Virtue ethics: A misleading category? [Book Review]
The Journal of Ethics 3 (3):163-201 (1999)
Abstract
Virtue ethics is standardly taught and discussed as a distinctive approach to the major questions of ethics, a third major position alongside Utilitarian and Kantian ethics. I argue that this taxonomy is a confusion. Both Utilitarianism and Kantianism contain treatments of virtue, so virtue ethics cannot possibly be a separate approach contrasted with those approaches. There are, to be sure, quite a few contemporary philosophical writers about virtue who are neither Utilitarians nor Kantians; many of these find inspiration in ancient Greek theories of virtue. But even here there is little unity. Although certain concerns do unite this disparate group (a concern for the role of motives and passions in good choice, a concern for character, and a concern for the whole course of an agent''s life), there are equally profound disagreements, especially concerning the role that reason should play in ethics. One group of modern virtue-theorists, I argue, are primarily anti-Utilitarians, concerned with the plurality of value and the susceptibility of passions to social cultivation. These theorists want to enlarge the place of reason in ethics. They hold that reason can deliberate about ends as well as means, and that reason can modify the passions themselves. Another group of virtue theorists are primarily anti-Kantians. They believe that reason plays too dominant a role in most philosophical accounts of ethics, and that a larger place should be given to sentiments and passions -- which they typically construe in a less reason-based way than does the first group. The paper investigates these differences, concluding that it is not helpful to speak of virtue ethics, and that we would be better off characterizing the substantive views of each thinker -- and then figuring out what we ourselves want to say.Author's Profile
Reprint years
2004
DOI
10.1023/a:1009877217694
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Citations of this work
As a matter of fact : Empirical perspectives on ethics.John M. Doris & Stephen P. Stich - 2005 - In Frank Jackson & Michael Smith (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy. Oxford University Press.
Character and Environment: The Status of Virtues in Organizations.Miguel Alzola - 2008 - Journal of Business Ethics 78 (3):343-357.
Ten Myths About Character, Virtue and Virtue Education – Plus Three Well-Founded Misgivings.Kristján Kristjánsson - 2013 - British Journal of Educational Studies 61 (3):269-287.
A Third Method of Ethics?Roger Crisp - 2015 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 90 (2):257-273.
AI and society: a virtue ethics approach.Mirko Farina, Petr Zhdanov, Artur Karimov & Andrea Lavazza - forthcoming - AI and Society:1-14.
References found in this work
The Need for More than Justice.Annette C. Baier - 1987 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 17 (sup1):41-56.
The Need for More than Justice.Annette C. Baier - 1987 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Supplementary Volume 13:41-56.