The Solution: Moral Philosophy

Ryan Patrick Hanley

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511581212.004

2 - The Solution: Moral Philosophy

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 November 2009

Ryan Patrick Hanley

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Ryan Patrick Hanley: Affiliation:
Marquette University, Wisconsin

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Summary

LIBERAL INDIVIDUALISM AND VIRTUE ETHICS

Having identified the central problem that Smith's conception of virtue was intended to address, it remains for us to examine the substance and the methods of his answer. This chapter focuses on his answer's methods. In so doing, it argues that the moral theory presented in the sixth edition of The Theory of Moral Sentiments is best understood as a contribution to the eighteenth-century virtue ethical tradition and is misunderstood when interpreted as an incipient contribution to either of the other two main schools of contemporary moral philosophy – utilitarianism and deontology – which also trace their modern origins to the latter half of the eighteenth century, and with which Smith has sometimes been associated.

In this century, virtue ethics has emerged principally as a late-stage rival to both utilitarian or consequentialist ethical approaches on the one hand and deontological or neo-Kantian approaches on the other. In contrast to these systems, which evaluate actions on the grounds of their capacity to maximize good effects (as consequentialism does) or on the grounds of their adherence to universally valid and rationally derived moral rules (as deontology does), virtue ethicists focus on evaluating characters and the specific virtues and vices that contribute to the composition of good and bad characters. In shifting attention from actions to characters, virtue ethicists are often said to replace the question of “what should I do?” with “what should I be?”

Type: Chapter
Information: Adam Smith and the Character of Virtue , pp. 53 - 81

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511581212.004 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2009

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