preview

What Is Virtue Ethics

Satisfactory Essays

Chapter nine talks about the environment within and virtues. Christian virtue ethics focus on the end of an act instead of on the consequences because the end says more about the agent (p.164, M). If one person does something that doesn't seem of good virtue, then Christian virtue won't judge that person till the end because their means for doing something could be different than one thinks. The goal of virtue ethics is not better decisions but better deciders (p.164, M). Virtue ethics is about an individual making a decision that may or may not be a good one. Then, people outside of that decision have to decide if that individual's decision was worth changing or leaving it be. Environmental virtue ethics aims for the formation of good people, because good …show more content…

For example: courage is a virtue, but excessive courage is recklessness (a vice), and insufficient courage is cowardice (also a vice) (p.167, M). Therefore, a virtue must have the right amount of balance or it becomes a vice. Some virtues are called "dirty" virtues. Calling virtues "dirty" is a way of reminding people of their intrinsic connectedness with dirt and with everything around them (p.170, B). A "dirty" virtue is a virtue that is connected to the earth and it's environment. Dirty virtues help people to live in good relationship with the animals, plants, water, air, and earth that are our neighbors and without which we would not survive (p.170-171, B-T). These virtues are the ones that drive people to protect the environment and see that nature is something that we need to survive and cannot continue to destroy. However, virtues are something that are developed as one continues to put them into action. Not all virtues are ones that we are born with. Virtues are acquired and continually perfected as one practices being the kind of individual one wants to be (p.171,

Get Access