Virtue Ethics

Question 1

Key Aspects of Virtue Ethics

Answer 1

Virtue = Tugend, Vice = Laster

• actions and rules are morally right if, and only if it is what a virtuous person would do, given the specific circumstances
• humans need to flourish specific character traits, called “virtues” (balance between vice of deficiency and vice of excess)
• the good person is the person who acts from the good character

Question 2

Virtue Ethics by Aristotle

Answer 2

General Objective: Eudaimonia (Glückseligkeit) a flourishing life is the life in accordance with virtue
Principles: virtue = excellent self-mastery of passions and temptations through human reason, a balance between two extremes of excess and deficiency

Question 3

Character Traits and Virtues (Aristotle)

Answer 3

• individual character traits are unique psychological dispositions
• they can be modified by habit and education
• character is a product of habituation: repeated doing of acts which have similar quality
• Aristotle: character traits can be formed by reason. Ability to regulate our desires can be learned. An excellent character is a state (i.e. a stable condition) concerned with the choice of the mean between the two extremes, which is accomplished by reason and practical wisdom.
• regulating our desires too much or too little can result in psychological problems

Question 4

Virtue as a Mean

Answer 4

Virtue is a mean/balance between to vices, excess and deficiency
- doctrine of the mean: act according to the circumstances and other agents involved

Question 5

Two Classes of Virtues

Answer 5

Virtues of Thought
- extensive factual knowledge
- practical wisdom: knowing and succeeding well
Virtues of Character
- the character helps find balance to cope with human desires and wishes.
Balance between egoistic human desires and excess of altruism

Question 6

Virtues of Character as a mean

Answer 6

in order of vice of deficiency, virtuous mean and vice of excess:
cowardice - courage - rashness
insensibility - temperance - intemperance
ironical depreciation - honesty - boastfulness
stinginess - generosity - waste
acting unjustly - justice - being treated unjustly

Question 7

Justice as Reciprocity; Business Context

Answer 7

(Virtuous mean between acting unjustly and being treated unjustly)

• business context: reciprocity of actions
• money is a mean to equalize the efforts to produce, since products and producers are not always equal
• justice is a character trait that enables people to act in accordance with proportionate reciprocity
• concept of negative and positive reciprocity can be used, very beneficial to social exchange

Question 8

Virtue Ethics Conclusion

Answer 8

Advantages:
- focus on individual decision maker and its shortcomings, highlights the individual responsibility
- role dependency, no moral-free areas of life
- trust, reciprocity and justice are important for business (efficiency)
Critique:
- hard to identify particular virtues and to universalize them
- Much more work needs to be done to identify the universality of the human community and the human nature