Virtue Ethics

Question 1

What is the focus of virtue ethics?

Answer 1

Virtue ethics focuses on how to be a good person, rather than what the right thing to do is

Question 2

What is virtue ethics centred around?

Answer 2

Virtue ethics is agent centred rather than act centred

Question 3

What is virtue ethics’ approach to rules

Answer 3

Virtue ethics de-emphasises rules, consequences, and particular acts

Question 4

What is Eudamonia?

Answer 4

Human flourishing - the final end (telos) of all activities

Question 5

What is the golden mean?

Answer 5

A doctrine that steers people to the mean between a virtues two extremes (between cowardice and recklessness is courage)

Question 6

What can be virtuous?

Answer 6

Only voluntary acts can be virtuous with proper intentions - involuntary acts cannot be virtuous

Question 7

What are the strengths of virtue ethics?

Answer 7

• It places personal qualities over rigid adherence to a set of absolutist rules
• Virtue ethics takes the context in which moral dilemmas arise seriously - unlike other ethical theories like Kantianism
• Virtue ethics shows how we aquire and learn virtues by emulating good role models
• Virtue ethics appeals to both secular and religious morality rather than only one