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125 Virtue Ethics Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

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Virtue ethics is a branch of ethics that focuses on the character traits and virtues that lead to a good and fulfilling life. Unlike other ethical theories that focus on rules or consequences, virtue ethics emphasizes the importance of developing good character and cultivating virtues such as honesty, kindness, courage, and wisdom.

If you are studying virtue ethics or simply looking for some inspiration for an essay topic, we have compiled a list of 125 virtue ethics essay topic ideas and examples to help you get started.

• The role of virtue ethics in contemporary society
• The importance of moral character in Aristotle's virtue ethics
• How can virtue ethics help us navigate ethical dilemmas in the workplace?
• The relationship between virtue ethics and happiness
• Virtue ethics vs. deontological ethics: a comparative analysis
• The role of empathy in cultivating virtuous character
• How can we cultivate virtues in ourselves and others?
• The concept of eudaimonia in virtue ethics
• The virtue of courage: examples from history and literature
• How does virtue ethics inform our understanding of friendship?
• The role of practical wisdom in making ethical decisions
• The virtue of generosity: why is it important in a virtuous life?
• Can virtues be taught or are they innate qualities?
• The virtue of honesty: why is it important in personal and professional relationships?
• The ethics of care: how does it align with virtue ethics?
• The virtue of patience: why is it important in a fast-paced world?
• The role of integrity in virtuous character
• The virtue of humility: how can we cultivate it in ourselves?
• The importance of self-awareness in developing virtuous character
• The relationship between virtue ethics and environmental ethics
• The virtue of forgiveness: why is it important for personal growth?
• How can virtue ethics inform our understanding of justice?
• The role of virtue ethics in medical ethics
• The virtue of temperance: how can we practice moderation in a consumerist society?
• The virtue of compassion: why is it important in a virtuous life?
• The relationship between virtue ethics and feminist ethics
• The virtue of gratitude: how can we cultivate a sense of gratitude in our lives?
• The role of courage in facing ethical challenges
• The virtue of loyalty: why is it important in personal and professional relationships?
• The virtue of resilience: how can we bounce back from adversity?
• The virtue of integrity: why is it important in personal and professional relationships?
• The virtue of patience: how can we practice patience in a fast-paced world?

These essay topics and examples should give you a good starting point for exploring virtue ethics and its applications in various aspects of life. Whether you are writing a research paper, a reflective essay, or a case study, virtue ethics provides a rich framework for examining ethical questions and dilemmas from a character-based perspective. Happy writing!

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141 Virtue Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best virtue topic ideas & essay examples, 💡 simple & easy virtue essay titles, 🔎 interesting topics to write about virtue, 📌 most interesting virtue topics to write about, 🥇 good research topics about virtue.

