The status of contemporary virtue ethics
Main Article Content
Abstract
The article concerns contemporary virtue ethics which is, along with Kantian ethics and utilitarianism, considered to be one of the most important ethical theories. Generally, virtue ethics can be understood as an agent-centered ethics, focused on the question: what kind of person should I be?; rather than on the question: what should I do?; or it could be understood as a character ethics that criticizes the attempt to formulate universal rules and only accepts so-called rules of virtue, which are less abstract. Moral assessment is made in terms of the moral good rather than in terms of the moral right. Such ethics is opposed to Kantian ethics and utilitarianism, both interpreted as act-centered ethics or rule ethics.
The analysis of different versions of virtue ethics is made in the light of the main question of this article: are the two different approaches, that of agent-centered ethics and that of act-centered ethics, mutually exclusive (as virtue ethicists claim) or rather complementary (as is claimed by the advocates of Kantian and utilitarian aretologies)? The conclusion reached in the article is that both approaches should be treated as complementary rather than competitive. Projects whose aim is to supplement deontology with aretology have been proposed by such deontologists as O. O’Neill, O. Hőffe, R. Wolf, R. Louden, who interpret Kantian ethics in terms of virtue ethics. Also, the concepts of so-called utilitarianism of virtues (R. Crisp), utilitarianism of motives (R. Adams), and character utilitarianism (P. Railton) have been formulated.
The above conclusion leads to another question: should virtue ethics be treated as an autonomous ethical theory or is it possible only as a supplementation of other theories? In this paper I argue that virtue ethics should be reduced to aretology and treated as a necessary but not sufficient part of any ethical theory.
Article Details
By submitting his/her work to the Editorial Board, the author accepts, upon having his/her text recommended for publication, that Diametros applies the Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license to the works we publish. Under this license, authors agree to make articles legally available for reuse, without permission or fees. Anyone may read, download, copy, print, distribute or reuse these articles without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author, as long as the author and original source are properly cited. The author holds the copyright without any other restrictions. Full information about CC-BY: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.
How to Cite
References
Adams [1976] – R. M. Adams, Motive Utilitarianism, „Journal of Philosophy” (73) 1976.
Anscombe [1958] – E. Anscombe, Modern Moral Philosophy, „Philosophy” (33) 1958.
Brandt [1981] – R. B. Brandt, W. K. Frankena and Ethics of Virtue, „Monist” (64) 1981.
Brandt [1996] – R. B. Brandt, Etyka. Zagadnienia etyki normatywnej i metaetyki, tłum. B. Stanosz, PWN, Warszawa 1996.
Den Uyhl, Rasmussen [1997] – D. Den Uyhl, D. Rasmussen, Liberalism Defended. The Challenge of Post-Modernity, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham 1997.
Driver [2002] – J. Driver, Uneasy Virtue, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2002.
Conly [1988] – S. Conly, Flourishing and the Failure of Ethics of Virtue, „Midwest Studies in Philosophy” 13 (1988).
Crisp [1992] – R. Crisp, Utilitarianism and the Life of Virtue, „Philosophical Quarterly” (167) 1992.
Crisp [1996] – How Should One Live? Essays on the Virtues, red. R. Crisp, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1996.
Crisp, Slote [1997] – Virtue Ethics, red. R. Crisp, M. Slote, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1997.
Flanagan, Oksenberg-Rorty [1990] – Identity, Character and Morality, red. O. Flanagan, A. Oksenberg-Rorty, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge 1990.
Foot [1978] – P. Foot, Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives, w: P. Foot, Virtues and Vices and Other Essays in Moral Philosophy, University of California Press, Berkeley 1978.
Galston [1999] – W. Galston, Cele liberalizmu, tłum. A. Pawelec, Znak, Kraków 1999. Höffe [1995] – O. Höffe, Immanuel Kant, tłum. A. Kaniowski, PWN, Warszawa 1995.
Harsanyi [1982] – J. Harsanyi, Some Epistemological Advantages of Rule Utilitarian Position in Ethics, „Midwest Studies in Philosophy”(7) 1982.
Hurka [1993] – T. Hurka, Perfectionism, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1993.
Hursthouse [1999] – R. Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1999.
Kant [1998] – I. Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, tłum. M. Gregor, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1998.
Killpatrick [1993] – W. K. Killpatrick, Why Johnny Can’t Tell Right from Wrong and What We Can Do About It, Touchstone, New York 1993.
Kruschwitz, Roberts [1987] – The Virtues. Contemporary Essays on Moral Character, red. R. Roberts, R. Kruschwitz, Wadsworth Publishing Company, California 1987.
Louden [1986] – R. Louden, Kant’s Virtues, „Philosophy” (61) 1986.
Louden [1987] – R. Louden, On Some Vices of Virtue Ethics, w: The Virtues. Contemporary Essays on Moral Character, red. R. Kruschwitz, R. Roberts, Wadsworth Publishing Company, California 1987.
MacIntyre [1996] – A. MacIntyre, Dziedzictwo cnoty. Studium z teorii moralności, tłum. A. Chmielewski, PWN, Warszawa 1996.
O’Neill [1983] – O. O’Neill, Kant after Virtue, „Inquiry” (26) 1983.
O’Neill [1993] – O. O’Neill, Duties and Virtues, supplement to „Philosophy” (33) 1993. O’Neill [1998] – O. O’Neill, Etyka kantowska, tłum. P. Łuków, w: Przewodnik po etyce, red. P. Singer, Książka i Wiedza, Warszawa 1998.
O'Neill [1996] – O. O'Neill, Kant’s Virtues, w: How Should One Live? Essays on Virtues, red. R. Crisp, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1996.
Railton [1988] – P. Railton, How Thinking about Character and Utilitarianism Might Lead to Rethinking the Character of Utilitarianism, „Midwest Studies in Philosophy” (13) 1988.
Rasmussen [1990] - D. Rasmussen, Liberalism and Natural End Ethics, „American Philosophical Ethics” (27) 1990.
Slote [1992] – M. Slote, From Morality to Virtue, Oxford University Press, New York 1992. Slote [1997] – M. Slote, Agent - Based Virtue Ethics, w: Virtue Ethics, red. R. Crisp, M. Slote, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1997.
Statman [1997a] – D. Statman, Introduction to Virtue Ethics, w: Virtue Ethics, red. D. Statman, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 1997.
Statman [1997b] – Virtue Ethics, red. D. Statman, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 1997.
Stocker [1987] – M. Stocker, The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories, w: The Virtues. Contemporary Essays on Moral Character, red. R. Kruschwitz, R. Roberts, Wadsworth Publishing Company, California 1987.
Szutta [1998] – N. Szutta, Etyka cnót w obronie liberalizmu, „Etyka” (31) 1998.
Szutta [1999] – N. Szutta, Michaela Slote’a koncepcja czystej etyki cnót, „Etyka” (32) 1999. Trianosky [1990] – G. Trianosky, What Is Virtue Ethics All About?, „American Philosophical Quarterly” (27) 1990.
Wolf [1973] – R. P. Wolf, The Autonomy of Reason, Harper & Row, New York 1997.
Zagrzebsky [1996] – L. Zagrzebsky, Virtues of Mind. An Inquiry into the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of Knowledge, Cambridge University Press, New York 1996.