Abstract

Thomas Hurka's brilliant study on the nature and value of virtue and vice opens with a puzzle. Hurka tells us that as consequentialism defines “all other moral properties in terms of goodness and evil”, a fully consequentialist characterization of virtue and vice should define these things by appeal to goodness and evil as well. However, it has traditionally been thought that the most promising analysis of virtue, in terms of what is intrinsically good or evil, embarks from the fundamental claim that virtue is a disposition to promote good and prevent evil. But then this been concluded, the bedrock truth that virtue is intrinsically good cannot be captured successfully by any consequentialist approach.