• Justice Theory: Business Ethics, Utilitarianism, Rights, Caring, and Virtue The foremost portion of business ethics understands the theory of rights as one of the core principles in the five-item ethical positions that deem essential in the understanding of moral business practices.
• Aristotle vs. Socrates: The Main Difference in the Concept of Virtue One of the main principles on which the ethical school is based is the notion of virtue as the representation of the moral perfectness of a man. We will write a custom essay specifically for you by our professional experts 808 writers online Learn More
• Virtue Theory, Utilitarianism and Deontological Ethics The foundation of utilitarianism theory is in the principle of utility. On the other hand, the theory of deontology embraces the concept of duty.
• Plato and Aristotle’s Views of Virtue in Respect to Education Arguably, Plato and Aristotle’s views of education differ in that Aristotle considers education as a ‘virtue by itself’ that every person must obtain in order to have ‘happiness and goodness in life’, while Plato advocates […]
• Courage as an Important Virtue in Life Described by Maya Angelou as the most important of all the virtues because without courage you cannot practice any other virtue consistently”, it is composed of different types, including physical courage, moral courage, social courage, […]
• Abortion and Virtue Ethics Those who support the right of a woman to an abortion even after the final trimester makes the assertion that the Constitution does not provide any legal rights for a child that is still within […]
• Act Utilitarianism and Virtue Ethics: Pros and Cons Therefore, act utilitarianism is better than virtue ethics since it is clear, concise, and focuses on the majority. Virtue ethics’ strengths can be utilized to enhance the act-utilitarianism theory.
• Niccolo Machiavelli’s Virtue and Fortuna Machiavelli provided opportunities to scholars and readers to understand a political system purged of irrelevant influences of ethics in order to comprehend the basis of politics in useful use of power. Machiavelli introduced another principle […]
• Consequentialist, Deontological, and Virtue Ethics: Ethical Theories Ethical principles are rooted in the ethical theories, and ethicists, when trying to explain a particular action, usually refer to the principles, rather than theories.
• Philosophy: Aristotle on Moral Virtue Both virtue and vice build one’s character and therefore can contribute to the view of happiness. Therefore, character education leads to happiness that is equal to the amount of wisdom and virtue.
• “Virtue Ethics and Adultery” by Raja Halwani In my opinion, that in the context of marriage and adultery, there is a connection between love and sex. According to Halwani, adultery is permissible in situations where the partner does not demonstrate fidelity, including […]
• Machiavelli and Aristotle’s Idea of Virtue He states that for an individual to nurture a certain virtue, one ought to partake in activities that resemble the virtue.
• Desdemona as a Symbol of Christian Virtues She chooses to stay patient when the very light of her life, Othello, accuses her of being a woman of foul character and strikes her.
• “Barbarian Virtues: The United States Encounters Foreign Peoples at Home and Abroad, 1876-1917” by Matthew Frye Jacobson In his own words, Jacobson argues that the country’s “trumpeted greatness” during the Reconstruction and World War I periods was influenced by “the dollars, the labor, and, not least, the very image, of the many […]
• Confidential Data Access: Kantian and Virtue Ethics Governmental agencies reassured the public that all the information is encrypted, but the authors of the article state that there was a place to use confidential documents.
• Greek Manly Virtue in Epic Literature & Philosophy Thus, the manly virtue of ancient Greeks was an attribute of the male and female parts of the society that was implemented since childhood and related to the norms of ethics and aesthetics.
• Virtue Meeting and Live Events Comparison The meeting being of five employees from all over the country, delivery of the context of the meeting is crucial. The next difference is on code of dressing, where in the live events, it is […]
• Without Faith, There Can Be No True Virtue? It relates to the author of integrity and the dishonest virtue that occurs where there is no faith in God even if the qualities of an individual are the best.
• Plato and Socrates on the Ideal Leader’s Virtues In the context of a community, different factors contribute to the definition of this ultimate success. This is important, as people in the community will stand a chance to achieve the higher statuses that they […]
• Theories of Ethics: Virtue, Teleological and Deontological Theory In other words, the shooting might be ethically indefensible due to the lack of adherence to one’s virtues since it is the latter elements which make someone ethical or unethical.
• Virtue Ethics: Kantianism and Utilitarianism Despite the strengths and theoretical significance of both approaches, the theories of Aristotle and Aquinas suggest more flexibility and breadth in ethics interpretation as compared to rule-based theories.
• Difference Between Social Contract, Utilitarianism, Virtue and Deontology This essay gives a description of the differences in how ethical contractarianism, utilitarianism, virtue, and deontological ethics theories address ethics and morality.
• Oprah Winfrey’s Leadership Traits and Virtues This trait underscores the ability of a leader to create a vision on his or her intentions and communicate the same to the individuals involved in making the vision a success.
• Important Virtues in Human Life: Plato’s Protagoras and Hesiod’s Works and Days Plato and Hesiod tried to evaluate the ideas of justice in their worlds and the ways of how people prefer to use their possibilities and knowledge using the story of Prometheus; Plato focused on the […]
• The Importance of Values and Virtues To further illustrate this concept in a more detailed manner, I will refer to a couple of the values I follow, while depicting a situation when I have broken them.
• The Virtue of Courage in Theories and Experience The teachings of the old and the wise seemed buried in the annals of yesteryears. This is courage in the truest sense of the word because it leads to many other virtues.
• Utilitarian, Libertarian, Deontological, and Virtue Ethics Perspectives In deontology, morality is judged through examining the nature of the actions and the will of the individuals to do the right thing.
• Civic Virtue in Crime Commitment and Revelation In the law, as well as in the moral life of society, it is considered that concealment, non-disclosure, and connivance are the types of implications to the crime.
• Knightly Virtue in “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” Poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is an epic poem where the protagonist illustrates knightly virtues through overcoming the trials sent to him by the Green Knight.
• Virtue and Stoic Ethics in Criminal Justice The lack of ethical grounds for the behavior of criminal justice officials makes the application of the law unreliable. As an employee of a juvenile correctional colony, I will be guided by the principles of […]
• Moral Virtue and Its Relation to Happiness Furthermore, Aristotle believed that moral virtue is the primary means to happiness and the most important of all things that are really good for people.
• Leadership: Character, Competencies, and Virtues Therefore, this paper will analyze the relationship between personality and leadership and how it affects the work of other people and the company as a whole.
• Ethics, Prosperity, and Society: Virtue Ethics and Utilitarianism First, due to the heated argument of the superior on duty, they might take out their anger on the trainee, in which case the trainee might be told to either resolve the issue personally or […]
• Moral Virtue and Its Essence in Human Society Thus, moral virtues serve to reconcile individuals’ knowledge of right and wrong with their actions and ways of living. Therefore, moral virtues allow people to live in peace and assist each other to advance while […]
• Communication Skills and Caring Virtues in Nursing Eventually, I realized that the issue had to be addressed as a healthcare issue and consulted several resources in order to determine the medication to use as the means of keeping my memory functioning properly. […]
• Virtue Ethics and Private Morality It can tentatively be characterized as an approach that emphasizes virtues and moral character, as opposed to approaches that emphasize the importance of duties and rules or the consequences of actions.
• Researching the Concept of Moral Virtue As known from The Nicomachean Ethics, some teachers can be rocks that are doomed to fall, and there is no possibility of them changing that fact.
• Natural Law Theory and Virtue Ethics Theory The second step in virtue ethics theory is to look at the agent of the action. Under virtue ethics theory, the action is wrong because it falls to the extreme of excess, and Jones indulges […]
• Elon Mask: Biography and Main Virtues Elon Musk believes that the more time a person has and the smaller his plan, the weaker progress he will achieve. Musk is admired for the many positive traits he brings to his work.
• The Concept of Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics The essence of Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean is that virtue lies in between two extremes, none of which is virtuous on its own.
• Global Economic Justice: The Natural Law and Virtue Ethics Theories The concept of global economic justice presupposes distribution of recourses on account of people’s needs, allowing to avoid the situation when the most significant part of the planet’s resources is concentrated in the hands of […]
• Humility as a Divine Virtue of a Religious Person These words of wisdom imply that the success of learning is not to elevate a person’s ego, but rather teach them humility through enhancing their understanding of the world.
• Virtue Ethics in Institutional Review Boards Virtue ethics is of the view that resolution of the challenges is dependent on the character of the people making the decisions.
• Act Utilitarianism and Virtue Ethics The theory greatly neglects and ignores the happiness of individual because everyone is on the run to be accepted morally to the society and tend to make individuals do what tends to make them happy.
• Virtue and Its Importance in Current Realities Even though Aristotle and Confucius wrote in 300s BC and 400s BC, respectively, the topic of virtue is not archaic; on the contrary, it refers directly to modern realities. This concept reflects a fundamental attitude […]
• Moral Virtues of Stoicism and Early Christianity Early Christians’ demonstration of virtue which includes humility, selflessness, and mercy, also reflects Jesus’s teachings on being meek and merciful to inherit the kingdom of God.
• Organizational Virtue: An Empirical Study of Customers and Employees The initial results of the study were based on the examination of the relationships between the main organizational virtues and other variables through correlation analysis.
• Happiness in Arts: Happiness Through Virtue This way, the premise of the Marble statue resembles that of the portrait of Antisthenes, namely, that happiness is the greatest good and it can be attained by nurturing goodness.
• Virtues of the Modern Secular State The purpose of this paper is to examine the secular virtues promoted by the state in the 21st century. Therefore, the ideas of the secular state and the Christian worldview intersect with the notion of […]
• Modern Secular State and Its Main Virtues Morality is the principal condition for the emergence of the community as well as the grounds for a prosperous society regardless of the time.
• MacIntyre’s After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory Nevertheless, it is possible in the case if the efforts of a secular state and the religious community are combined for finding a compromise between the governmental needs and the Biblical wisdom.
• Hutcheson on Ideas of Beauty and Virtue Review As for the actual proof of its discernment, Hutcheson does not provide it in An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue.
• Meno’s Question About the Virtue: Response of Socrates This is not the only question Meno asks but in all the cases, he fails to begin by defining the basis of his questions.
• Healthcare Virtue and Values It is the dispositional aspect of character. It involves a mixture of emotion and decision made by the individual.
