Jiovanni Rodriguez
Philosophy 103
2014 December 2nd
Virtue Ethics: The True Stem of Moral Character Moral character is what dictates an individual 's decision making and affects their experiences throughout their life. A person 's morals can be based off one 's upbringing and environmental factors. Virtue ethics is a philosophical view that greatly supports this claim that the choices a person makes and their actions follow those choices, and display their moral character. This is more likely to be true than Kantianism because this type of ethical view is based off Immanuel Kant, a philosophical thinker whose emphasizes that his writings and beliefs influence the choices people make. However, people do what is morally acceptable in
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Virtue ethics, on the other hand, doesn 't focus exclusively on actions, but on the character of the individual. There are a number of different perceptions of virtue ethics and many different ways to interpret the lessons behind it, but one of the first and most efficient teachings came from Aristotle 's. He argued that virtue is learned, it is a skill we acquire over time and most of the time it represents a mean or middle way between two extremes. For example, if there was an accident and a car began to burn on fire with someone trapped in it; a rash person rushes in without a care to save the person, were as a cowardly person does nothing. A sensible person weighs out the options before making any decisions, and perhaps goes in, or perhaps just waits for help to arrive.
There are three main focuses when breaking down the difference between these important theories. One is based on duty and a fixed moral law (Kant), one is based on enlightened self interest, or what makes us all happy (utilitarianism), and one sees being good as an art that we learn (virtue ethics). A person will try to perform good deeds knowing they will receive a positive outcome. Same goes with a bad decision, thinking about how the result of ones actions and how it could negatively affect you may cause you think twice about your actions before you do them. Moreover, this is where our
Virtue ethics is a very different approach to the others and central to Aristotle's work. It does not primarily concentrate on the right action as such; the right action according to virtue ethicists is the one that the virtuous agent would do. Virtue ethics takes the central feature of morality to be the virtuous character, and the account of what the virtues are as the basis of the theory.
Virtue ethics is a normative theory whose foundations were laid by Aristotle. This theory approaches normative ethics in substantially different ways than consequentialist and deontological theories. In this essay, I will contrast and compare virtue ethics to utilitarianism, ethical egoism, and Kantianism to demonstrate these differences. There is one fundamental aspect of virtue ethics that sets it apart from the other theories I will discuss. For the sake of brevity and to avoid redundancy, I will address it separately. This is the fundamental difference between acting ethically within utilitarianism, egoism, and Kantianism. And being ethical within virtue ethics. The other theories seek to define the ethics of actions while virtue ethics does not judge actions in any way. The other theories deal with how we should act, while virtue ethics determines how we should be.
Aristotle was one of the earliest writers to ground morality in nature, and specifically in human nature. For Aristotle, virtue was an excellence of some sort. According to Aristotle, there are two types of virtues: intellectual virtues and moral virtues. Intellectual virtues are excellences of the mind, such as the ability to understand, reason, and judge well. These traits can be learned from teachers. Moral virtues on the other hand, dispose us to act well. These virtues cannot be taught, and they are learned by repetition. Aristotle’s list of virtues includes courage, temperance, justice, pride, and magnanimity. However Aristotle is probably most well known for his position that virtue is a mean between extremes. For example courage is to be understood as a mean between the two extremes of deficiency and excess. Too little courage is cowardice, and too much is foolhardiness.
Just as there are strengths, there are also weaknesses of virtue theory. These include making decisions based on the person’s opinion as opposed to their ethical belief. There can also be a difference in ethical standards among several different people. A person makes their decision based on their own ethical guidelines and does not look at those that the decision may affect. We can use a scenario in which a person knows the secret of where hostages are being held and are being tortured, but without torturing this person, the others will never be found. A virtue theory person may not torture someone because of their own values because they cannot see the greater good (if one could call it that) that can come out of that situation.
AVirtue ethics or the virtue theory, is an ethical theory that examines the character of a human for morality (Dreisbach, 2013). When discussing the ethical and moral reasoning behind the racial divide of incarceration rates, virtue ethics requires us to evaluate the morality of the person doing a given act, rather than the act itself (Dreisbach, 2013). Using virtue ethics, you can look at the racial disparity from two perspectives that of the offender and that of the people enforcing the laws. From the offender’s perspective you have to look at the values of each individual offender who breaks the law, you have to dissect their upbringing to determine their moral compass. As far as the government officials whether local, state, or federal each individual person’s morals have to be looked at, whether they are the person who drafts a law or bill to help or further harm the issue of racial disparity in incarceration rates.
