Introducing virtue ethics

Perhaps the simplest way of understanding the basic approach of virtue ethics to moral problems is to adopt the contrast suggested by Crisp (1996). Modern moral philosophy, heavily influenced by the philosophy of Immanuel Kant and by the rival theories of the Utilitarians, has tended to focus on the question ‘How should I act?’ but the resurgence of virtue ethics is a return to a more ancient question ‘How should I live?’. This marks a shift from an ethics of obligation (deontic ethics) based on universal principles or rules to an ethics of character (areteic ethics) based on an account of virtue. In virtue ethics the main focus is therefore not individual actions but the character of the moral agent.

Statman (1997) offers a full analysis of the range of possibilities in this renewed emphasis on character as the foundation of morality. Moderate approaches to virtue ethics, he suggests, regard it as complementary to action-based approaches. On this approach, virtue cannot be subsumed under the notion of following moral rules – it has its distinctive place in a full understanding of morality. This full understanding does equally require an account of rule-based universal obligations, but by adding judgements of character to judgements of right action we get a richer account than either offers separately. Radical approaches to virtue ethics, by contrast, do not accept this complementarity: in such approaches, judgements of character are always seen as prior to judgements of action.