• Ethical Virtues and Vices Thus, virtues are crucial in the lives of individuals as they lead to productive, ethical, and good behaviors. Ethical vices refer to immoral behaviors that lower the integrity of a person and society.
• Virtue Ethics: One Way to Resolve an Ethical Dilemma Other members of the usability team argue that although there was a clear loophole that the external members can choose to exploit so that they can be released from the work that they need to […]
• Wu Zetian and the Ideals of Feminine Virtue Overall, her actions and character provided a contrast to the behavior of women typical for imperial China, and she was equally admired and criticized.
• Character Strengths and Virtues System Views The issues addressed by this project are related to the nature, structure, degree of integrity, dependence on cultural conditions, values, as well as opportunities and ways of developing the character in the most successful way.
• Aristotle’s and Socrates’ Account of Virtue This is manifested in their teachings where Aristotle speaks of virtue as finding a balance between two extremes while Socrates says that virtue is the desire for one to do well in one’s life.
• Generosity as a Learned Virtue The analysis of this study is aimed at studying the perception of generosity and trying to find out if generosity can be learned or it is just an inborn character trait.
• Plato’s “Meno”: On the Nature of Virtue In 95c, the author assumes that Sophists are also not qualified to teach virtue, due to the fact that one of the respected philosophers is quite critical about those who make some promises and believes […]
• Aristotle’s – The Ethics of Virtue Ethics is not a theory of discipline since our inquiry as to what is good for human beings is not just gathering knowledge, but to be able to achieve a unique state of fulfillment in […]
• Philosophy: Is Patriotism a Virtue? Hence, in the above context, patriotism is the feeling that arises from the concerns of the safety of the people of a nation.
• Five Moral Principles of ACA vs. Seven Virtues of Christian Counseling It is clear, however, that the ACA principles advocate a higher degree of autonomy while Christian counseling suggests that the counselor should suffer from the client, not just feel for them.
• Epistemological Argument, Virtue, and Knowledge The point of the paper is not to disprove the argument against descriptivism entirely, but to point out the insufficiency of the existing arguments.
• Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics Analysis When faced with the option of an apple of a muffin, a good person would choose the apple, because the part of the soul that desired the muffin would be controlled by self-control, the part […]
• Virtue Ethics for Dilemmas in Nursing Using this approach in the context of the dilemma in question gives a possibility to analyze the ability of the nurse to reason morally and to exercise the virtue of telling the truth.
• Intellectual Virtues and Cognitive Development For instance, I believe that I have the virtue of curiosity which allows me to be more active in the pursuit of truth and discoveries.
• Noble Cause Corruption and Virtue Ethics The answer lies in the purpose and the implied public image of the police. The role of the policeman is to uphold the law dictated by the government and the constitution of the country.
• Lethal Autonomous Weapons and Virtue Theory Due to the nature of technology, people are taken out of the loop of the operation of these technologies. Due to the automation of machines and their ability to change their code to adapt to […]
• Utilitarianism, Kantianism, Virtue Ethics, Egoism Quote: The amanagers of a corporation must take responsibility to fulfil their duties to their stockholders and to the public’. According to this normative theory, the utility can be described as anything that is related […]
• Ethical Naturalism in Hursthouse’s “On Virtue Ethics” Thus, Hursthouse’s approach to discussing the ethically relevant aspects in the life of human beings with the focus on ethical naturalism is convincing because the philosopher assumes the difference in people who can be good […]
• Aristotle’s Virtue Theory vs. Buddha’s Middle Path The purpose of this paper is to review each of the two theories and develop a comparison between them. This term is in contrast to the paths of extremities described by eternalism and annihilationism that […]
• Mattel Inc.’s Ethical Framework and Virtues However, if it had incorporated the virtue of honesty in its safety and quality codes, the chances are that the product recalls would not have occurred.
• Virtue Ethics, Utilitarianism, and Deontology Utilitarianism relates to the concept of value in that the quality of something which is good is measured by the value attached to it.
• Ethics in Leadership: Role, Conduct and Virtues It is important to know whether the actions of leaders are right or bad. The leader must have the moral right to act and that those actions must be for the well-being of others.
• Ethics: Egoism, Utilitarianism, Care and Virtue It is necessary to note that it is benign most of the time, but the issue is that such behavior may not be liked by other members of society, and it can lead to numerous […]
• Philosophy Terms: Justice, Happiness, Power and Virtue Socrates argues that autocratic leadership is an important structure of ensuring that the rule of law is followed and that the common good of all societal members is enhanced.
• Price Gouging and Virtue: “Justice” by Michael Sandel If one summarizes the information from the book, the virtue can be defined as a somewhat vague idealistic image of the “good” of the correct way of living.
• Ethical Leadership Rules and Virtues Ethical leadership for me is based on such virtues as justice and fidelity which are normally perceived as a part of a leader’s moral identity.
• Cardinal Virtues in The Epic of Gilgamesh The Epic of Gilgamesh enables the reader to identify the cardinal virtues that could be valued in the ancient world. The author of this poem highlights the importance of fortitude through the words of Enkidu […]
• The Confucian Ideal Person: An Introspective on Virtue and Goodness However, merely being able to relate to nature is not enough to become a truly Confucian ideal of a person; according to the postulates of the teacher, one has to reach the state of a […]
• Virtue Ethics and Moral Goods for Society This essay focuses on strengths and or, weaknesses of trying to propose moral goods for a society based on human rights, universal natural law, and claims of Christian faith.
• Is Virtue Ethics Dead in Modern Organizations? In fact, the environment of the global economy often contributes to the evolution of the phenomenon of CSR and the adoption of new responsibilities by the staff due to the cultures fusion.
• Socrates on Death and Virtue This is the purification that comes from the separation of the soul and body. The hindrance to the realization of the true virtue is corrupted by the body and its elements.
• Enhancing Organizational Performance: Virtue Teams The paper will also look at how this investment will contribute to the mission of the bank- to create an environment where the clients expectations and where our values drive the decisions of the bank.
• Business Ethics: Applying Virtue Theory On the price fixing case in question, we are not informed of the character of the major companies that engaged in this action.
• Aristotle’s Definition of Virtue In particular, he writes that virtue is “a state that decides, consisting in a mean, relative to us, which is defined by reference to a reason, that is to say, to the reason by reference […]
• The Knight Without Blemish and Without Reproach: The Color of Virtue Although there is no actual rhyme in the given piece, the way it is structured clearly shows that this is a poem; for instance, the line “At the head sat Bishop Baldwin as Arthur’s guest […]
• Divergence Between False and True Virtue The last days of the Socrates refers to a sequence of four conversations by Plato that illustrates the demise as well as the testing of the Socrates.
• Consequentialistic and Virtue Ethics Wang & Zhang notes that, “the textile industries in the Eastern countries and specifically in China have raised a lot of disputes with the Western countries”. Secondly, the production of cheap textiles by industries in […]
• Examining “The Golden Rule” and Virtue Ethics The ethical issue in this particular case is whether or not Alice should report the apparent mistake in Mark’s nutritional report to the company or whether she should tell Mark that she looked through the […]
• Healthcare Systems Marketing Elements: Sociocultural Factors, Beliefs, and Virtues of a Society In any kind of a business organization, it is very important to have good and healthy relationships with all stakeholders from the employers to employees to customers and all other parties involved in the business […]
• Aristotle’s Ideas on Civic Relationships: Happiness, the Virtues, Deliberation, Justice, and Friendship On building trust at work, employers are required to give minimum supervision to the employees in an effort to make the latter feel a sense of belonging and responsibility.
• Machiavelli and a Notion of Virtue as an Innovation The character qualities that a person has are important to themselves and the people who they are in charge of. Machiavelli wrote about this a long time ago and so, many people of the modern […]
• Montesquieu Practice of Virtue in Ancient Republic The virtue of balancing private and public interests in a republic can more or less be understood in the context of Aristotelian moderation.
• The Virtue of Moving Forward in “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner The misery of those who are unable to accept the reality and to get free from the influence of the past is the main theme of William Faulkner’s short story “A Rose for Emily”, where […]
• What Human Virtue Means as Explained in Plato’s Book
• Euthanasia: Perspective From Theory of Personality Virtue
• Using the VIA Classification to Advance a Psychological Science of Virtue
• Consequentialism, Non- Consequentialism, Virtue Ethics and Care Ethics
• Virtue Ethics and Its Understanding of Moral Life
• The Strengths and Weaknesses of Virtue Ethics
• Why the Enlightenment Project Had to Fail According to After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre
• East Meets West: Universal Ethic of Virtue for Global Business
• The Virtue Theory and the Ethical Issue of Climate Change
• Aristotle and Virtue: How People View the Virtue of Forgiveness
• Civility and Civic Virtue in Contemporary America
• Difference Between Virtue Ethics, Kantian and Utilitarianism
• Adam Smith and the Character of Virtue Adam Smith and the Economy of the Passions
• Aristotle’s Concept and Definition of Happiness and Virtue
• Utilitarianism, Deontology, and Virtue Theory
• Forms, Immortal Soul, and Defining Virtue in Phaedo and Meno by Plato
• Comparing Confucius’ and Aristotle’s Perspectives on Virtue
• How Aristotle Understands the Human Being Through Virtue Ethics
• Aristotle and Citizenship Intellectual Virtue
• The Relationship Between Desire and Virtue
• Courage, Virtue, and the Immortality of the Soul: According to Socrates
• War Theory, Utilitarianism, and Virtue Ethics
• Analyzing Preference for Virtue Ethics Theory
• Aristotole’s View That Virtue Is the Ability to Know Good and Do Good
• Dialogue Between Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates on Virtue and Vice in Daily Life
• The Meaning and Impact of Virtue From the Perspective of Plato
• Changing Attitudes Toward Virtue in Ancient Greece
• Civic Virtue, the American Founding, and Federalism
• Catholic Social Teachings and Virtue Ethics
• Virtue: Comparing the Views of Confucius and Aristotle
• Can Individual Virtue Survive Corporate Pressure
• Dante and Melville: Flawed Virtue, Truth and Justice
• Virtue Ethics and the Great Role Model of Folklore and Language
• Virtue and the Political Thinking of Niccolo Machiavelli
• Virtue Theory, Utilitarianism, and Deontological Ethics: Differences & Similarities
• Ancient Greece and Changing Attitudes Regarding Virtue
• Businesses Are Completely Incompatible With Virtue Ethics
• Modern Human Behavior and Theory of Classical Virtue
• The Philosophical and Moral Component of Virtue Ethics
• Analyzing the Style and Virtue of the Declaration of Independence
• Divine Command Theory, Deontology, and Virtue Ethics
• The Topic Animal Rights in Society as Discussed in the Virtue Theory
• Why Ethics and Virtue Are Important in Leadership
• Benjamin Franklin and the Virtue of Humility
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Chapter 10 Essay Questions

