One thinks of virtue ethics as a unified family of ethical systems. But it is interesting to note just how different virtue ethical systems can be depending on how one answers the question of what it is that makes a stable character trait T be a virtue? Consider, after all, these very varied possible answers to that question, any one of which could be plugged into a virtue ethical account of rightness as what accords with virtue.
having T is partly constitutive of eudaimonia (Aristotelian virtue ethics)
having T is required by one’s nature or by the nature of one’s will (natural law virtue ethics)
a typical human being is expected to gain utility by having T (egoist virtue ethics)
a typical human being is expected to contribute to total utility by having T (utilitarian virtue ethics)
it is pleasant to think of oneself as having T (hedonistic virtue ethics)
it is pleasant to think of another as having T (Humean sentimentalist virtue ethics)
God requires one to have T (divine command virtue ethics).
The resulting ethical systems are all interesting, but fundamentally very different.
1 comment:
This is an interesting post. Another example comes to mind -- something like this: having T makes one more likely to follow consistently the Categorical Imperative. (broadly Kantian virtue ethics)
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