtue ethics can be better assessed.
Aristotle describes ethical virtue as a “ hexis ” (“state” “condition” “disposition”)—a tendency or disposition, induced by our habits, to have appropriate feelings (1105b25–6). Defective states of character are hexeis (plural of hexis) as well, but they are tendencies to have inappropriate feelings.
Justice as a personal virtue follows Aristotle’s model for virtues of character, in which the virtue lies as an intermediate or mean between vices of excess and defect (Nicomachean Ethics V). While he grants that there is a “general” sense of justice in which justice is coincident with complete virtue, there is a “particular” sense in ...
Like most other ancient philosophers, Plato maintains a virtue-based eudaemonistic conception of ethics. That is to say, happiness or well-being ( eudaimonia ) is the highest aim of moral thought and conduct, and the virtues ( aretê : ‘excellence’) are the dispositions/skills needed to attain it.
One question central to virtue ethics is what the moral reasons are for acting one way or another. For instance, from the perspective of virtue ethics, kindness and loyalty would be moral reasons for helping a friend in hardship.
Aristotle’s view, on the other hand, is usually considered a paradigm example of a “virtue ethics”, an ethical theory that gives priority to virtuous character. To see what this might mean, recall that Aristotle’s virtuous person is a genuine self-lover who enjoys most the exercise of her abilities to think and know.
Virtue ethics explains an action’s moral properties in terms of the agent’s properties, such as whether it results from kindness or spite. VE explains a cognitive performance’s normative properties in terms of the cognizer’s properties, such as whether a belief results from hastiness or excellent eyesight, or whether an inquiry ...
2.4.4 Virtue ethics. Some feminist ethicists contend that virtue ethics, which focuses on living a good life or flourishing, offers the best approach to ensuring that ethical theory correctly represents the conditions permitting vulnerable bodies to flourish in oppressive contexts.
While Plato and Aristotle maintain that virtue is constitutive of happiness, Epicurus holds that virtue is the only means to achieve happiness, where happiness is understood as a continuous experience of the pleasure that comes from freedom from pain and from mental distress.