1.   How does the approach of virtue ethics differ from that of the moral theories discussed in previous chapters? In what ways is this difference important to how we assess the plausibility of virtue ethics? Do you think the virtue ethical approach is the right one? Defend your answers.

2.   What are virtues, and how (according to virtue ethics) do we acquire them? Do you find this story plausible? Do you think it makes sense of who the moral exemplars are, and why they are role models? Defend your answers.

3.   Write an essay explaining the priority problem for virtue ethics, illustrating the problem with at least one example. Does this objection succeed in refuting virtue ethics? Why or why not?

4.   What does Aristotle mean when he says that “virtue is a kind of mean”? Do you find this claim plausible? Does it help us to understand how to live our lives? Explain and defend your response.

5.   Write an essay discussing Aristotle’s conception of virtue. What exactly is a virtue, according to Aristotle? Give an example of a virtue and explain why it is a virtue, in Aristotle's view. Is his account plausible? Why or why not?

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1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology

Philosophy, One Thousand Words at a Time

Virtue Ethics

Author: David Merry Category: Ethics , Historical Philosophy Word Count: 1000

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Think of the (morally) best person you know. It could be a friend, parent, teacher, religious leader, thinker, or activist.

The person you thought of is probably kind, brave, and wise. They are probably not greedy, cruel, or foolish.

The first list of ‘character traits’ ( kind, brave, etc.) are virtues, and the second list ( arrogant, greedy, etc.) are vices . Virtues are ways in which people are good; vices are ways in which people are bad.

This essay presents virtue ethics, a theory that sees virtues and vices as central to understanding who we should be, and what we should do.

1. Virtue and Happiness

Virtues are excellent traits of character. [1] They shape how we act, think, and feel. They make us who we are. Virtues are acquired through good habits, over a long period of time.

1.1. Eudaimonia

According to Aristotle (384-322 BCE) virtues are those, and only those, character traits we need to be happy. [2] Many virtue ethicists today agree. [3] These virtue ethicists are called eudaimonists, after the Greek word eudaimonia, usually translated as “happiness,” “flourishing,” or “well-being . ” [4]

For eudaimonists, happiness is more than a feeling: it involves living well with others and pursuing worthwhile goals. This includes cultivating strong relationships, and succeeding at such projects as raising a family, fighting for justice, and (moderate yet enthusiastic) enjoyment of pleasure. [5]

Eudaimonists believe our happiness is not easily separated from that of other people. Many would consider the happiness of their friends and family as part of their own. Eudaimonists may extend this to complete strangers, and non-human animals. Similarly for causes or ideals: eudaimonists believe complicity in injustice and deceit reduces a person’s happiness. , [6]

If eudaimonists are right about happiness, then it is plausible that we need virtues such as honesty, kindness, gratitude and justice to be happy. This is not to say that the virtues will guarantee happiness. But eudaimonists believe we cannot be truly happy without them.

One concern is that vicious people often seem happy. For example, dictators live in palaces, apparently rather pleasantly. Eudaimonists may not think this amounts to happiness, but many would disagree. And if dictators can be happy, then we certainly can be happy without the virtues. Answering this objection is an ongoing project for eudaimonists. [7]

1.2. Emotion, Intelligence, and Developing Virtue

Eudaimonists believe emotions are essential to happiness, and that our emotions are shaped by our habits. Good emotional habits are a question of balance.

For example, eudaimonists argue that honest people habitually want to and enjoy telling the truth, but not so much that they will ignore all other considerations–a habit of enjoying pointing out other people’s shortcomings will leave us friendless, and so is not part of honesty. [8]

Because virtue requires balancing competing considerations, such as telling the truth and considering other people’s feelings, virtue also requires experience in making moral decisions. Virtue ethicists call this intellectual ability practical intelligence, or wisdom. [9]

2. Virtue and Right Action

Virtue ethicists believe we can use virtue to understand how we should act, or what makes actions right.

According to some virtue ethicists, an action is right if, and only if, it is what a virtuous person would characteristically do under the circumstances. [10] On rare occasions, virtuous people do the wrong thing. But this is not acting characteristically.

2.1. Being Specific

“Do what virtuous people would do” is not very specific, and we may be left wondering what the theory is actually saying we should do.

One way to make it more specific is to generate rules for each of the virtues and vices, called “v-rules.” Two examples of v-rules are: be kind, don’t be cruel. The v-rules give specific guidance in many cases: writing an email just to hurt someone’s feelings is cruel, so don’t do it. [11]

Unfortunately, the virtues can conflict: if a friend asks whether we like their new partner, it may be more honest to say we do not , but kinder to say we do. In this case it is hard to say what the virtuous person would do.

Virtue ethicists might respond that other ethical theories will also struggle to give clear guidance in hard cases. [12]

Second, they might try to understand how a virtuous person would think about the situation. Remember that virtuous people have practical intelligence, and habitually care about other people’s happiness and telling the truth. So they may consider a lot of particular details, including how close the friendship is, how bad the partner is, how gently the friend may be told. [13]

This may not provide a specific answer, but virtue ethicists hope they can at least provide a helpful model for thinking about hard cases. [14]

2.2. Explaining Why

We have seen how virtue ethics tells us what to do. But we also want to know why we should do it.

Virtue ethicists point out that if we ask virtuous people, they will explain why they did what they did. [15] Their reasoning results from their excellent emotional habits and practical intelligence–that is, from their virtue. And if we want to be happy, we need to cultivate virtue. So these should be our reasons too.

But in explaining their decision, the virtuous person won’t necessarily mention virtue. They might, for example, say, “I wanted to avoid hurting their feelings, so I told the truth gently.” [16]

It might then seem that something other than virtue–in our example, the importance of other people’s feelings–explains why the action is right . But then this other thing should be central to ethical theory, instead of virtue.

