Virtue Ethics Flashcards
(26 cards)
When is an ethical theory agent-focused?
When virtue is the central object of ethical inquiry
When is an ethical theory agent-prior?
When the criteria for right actions and good outcomes are explained in terms of virtuous character
Who says an action is right iff and because it it what a virtuous person would characteristically do?
Hursthouse (1999)
Who says an action is right iff and because it is done from an overall virtuous motive?
Slote (2001)
What kind of normative ethical theory does McDowell’s agent focused virtue ethics subscribe to?
Particularism
What kind of disposition is a virtue?
Multi-track (many inputs corresponding to many outputs)
Can examining someone’s actions reveal their virtuousness?
No (virtuous agents act out of the right reasons as well as taking the right actions)
What kind of virtue ethical theory justifies the virtues as being good through a comparison to nature? “Human being need virtues as bees need stings” - Geach
A eudaimonistic virtue ethics
What is the key example of a non-eudaimonistic theory, which holds that the goodness of virtue is obvious and needs no further moral grounding?
Slote’s agent-based, exemplarist theory
According to Hursthouse, virtue ethics provides a more intuitive account of the ethics of abortion than the modern debate allows, what points do that modern debate turn on?
The rights of the mother and the personhood of the unborn child
Slote, in response to Singer, claims that which key virtue is especially attuned to needs that are obvious and salient?
Empathy
The ‘comparison to nature’ argument could be claimed to make a step towards providing a solution to which metaethical sticking-point?
Moral naturalism
McDowell’s assertion that the ways the virtuous act are uncodifiable strengthens which argument against virtue ethics?
Virtue ethics is insufficiently action-guiding
Which thought experiment thought up by Kant exposes a flaw in Slote’s exemplarist account of the criteria for right action?
Sleazy merchant
Why might Hursthouse want to switch her account of the criteria for right action to an advice model?
As is may be the case that what the virtuous agent should do is not what the non-virtuous agent should do
What is Svensson’s objection to an advice account of the criteria of right action?
That virtuous actors may give different advice to different agents intending to bring about the same action (due to obstinacy)
Finish the Hurka quote: “Because they so centrally focus on the agent’s virtue, virtue-ethical theories find the ultimate source of reasons in himself, in what virtuous actions will mean for his flourishing or admirability…”
“But, intuitively, many of his most important moral reasons come from outside him, from the good of others and how his actions will affect their lives.”
Which controversial metaethical conclusion can be arrived at by observing that eudaimonistic theories define virtues from the social and cultural concept of human flourishing?
Moral relativism
Is it possible to be honest without being tactless?
Yes, as honest actors do not simply tell the truth because it is the truth, but take the fact ‘this is the truth’ as a giving a strong reason in favour of saying it
According to Foot, when is it that virtue and continence is more admirable than plain virtue?
When it is due to the agents circumstances rather than their character
What would Aristotle describe the kind-hearted child and the adult who is honest ‘to a fault’ as having? What would he say they don’t have?
Natural (proto-) virtue
Phronesis (practical wisdom)
How can action-guidance still be recovered from a particularist virtue ethics, according to Hursthouse?
Follow v-rules - they will not provide ‘right’ action but will still guide well
Who rejects that virtue ethics should provide an account of right and wrong, instead wanting it to focus on how one should live and what sort of person one should strive to be?
Talbot Brewer (2009), Anscombe and MacIntyre
The virtue ethicist could combat the adequacy objection by separating three common meanings of the term right action. What are they?
The best action an agent could take in the circumstances
A commendable action
An action that is not blameworthy
