Focuses on the behavior of the virtuous person:

• A situation is perceived within the framework of character.

• For Aristotle, the moral agent “sees and judges with the eyes of experience.”

Emphasizes the practical dimension of moral deliberation:

• Rule- and duty-guided moral theories focus on theoretical principles (propositional knowledge).

• Virtue-ethics extrapolates moral reasoning from moral practice.

Central question
 

Not:  “What are my duties?” or “What makes right acts right?”

Rather: “What kind of a person ought I to be?”

 
THE CONCEPT OF A VIRTUE
 

Two components to virtues (and vices):

1.  Descriptive
2.  Prescriptive

Example 1:  Rudeness

1.  Descriptive:  excessively willful, honest; disregard for social expectations.

2.  Prescriptive: inappropriate; something that warrants disapproval.

Example 2:

1.  Descriptive
 

2.  Prescriptive

Virtues are good in two senses:

1.  Virtues make the person good:
    -- they are admirable in their possessor.

2.  Virtues are good for the person:
    -- they are desirable for their possessor

 
THE AQUISITION OF VIRTUE
 

Virtue ethics includes early childhood experience in its theoretical considerations:

• Recognizes that we are engaged in morally relevant activities long before we are able to reason about morality.

o E.g.:  sharing toys; sibling rivalries

• Teaching by example

• Habituation by repetition

“[The] Child is viewed not statically, but as in progress toward full humanity…To lack deliberative skills at a certain stage does not imply the absence of tother cognitive capacities specific to ethical response.  Therefore, virtues, while acquired through habituation, are not entirely divorced from reason, even at the earliest stages of their cultivation” (Nancy Sherman)

The cultivation of virtues takes place in stages:

1.  Developing the right habits. (pre-reflective)

2.  Discerning the right circumstances.

3.  Understanding the right reasons. (contemplative)

Having a virtuous character requires all 3

--> Understanding the right reasons, without having developed the right habits, is insufficient.

--> Better to have the habits and then later decide whether to endorse or reject them.
    – else one will waffle between (mere) continence and incontinence (akrasia).