Virtue ethicists may respond that the moral weight of this other thing depends on which character traits are virtues. Accordingly, if kindness were not a virtue, there may be no moral reason to care about others’ feelings. [17]

3. Conclusion

Virtue ethicists recommend reflecting on the character traits we need to be happy. They hope this will help us make better moral decisions. Virtue ethics may not always yield clear answers, but perhaps acknowledging moral uncertainty is not a vice.

[1] Others may define virtue as admirable or merely good traits of character. For additional definitions of virtue and understandings of virtue ethics, see Hursthouse and Pettigrove’s “Virtue Ethics.”

[2] Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics , Book One, Chapter 9, Lines 1099b25-29. For this interpretation, see Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness, p. 6.

[3] Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics , pp. 165-169, “Virtue Theory and Abortion”, p. 226, Foot, Natural Goodness , pp. 99-116.

There are many other accounts of virtue worth considering. One major alternative is sentimentalist accounts, such as that of Hume and Zagbzebski, who define virtues as those character traits that attract love or admiration. Some scholars argue that Confucian ethics is a virtue ethic, though this is debated: see Wong, “Chinese Ethics.” Also see John Ramsey’s Mengzi’s Moral Psychology, Part 1: The Four Moral Sprouts . For an African understanding of virtue, see Thaddeus Metz’s The African Ethic of Ubuntu .

[4] Hursthouse has a detailed and accessible discussion of the merits of different translations of eudaimonia in On Virtue Ethics, pp. 9-10.

[5] Some people find this account of virtue surprising because they think virtue must involve sacrificing one’s own happiness for the sake of other people, and living like a saint, a monk, or just being a really boring and miserable person. In this case it may be more helpful to think in terms of ‘good character’ than ‘virtue’. David Hume amusingly argued that some alleged virtues, such as humility, celibacy, silence, and solitude, were vices. See his Enquiry 9.1.

[6] The idea that injustice erodes everybody’s happiness is not to deny that it especially harms people who are treated unjustly. However, eudaimonists consider being unjust, or deceiving others to be bad for us.

[7] For a compelling discussion of this objection to eudaimonism, see Blackburn, Being Good, pp. 112-118 . Eudaimonists have been trying to answer this objection for a long time. Indeed, arguing that it is more beneficial to be just than unjust is one of the major themes of Plato’s Republic. For more recent attempts to make the case, see Hursthouse’s On Virtue Ethics, Chapter 8, or Foot, Natural Goodness, especially Chapter 7. See also Kiki Berk’s Happiness .

[8] The idea that the virtues involve finding a balance is called ‘the doctrine of the mean.’ See Nicomachean Ethics, Book II, Chapter 6, lines 1106b30-1107a5. For one contemporary account of the emotional aspects of virtue, see Hursthouse’s On Virtue Ethics, pp.108-121.

[9] Aristotle discusses practical intelligence in Nicomachean Ethics Book 6. For a contemporary account see Hursthouse’s On Virtue Ethics, pp. 59-62.

[10] Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics, pp. 28-29. This is sometimes called a qualified-agent account. For some alternatives, see van Zyl’s “Virtue Ethics and Right Action”.

[11] Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics, pp. 28-29.

[12] For other moral theories, see Deontology: Kantian Ethics by Andrew Chapman and Introduction to Consequentialism by Shane Gronholz. When reading, you might consider whether these theories would give you clearer guidance about your friend’s partner.

[13] See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book 2, chapter 9, lines 1109a25-30. Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics pp. 128-129.

[14] For two examples of how virtue ethics may be helpfully applied to tough moral decisions, see Hursthouse’s “Virtue Theory and Abortion”, and Foot’s “Euthanasia”.

[15] Hursthouse, “Virtue Ethics and Abortion”, especially p. 227, pp. 234-237. “Do what a virtuous person would do” is only supposed to tell us what we should do, not how we should think .

[16] This objection is discussed in Shafer-Landau’s The Fundamentals of Ethics, pp. 272-274.

[17] On this connection between facts about morality on facts about virtue and human happiness, see Hursthouse “Virtue Theory and Abortion”, pp. 236-238.

Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics . C. 355-322 BCE. Trans. Roger Crisp. Cambridge UP. 2014.

Blackburn, S. Being Good. Oxford UP. 2001.

Boxill, B. “How Injustice Pays.” Philosophy and Public Affairs, 9(4): 359-371. 1980.

Foot, P. Natural Goodness. Oxford UP. 2001.

Foot, P. “Euthanasia”. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 6(2): 85–112. 1977.

Foot, P. “Moral Beliefs.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. 59: 83-104. 1958.

Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. 1777.      

Hursthouse, R. “Virtue Theory and Abortion.” Philosophy & Public Affairs . 20(3): 223-246. 1991.

Hursthouse, R. On Virtue Ethics. Oxford UP. 1999.

Hursthouse, Rosalind and Glen Pettigrove, “Virtue Ethics”. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2018 Edition), Zalta, E.N (ed.). 2018,

Nussbaum, M. The Fragility of Goodness. Cambridge UP. 2nd Edition, 2001.

van Zyl, L. “Virtue Ethics and Right Action”. In Russell, D. C (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Virtue Ethics. Cambridge UP. 2013.

Plato. Republic. C. 375 BCE. Trans. Paul Shorey. Harvard UP. 1969.

Shafer-Landau, R. The Fundamentals of Ethics . Fourth Edition. Oxford UP. 2017.

Wong, D. “Chinese Ethics”. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2021 Edition) . Zalta, E.N (ed). 2021.

Zagzebski, L.T. Exemplarist Moral Theory. Oxford UP. 2017.

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David Merry’s research is mostly about ethics and dialectic in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, although he also occasionally works on contemporary ethics and philosophy of medicine. He received a Ph.D. from the Humboldt University of Berlin, and an M.A in philosophy from the University of Auckland. He is co-editor of Essays on Argumentation in Antiquity . He offers interactive, discussion-based online philosophy classes and maintains a blog at Kayepos.com .

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Virtue Ethics

Virtue ethics is currently one of three major approaches in normative ethics. It may, initially, be identified as the one that emphasizes the virtues, or moral character, in contrast to the approach that emphasizes duties or rules (deontology) or that emphasizes the consequences of actions (consequentialism). Suppose it is obvious that someone in need should be helped. A utilitarian will point to the fact that the consequences of doing so will maximize well-being, a deontologist to the fact that, in doing so the agent will be acting in accordance with a moral rule such as “Do unto others as you would be done by” and a virtue ethicist to the fact that helping the person would be charitable or benevolent.

This is not to say that only virtue ethicists attend to virtues, any more than it is to say that only consequentialists attend to consequences or only deontologists to rules. Each of the above-mentioned approaches can make room for virtues, consequences, and rules. Indeed, any plausible normative ethical theory will have something to say about all three. What distinguishes virtue ethics from consequentialism or deontology is the centrality of virtue within the theory (Watson 1990; Kawall 2009). Whereas consequentialists will define virtues as traits that yield good consequences and deontologists will define them as traits possessed by those who reliably fulfil their duties, virtue ethicists will resist the attempt to define virtues in terms of some other concept that is taken to be more fundamental. Rather, virtues and vices will be foundational for virtue ethical theories and other normative notions will be grounded in them.

We begin by discussing two concepts that are central to all forms of virtue ethics, namely, virtue and practical wisdom. Then we note some of the features that distinguish different virtue ethical theories from one another before turning to objections that have been raised against virtue ethics and responses offered on its behalf. We conclude with a look at some of the directions in which future research might develop.

