Abstract
In Morals from Motives (2001) Michael Slote
puts forward an agent-based virtue ethics that purports to derive
an account of deontic terms from aretaic evaluations of motives
or character traits. In this view, an action is right if and only
if it proceeds from a good or virtuous motive or at least does
not come from a bad motive, and wrong if it comes from a bad
motive. I argue that Slote does not provide an account of right
action at all, that is, if ‘right action’ is understood in the strict
deontic sense of an act that is either permissible or obligatory.
An examination of Slote’s treatment of the problem of moral
luck shows that he presupposes a conceptual link between
what is morally wrong and what is blameworthy. I conclude
by suggesting that agent-based virtue ethics may do better as
an attempt to eliminate deontic notions altogether.