Christian virtue remains a stable reality, something which firmly establishes in believers the capacity to accomplish those deeds which are worthy of the Kingdom of God. Virtue ethics seeks to cultivate a good life, or seeks to answer, “what kind of person should I be?” but It seems to me virtue ethics is more accurate at exploring the deeper complexity of the human person and divine ordering of things.
Luke can utilize the Golden Rule, which states that “One should treat others as one would like others to treat them”. Hence, if Luke somehow happened to help his sibling by unveiling data of the development of the retail stores in the neighborhood, he would want Owen to act in the same way towards him as he is with Owen. It would just be reasonable to feel that Luke reasons his activities with the Golden Rule, as he would not want such a store to be built close to his home. Then again, Luke would basically be selling out ABC by uncovering the data. According to the logic dictated by Golden Rule, it would just be reasonable for ABC to sell out Luke (by eventually terminating him). ABC
Virtue ethics and care ethics are remarks as an identical of philosophical approaches. Both ethics more reflects each in many ways of behavioral approaches. Virtue ethics is one of the questioning approach which is based on morality. Virtue ethics always comes with question and answer methodology. So, virtue ethics has several answers to rely on for any ethics of moral questions. The most common answers are the religions answer, which is full of rule and regulation for good life to live as human being, Utilitarianism is an idea of make happy for the majority and avoid pain or suffer, and Kantian ethics (deontological ethical theory ) is the wrongness or rightness of actions that not comes from the consequences, it's from duties of moral ethics.
Immanuel Kant was an eighteenth century moral philosopher who disliked the values of the popular ideals of utilitarianism. Thus, he created his own philosophy known as Kantian ethics. According to Kant, the most important factor in determining if an action is ethical is an individual’s motive. In his teachings, Kant describes that the true rightness of an action depends on whether or not an individual fulfills his or her duty to be moral not, the consequences of the actions taken. Kant seems to deem that a moral action is not based on human emotions nor is it based on self-interest but rather, a moral action is taken due to a sense of duty.
According to virtue ethicists, virtues are developed by routine. The majority of virtue ethics philosophies take their motivation from Aristotle who stated that a virtuous being is somebody who has supreme character qualities. These qualities stem from innate inner predispositions, but need to be cultivated; yet, once seeded, they will grow to be firm. For instance, a virtuous individual is somebody who is thoughtful through several circumstances throughout a lifetime, as that is their personality and not because they want to get the most value or increase favors or merely do their obligation. Contrasting deontological and consequentialist philosophies, notions of virtue ethics do not have the intention to predominantly isolate general values that can be functional in any ethical circumstances. And virtue ethics concepts manage broader demands such as how one should live and what are the correct familial and social values.
Virtue, when I hear that word I think of value and morality and only good people can be virtuous. When I hear the word ethics I think of good versus evil, wrong and right. Now when the two are put together you get virtue ethics. You may wonder what can virtue ethics possibly mean. It’s just two words put together to form some type of fancy theory. Well this paper will discuss virtue ethics and the philosophy behind it.
Virtue ethics talks about a person being pure and exemplary or someone that is always willing to do the right thing. For example, if someone is making a bad decision then a virtuous person might encourage he or she to do the correct thing. Care ethics talks about a person having the need to care for someone’s feelings and what is important. An example would be if someone you don’t know seems upset, a person who shows care ethics would be caring towards her and give them a hug. In this dilemma, I believe that the woman should save her friend’s child first and get him to the shore immediately. Then right away she should try her best to save her own child.
Through ancient times and evolution of history ethics has always been viewed as a center of societies of mankind, embracing practical nature links it with many other areas of study, including anthropology, biology, economics, history, politics, sociology, and theology with the teaching of Western philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, or Asia with the view of Confucius, Lao-tzu or Meng Tzu etc. Yet, “ethics remains distinct from such disciplines because it is not a matter of factual knowledge in the way that the sciences and other branches of inquiry are. Rather, it has to do with determining the nature of normative theories
Virtue ethics is a theory that focuses on character development. Virtue is used to make moral decisions and it solely depends on an individual himself. Aristotle, one of the greatest philosophers and also a student of Plato, wrote on a wide range of subjects including virtue ethics. According to him, virtue means being able to fulfill one’s function, instead of asking ‘what is the right action?’ one should ask oneself ‘what kind of person should I become?’ It has more to do with character and the nature of what it is to be human, than with the rights and
To wish, to long for, to crave, to want; to desire. It seems as though we go through our whole lives wanting what we know will make us feel more whole, more of ourselves; more of who we are. And whether what we want is seen as bad or good, we still have that desire. It’s in our nature. It is simply what we want. And acquiring the object of one’s desire makes one feel whole. It’s true. Socrates said it best; “all men desire good things” (Plato 77C). What lead him to that conclusion?