1.2 Practical Wisdom

2.1 eudaimonist virtue ethics, 2.2 agent-based and exemplarist virtue ethics, 2.3 target-centered virtue ethics, 2.4 platonistic virtue ethics, 3. objections to virtue ethics, 4. future directions, other internet resources, related entries, 1. preliminaries.

In the West, virtue ethics’ founding fathers are Plato and Aristotle, and in the East it can be traced back to Mencius and Confucius. It persisted as the dominant approach in Western moral philosophy until at least the Enlightenment, suffered a momentary eclipse during the nineteenth century, but re-emerged in Anglo-American philosophy in the late 1950s. It was heralded by Anscombe’s famous article “Modern Moral Philosophy” (Anscombe 1958) which crystallized an increasing dissatisfaction with the forms of deontology and utilitarianism then prevailing. Neither of them, at that time, paid attention to a number of topics that had always figured in the virtue ethics tradition—virtues and vices, motives and moral character, moral education, moral wisdom or discernment, friendship and family relationships, a deep concept of happiness, the role of the emotions in our moral life and the fundamentally important questions of what sorts of persons we should be and how we should live.

Its re-emergence had an invigorating effect on the other two approaches, many of whose proponents then began to address these topics in the terms of their favoured theory. (One consequence of this has been that it is now necessary to distinguish “virtue ethics” (the third approach) from “virtue theory”, a term which includes accounts of virtue within the other approaches.) Interest in Kant’s virtue theory has redirected philosophers’ attention to Kant’s long neglected Doctrine of Virtue , and utilitarians have developed consequentialist virtue theories (Driver 2001; Hurka 2001). It has also generated virtue ethical readings of philosophers other than Plato and Aristotle, such as Martineau, Hume and Nietzsche, and thereby different forms of virtue ethics have developed (Slote 2001; Swanton 2003, 2011a).

Although modern virtue ethics does not have to take a “neo-Aristotelian” or eudaimonist form (see section 2), almost any modern version still shows that its roots are in ancient Greek philosophy by the employment of three concepts derived from it. These are arête (excellence or virtue), phronesis (practical or moral wisdom) and eudaimonia (usually translated as happiness or flourishing). (See Annas 2011 for a short, clear, and authoritative account of all three.) We discuss the first two in the remainder of this section. Eudaimonia is discussed in connection with eudaimonist versions of virtue ethics in the next.

A virtue is an excellent trait of character. It is a disposition, well entrenched in its possessor—something that, as we say, goes all the way down, unlike a habit such as being a tea-drinker—to notice, expect, value, feel, desire, choose, act, and react in certain characteristic ways. To possess a virtue is to be a certain sort of person with a certain complex mindset. A significant aspect of this mindset is the wholehearted acceptance of a distinctive range of considerations as reasons for action. An honest person cannot be identified simply as one who, for example, practices honest dealing and does not cheat. If such actions are done merely because the agent thinks that honesty is the best policy, or because they fear being caught out, rather than through recognising “To do otherwise would be dishonest” as the relevant reason, they are not the actions of an honest person. An honest person cannot be identified simply as one who, for example, tells the truth because it is the truth, for one can have the virtue of honesty without being tactless or indiscreet. The honest person recognises “That would be a lie” as a strong (though perhaps not overriding) reason for not making certain statements in certain circumstances, and gives due, but not overriding, weight to “That would be the truth” as a reason for making them.

An honest person’s reasons and choices with respect to honest and dishonest actions reflect her views about honesty, truth, and deception—but of course such views manifest themselves with respect to other actions, and to emotional reactions as well. Valuing honesty as she does, she chooses, where possible to work with honest people, to have honest friends, to bring up her children to be honest. She disapproves of, dislikes, deplores dishonesty, is not amused by certain tales of chicanery, despises or pities those who succeed through deception rather than thinking they have been clever, is unsurprised, or pleased (as appropriate) when honesty triumphs, is shocked or distressed when those near and dear to her do what is dishonest and so on. Given that a virtue is such a multi-track disposition, it would obviously be reckless to attribute one to an agent on the basis of a single observed action or even a series of similar actions, especially if you don’t know the agent’s reasons for doing as she did (Sreenivasan 2002).

Possessing a virtue is a matter of degree. To possess such a disposition fully is to possess full or perfect virtue, which is rare, and there are a number of ways of falling short of this ideal (Athanassoulis 2000). Most people who can truly be described as fairly virtuous, and certainly markedly better than those who can truly be described as dishonest, self-centred and greedy, still have their blind spots—little areas where they do not act for the reasons one would expect. So someone honest or kind in most situations, and notably so in demanding ones, may nevertheless be trivially tainted by snobbery, inclined to be disingenuous about their forebears and less than kind to strangers with the wrong accent.

Further, it is not easy to get one’s emotions in harmony with one’s rational recognition of certain reasons for action. I may be honest enough to recognise that I must own up to a mistake because it would be dishonest not to do so without my acceptance being so wholehearted that I can own up easily, with no inner conflict. Following (and adapting) Aristotle, virtue ethicists draw a distinction between full or perfect virtue and “continence”, or strength of will. The fully virtuous do what they should without a struggle against contrary desires; the continent have to control a desire or temptation to do otherwise.

Describing the continent as “falling short” of perfect virtue appears to go against the intuition that there is something particularly admirable about people who manage to act well when it is especially hard for them to do so, but the plausibility of this depends on exactly what “makes it hard” (Foot 1978: 11–14). If it is the circumstances in which the agent acts—say that she is very poor when she sees someone drop a full purse or that she is in deep grief when someone visits seeking help—then indeed it is particularly admirable of her to restore the purse or give the help when it is hard for her to do so. But if what makes it hard is an imperfection in her character—the temptation to keep what is not hers, or a callous indifference to the suffering of others—then it is not.

Another way in which one can easily fall short of full virtue is through lacking phronesis —moral or practical wisdom.

The concept of a virtue is the concept of something that makes its possessor good: a virtuous person is a morally good, excellent or admirable person who acts and feels as she should. These are commonly accepted truisms. But it is equally common, in relation to particular (putative) examples of virtues to give these truisms up. We may say of someone that he is generous or honest “to a fault”. It is commonly asserted that someone’s compassion might lead them to act wrongly, to tell a lie they should not have told, for example, in their desire to prevent someone else’s hurt feelings. It is also said that courage, in a desperado, enables him to do far more wicked things than he would have been able to do if he were timid. So it would appear that generosity, honesty, compassion and courage despite being virtues, are sometimes faults. Someone who is generous, honest, compassionate, and courageous might not be a morally good person—or, if it is still held to be a truism that they are, then morally good people may be led by what makes them morally good to act wrongly! How have we arrived at such an odd conclusion?

The answer lies in too ready an acceptance of ordinary usage, which permits a fairly wide-ranging application of many of the virtue terms, combined, perhaps, with a modern readiness to suppose that the virtuous agent is motivated by emotion or inclination, not by rational choice. If one thinks of generosity or honesty as the disposition to be moved to action by generous or honest impulses such as the desire to give or to speak the truth, if one thinks of compassion as the disposition to be moved by the sufferings of others and to act on that emotion, if one thinks of courage as mere fearlessness or the willingness to face danger, then it will indeed seem obvious that these are all dispositions that can lead to their possessor’s acting wrongly. But it is also obvious, as soon as it is stated, that these are dispositions that can be possessed by children, and although children thus endowed (bar the “courageous” disposition) would undoubtedly be very nice children, we would not say that they were morally virtuous or admirable people. The ordinary usage, or the reliance on motivation by inclination, gives us what Aristotle calls “natural virtue”—a proto version of full virtue awaiting perfection by phronesis or practical wisdom.

