In Morals From Motives, Michael Slote defends an agent-based theory of right action according to which right acts are those that express virtuous motives like benevolence or care. Critics have claimed that Slote’s view— and agent-based views more generally— cannot account for several basic tenets of commonsense morality. In particular, the critics maintain that agent-based theories: (i) violate the deontic axiom that ought implies can , (ii) cannot allow for a person’s doing the right thing for the wrong reason, and (...) (iii) do not yield clear verdicts in a number of cases involving conflicting motives and motivational over-determination . In this paper I develop a new agent-based theory of right action designed to avoid the problems presented for Slote’s view. This view makes morally right action a matter of expressing an optimal balance of virtue over vice and commands agents in each situation to improve their degree of excellence to the greatest extent possible. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I use virtue theory to answer a number of different questions in the normative ethics of behavior and in welfare axiology. In chapter 1, I provide an introduction to the Normative Ethics of Behavior. I present some of the conceptual background necessary for answering the question "What makes right actions right?" In chapter 2, I provide critical summaries of some of the most popular virtue-ethical theories of right action. In chapter 3, I present and defend my own (...) virtue-ethical theory of right action and show why this rather simple theory is not vulnerable to any of the objections that challenge its virtue-ethical rivals. In chapter 4, I turn to the question of how to measure the extent to which a person acts justly in the performance of an action. I argue that there are at least four variables that determine how just a person's action is at a time. I try to show how we can integrate these four variables into a single measure for just action. In chapter 5, I consider whether being just is intrinsically, prudentially rewarding. Most modern philosophers answer: no, at least not as a matter of necessity. In a recent and influential paper, Wayne Sumner disagrees with this popular position. I rehearse and criticize his arguments. In chapter 6, I offer a new argument for Sumner's conclusion, one that avoids the problems that his own argument faces. My argument turns on the fact that a just person's own moral virtue will make a distributional claim on her that she is bound to satisfy in a way that will enhance her welfare. (shrink)

In Wayne Sumner argues that (1) as a matter of necessity, virtue is intrinsically prudentially rewarding, and (2) if all else is equal, the virtuous will fare better than the non-virtuous. In this article, I reproduce and criticize those arguments. I offer several objections to the argument for the first thesis; each objection makes the same basic point: contrary to what Sumner assumes, certain contingent facts over and above a person's being virtuous have to obtain if virtue is to issue (...) in any prudential reward. I object to Sumner's second thesis by arguing that moral neutrality can be at least as welfare-enhancing as moral virtuosity. Finally, I argue that even if virtue were intrinsically rewarding in the way Sumner envisions, it would still be impossible to determine a priori whether adopting a virtuous lifestyle would be prudentially rational. (shrink)