Virtue ethics
[8] That is, they are dispositions that involve both being able to reason well about the right thing to do (see below on phronesis), and also to engage emotions and feelings correctly.
[11] As John McDowell puts it, practical wisdom involves a "perceptual sensitivity" to what a situation requires.
In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle, like Plato before him, argued that the pursuit of eudaimonia is an "activity of the soul in accordance with perfect virtue",[7]: I which further could only properly be exercised in the characteristic human community—the polis or city-state.
Aristotle states that the virtues function more as means to safeguard human relations, particularly authentic friendship, without which one's quest for happiness is frustrated.
[7] Virtue theory was inserted into the study of history by moralistic historians such as Livy, Plutarch, and Tacitus.
The Greek idea of the virtues was passed on in Roman philosophy through Cicero and later incorporated into Christian moral theology by Ambrose of Milan.
During the scholastic period, the most comprehensive consideration of the virtues from a theological perspective was provided by Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae and his Commentaries on the Nicomachean Ethics.
This tradition was prominent in the intellectual life of 16th-century Italy, as well as 17th- and 18th-century Britain and America; indeed the term "virtue" appears frequently in the work of Tomás Fernández de Medrano, Niccolò Machiavelli, David Hume, the republicans of the English Civil War period, the 18th-century English Whigs, and the prominent figures among the Scottish Enlightenment and the American Founding Fathers.
The contemporary revival of virtue theory is frequently traced to the philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe's 1958 essay "Modern Moral Philosophy".
[citation needed] Aretaic approaches to morality, epistemology, and jurisprudence have been the subject of intense debates.
One criticism focuses on the problem of guidance; one opponent, Robert Louden in his article "Some Vices of Virtue Ethics", questions whether the idea of a virtuous moral actor, believer, or judge can provide the guidance necessary for action, belief formation, or the resolution of legal disputes.
Each intellectual virtue is a mental skill or habit by which the mind arrives at truth, affirming what is or denying what is not.
As Alasdair MacIntyre observed in After Virtue, thinkers as diverse as Homer, the authors of the New Testament, Thomas Aquinas, and Benjamin Franklin have all proposed lists.
According to this view, it is inconsistent to claim, for example, servility as a female virtue, while at the same time not proposing it as a male one.
What counts as a virtue in 4th-century BCE Athens would be a ludicrous guide to proper behaviour in 21st-century CE Toronto and vice versa.
To take this view does not necessarily commit one to the argument that accounts of the virtues must therefore be static: moral activity—that is, attempts to contemplate and practice the virtues—can provide the cultural resources that allow people to change, albeit slowly, the ethos of their own societies.
often object that this particular feature of the theory makes virtue ethics useless as a universal norm of acceptable conduct suitable as a base for legislation[citation needed].
concede this point, but respond by opposing the very notion of legitimate legislative authority instead, effectively advocating some form of anarchism as the political ideal.
Martha Nussbaum suggested that while virtue ethics is often considered to be anti-Enlightenment, "suspicious of theory and respectful of the wisdom embodied in local practices",[38] it is actually neither fundamentally distinct from, nor does it qualify as a rival approach to deontology and utilitarianism.
She argues that contemporary virtue ethicists such as Alasdair MacIntyre, Bernard Williams, Philippa Foot, and John McDowell have few points of agreement and that the common core of their work does not represent a break from Kant.
Those who argue that Kantian deontology conflicts with virtue ethics include Alasdair MacIntyre, Philippa Foot, and Bernard Williams.
[citation needed] Kant rarely mentioned Aristotle by name but did not exclude his moral philosophy of virtue ethics from his critique.
Robert B. Louden criticizes virtue ethics on the basis that it promotes a form of unsustainable utopianism.
John Stuart Mill's greatest happiness principle is a commonly-adopted criterion of what is objectively desirable.
Consequentialist and deontological theories often still employ the term virtue in a restricted sense: as a tendency (or disposition) to adhere to the system's principles or rules.
[46] Thomas Alured Faunce argued that whistleblowing in healthcare settings would be more respected within clinical governance pathways if it had a firmer academic foundation in virtue ethics.
[47] He called for whistleblowing to be expressly supported in the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights.
[48] Barry Schwartz argues that "practical wisdom" is an antidote to much of the inefficient and inhumane bureaucracy of modern health care systems.
[49] In her book Technology and the Virtues,[50] Shannon Vallor proposed a series of "technomoral" virtues that people need to cultivate in order to flourish in our socio-technological world: Honesty (Respecting Truth), Self-control (Becoming the Author of Our Desires), Humility (Knowing What We Do Not Know), Justice (Upholding Rightness), Courage (Intelligent Fear and Hope), Empathy (Compassionate Concern for Others), Care (Loving Service to Others), Civility (Making Common Cause), Flexibility (Skillful Adaptation to Change), Perspective (Holding on to the Moral Whole), and Magnanimity (Moral Leadership and Nobility of Spirit).