Aristotle makes a number of specific remarks about phronesis that are the subject of much scholarly debate, but the (related) modern concept is best understood by thinking of what the virtuous morally mature adult has that nice children, including nice adolescents, lack. Both the virtuous adult and the nice child have good intentions, but the child is much more prone to mess things up because he is ignorant of what he needs to know in order to do what he intends. A virtuous adult is not, of course, infallible and may also, on occasion, fail to do what she intended to do through lack of knowledge, but only on those occasions on which the lack of knowledge is not culpable. So, for example, children and adolescents often harm those they intend to benefit either because they do not know how to set about securing the benefit or because their understanding of what is beneficial and harmful is limited and often mistaken. Such ignorance in small children is rarely, if ever culpable. Adults, on the other hand, are culpable if they mess things up by being thoughtless, insensitive, reckless, impulsive, shortsighted, and by assuming that what suits them will suit everyone instead of taking a more objective viewpoint. They are also culpable if their understanding of what is beneficial and harmful is mistaken. It is part of practical wisdom to know how to secure real benefits effectively; those who have practical wisdom will not make the mistake of concealing the hurtful truth from the person who really needs to know it in the belief that they are benefiting him.

Quite generally, given that good intentions are intentions to act well or “do the right thing”, we may say that practical wisdom is the knowledge or understanding that enables its possessor, unlike the nice adolescents, to do just that, in any given situation. The detailed specification of what is involved in such knowledge or understanding has not yet appeared in the literature, but some aspects of it are becoming well known. Even many deontologists now stress the point that their action-guiding rules cannot, reliably, be applied without practical wisdom, because correct application requires situational appreciation—the capacity to recognise, in any particular situation, those features of it that are morally salient. This brings out two aspects of practical wisdom.

One is that it characteristically comes only with experience of life. Amongst the morally relevant features of a situation may be the likely consequences, for the people involved, of a certain action, and this is something that adolescents are notoriously clueless about precisely because they are inexperienced. It is part of practical wisdom to be wise about human beings and human life. (It should go without saying that the virtuous are mindful of the consequences of possible actions. How could they fail to be reckless, thoughtless and short-sighted if they were not?)

The second is the practically wise agent’s capacity to recognise some features of a situation as more important than others, or indeed, in that situation, as the only relevant ones. The wise do not see things in the same way as the nice adolescents who, with their under-developed virtues, still tend to see the personally disadvantageous nature of a certain action as competing in importance with its honesty or benevolence or justice.

These aspects coalesce in the description of the practically wise as those who understand what is truly worthwhile, truly important, and thereby truly advantageous in life, who know, in short, how to live well.

2. Forms of Virtue Ethics

While all forms of virtue ethics agree that virtue is central and practical wisdom required, they differ in how they combine these and other concepts to illuminate what we should do in particular contexts and how we should live our lives as a whole. In what follows we sketch four distinct forms taken by contemporary virtue ethics, namely, a) eudaimonist virtue ethics, b) agent-based and exemplarist virtue ethics, c) target-centered virtue ethics, and d) Platonistic virtue ethics.

The distinctive feature of eudaimonist versions of virtue ethics is that they define virtues in terms of their relationship to eudaimonia . A virtue is a trait that contributes to or is a constituent of eudaimonia and we ought to develop virtues, the eudaimonist claims, precisely because they contribute to eudaimonia .

The concept of eudaimonia , a key term in ancient Greek moral philosophy, is standardly translated as “happiness” or “flourishing” and occasionally as “well-being.” Each translation has its disadvantages. The trouble with “flourishing” is that animals and even plants can flourish but eudaimonia is possible only for rational beings. The trouble with “happiness” is that in ordinary conversation it connotes something subjectively determined. It is for me, not for you, to pronounce on whether I am happy. If I think I am happy then I am—it is not something I can be wrong about (barring advanced cases of self-deception). Contrast my being healthy or flourishing. Here we have no difficulty in recognizing that I might think I was healthy, either physically or psychologically, or think that I was flourishing but be wrong. In this respect, “flourishing” is a better translation than “happiness”. It is all too easy to be mistaken about whether one’s life is eudaimon (the adjective from eudaimonia ) not simply because it is easy to deceive oneself, but because it is easy to have a mistaken conception of eudaimonia , or of what it is to live well as a human being, believing it to consist largely in physical pleasure or luxury for example.

Eudaimonia is, avowedly, a moralized or value-laden concept of happiness, something like “true” or “real” happiness or “the sort of happiness worth seeking or having.” It is thereby the sort of concept about which there can be substantial disagreement between people with different views about human life that cannot be resolved by appeal to some external standard on which, despite their different views, the parties to the disagreement concur (Hursthouse 1999: 188–189).

Most versions of virtue ethics agree that living a life in accordance with virtue is necessary for eudaimonia. This supreme good is not conceived of as an independently defined state (made up of, say, a list of non-moral goods that does not include virtuous activity) which exercise of the virtues might be thought to promote. It is, within virtue ethics, already conceived of as something of which virtuous activity is at least partially constitutive (Kraut 1989). Thereby virtue ethicists claim that a human life devoted to physical pleasure or the acquisition of wealth is not eudaimon , but a wasted life.

But although all standard versions of virtue ethics insist on that conceptual link between virtue and eudaimonia , further links are matters of dispute and generate different versions. For Aristotle, virtue is necessary but not sufficient—what is also needed are external goods which are a matter of luck. For Plato and the Stoics, virtue is both necessary and sufficient for eudaimonia (Annas 1993).

According to eudaimonist virtue ethics, the good life is the eudaimon life, and the virtues are what enable a human being to be eudaimon because the virtues just are those character traits that benefit their possessor in that way, barring bad luck. So there is a link between eudaimonia and what confers virtue status on a character trait. (For a discussion of the differences between eudaimonists see Baril 2014. For recent defenses of eudaimonism see Annas 2011; LeBar 2013b; Badhwar 2014; and Bloomfield 2014.)

Rather than deriving the normativity of virtue from the value of eudaimonia , agent-based virtue ethicists argue that other forms of normativity—including the value of eudaimonia —are traced back to and ultimately explained in terms of the motivational and dispositional qualities of agents.

It is unclear how many other forms of normativity must be explained in terms of the qualities of agents in order for a theory to count as agent-based. The two best-known agent-based theorists, Michael Slote and Linda Zagzebski, trace a wide range of normative qualities back to the qualities of agents. For example, Slote defines rightness and wrongness in terms of agents’ motivations: “[A]gent-based virtue ethics … understands rightness in terms of good motivations and wrongness in terms of the having of bad (or insufficiently good) motives” (2001: 14). Similarly, he explains the goodness of an action, the value of eudaimonia , the justice of a law or social institution, and the normativity of practical rationality in terms of the motivational and dispositional qualities of agents (2001: 99–100, 154, 2000). Zagzebski likewise defines right and wrong actions by reference to the emotions, motives, and dispositions of virtuous and vicious agents. For example, “A wrong act = an act that the phronimos characteristically would not do, and he would feel guilty if he did = an act such that it is not the case that he might do it = an act that expresses a vice = an act that is against a requirement of virtue (the virtuous self)” (Zagzebski 2004: 160). Her definitions of duties, good and bad ends, and good and bad states of affairs are similarly grounded in the motivational and dispositional states of exemplary agents (1998, 2004, 2010).

However, there could also be less ambitious agent-based approaches to virtue ethics (see Slote 1997). At the very least, an agent-based approach must be committed to explaining what one should do by reference to the motivational and dispositional states of agents. But this is not yet a sufficient condition for counting as an agent-based approach, since the same condition will be met by every virtue ethical account. For a theory to count as an agent-based form of virtue ethics it must also be the case that the normative properties of motivations and dispositions cannot be explained in terms of the normative properties of something else (such as eudaimonia or states of affairs) which is taken to be more fundamental.

Beyond this basic commitment, there is room for agent-based theories to be developed in a number of different directions. The most important distinguishing factor has to do with how motivations and dispositions are taken to matter for the purposes of explaining other normative qualities. For Slote what matters are this particular agent’s actual motives and dispositions . The goodness of action A, for example, is derived from the agent’s motives when she performs A. If those motives are good then the action is good, if not then not. On Zagzebski’s account, by contrast, a good or bad, right or wrong action is defined not by this agent’s actual motives but rather by whether this is the sort of action a virtuously motivated agent would perform (Zagzebski 2004: 160). Appeal to the virtuous agent’s hypothetical motives and dispositions enables Zagzebski to distinguish between performing the right action and doing so for the right reasons (a distinction that, as Brady (2004) observes, Slote has trouble drawing).

Another point on which agent-based forms of virtue ethics might differ concerns how one identifies virtuous motivations and dispositions. According to Zagzebski’s exemplarist account, “We do not have criteria for goodness in advance of identifying the exemplars of goodness” (Zagzebski 2004: 41). As we observe the people around us, we find ourselves wanting to be like some of them (in at least some respects) and not wanting to be like others. The former provide us with positive exemplars and the latter with negative ones. Our understanding of better and worse motivations and virtuous and vicious dispositions is grounded in these primitive responses to exemplars (2004: 53). This is not to say that every time we act we stop and ask ourselves what one of our exemplars would do in this situations. Our moral concepts become more refined over time as we encounter a wider variety of exemplars and begin to draw systematic connections between them, noting what they have in common, how they differ, and which of these commonalities and differences matter, morally speaking. Recognizable motivational profiles emerge and come to be labeled as virtues or vices, and these, in turn, shape our understanding of the obligations we have and the ends we should pursue. However, even though the systematising of moral thought can travel a long way from our starting point, according to the exemplarist it never reaches a stage where reference to exemplars is replaced by the recognition of something more fundamental. At the end of the day, according to the exemplarist, our moral system still rests on our basic propensity to take a liking (or disliking) to exemplars. Nevertheless, one could be an agent-based theorist without advancing the exemplarist’s account of the origins or reference conditions for judgments of good and bad, virtuous and vicious.

The touchstone for eudaimonist virtue ethicists is a flourishing human life. For agent-based virtue ethicists it is an exemplary agent’s motivations. The target-centered view developed by Christine Swanton (2003), by contrast, begins with our existing conceptions of the virtues. We already have a passable idea of which traits are virtues and what they involve. Of course, this untutored understanding can be clarified and improved, and it is one of the tasks of the virtue ethicist to help us do precisely that. But rather than stripping things back to something as basic as the motivations we want to imitate or building it up to something as elaborate as an entire flourishing life, the target-centered view begins where most ethics students find themselves, namely, with the idea that generosity, courage, self-discipline, compassion, and the like get a tick of approval. It then examines what these traits involve.

A complete account of virtue will map out 1) its field , 2) its mode of responsiveness, 3) its basis of moral acknowledgment, and 4) its target . Different virtues are concerned with different fields . Courage, for example, is concerned with what might harm us, whereas generosity is concerned with the sharing of time, talent, and property. The basis of acknowledgment of a virtue is the feature within the virtue’s field to which it responds. To continue with our previous examples, generosity is attentive to the benefits that others might enjoy through one’s agency, and courage responds to threats to value, status, or the bonds that exist between oneself and particular others, and the fear such threats might generate. A virtue’s mode has to do with how it responds to the bases of acknowledgment within its field. Generosity promotes a good, namely, another’s benefit, whereas courage defends a value, bond, or status. Finally, a virtue’s target is that at which it is aimed. Courage aims to control fear and handle danger, while generosity aims to share time, talents, or possessions with others in ways that benefit them.

A virtue , on a target-centered account, “is a disposition to respond to, or acknowledge, items within its field or fields in an excellent or good enough way” (Swanton 2003: 19). A virtuous act is an act that hits the target of a virtue, which is to say that it succeeds in responding to items in its field in the specified way (233). Providing a target-centered definition of a right action requires us to move beyond the analysis of a single virtue and the actions that follow from it. This is because a single action context may involve a number of different, overlapping fields. Determination might lead me to persist in trying to complete a difficult task even if doing so requires a singleness of purpose. But love for my family might make a different use of my time and attention. In order to define right action a target-centered view must explain how we handle different virtues’ conflicting claims on our resources. There are at least three different ways to address this challenge. A perfectionist target-centered account would stipulate, “An act is right if and only if it is overall virtuous, and that entails that it is the, or a, best action possible in the circumstances” (239–240). A more permissive target-centered account would not identify ‘right’ with ‘best’, but would allow an action to count as right provided “it is good enough even if not the (or a) best action” (240). A minimalist target-centered account would not even require an action to be good in order to be right. On such a view, “An act is right if and only if it is not overall vicious” (240). (For further discussion of target-centered virtue ethics see Van Zyl 2014; and Smith 2016).

The fourth form a virtue ethic might adopt takes its inspiration from Plato. The Socrates of Plato’s dialogues devotes a great deal of time to asking his fellow Athenians to explain the nature of virtues like justice, courage, piety, and wisdom. So it is clear that Plato counts as a virtue theorist. But it is a matter of some debate whether he should be read as a virtue ethicist (White 2015). What is not open to debate is whether Plato has had an important influence on the contemporary revival of interest in virtue ethics. A number of those who have contributed to the revival have done so as Plato scholars (e.g., Prior 1991; Kamtekar 1998; Annas 1999; and Reshotko 2006). However, often they have ended up championing a eudaimonist version of virtue ethics (see Prior 2001 and Annas 2011), rather than a version that would warrant a separate classification. Nevertheless, there are two variants that call for distinct treatment.

Timothy Chappell takes the defining feature of Platonistic virtue ethics to be that “Good agency in the truest and fullest sense presupposes the contemplation of the Form of the Good” (2014). Chappell follows Iris Murdoch in arguing that “In the moral life the enemy is the fat relentless ego” (Murdoch 1971: 51). Constantly attending to our needs, our desires, our passions, and our thoughts skews our perspective on what the world is actually like and blinds us to the goods around us. Contemplating the goodness of something we encounter—which is to say, carefully attending to it “for its own sake, in order to understand it” (Chappell 2014: 300)—breaks this natural tendency by drawing our attention away from ourselves. Contemplating such goodness with regularity makes room for new habits of thought that focus more readily and more honestly on things other than the self. It alters the quality of our consciousness. And “anything which alters consciousness in the direction of unselfishness, objectivity, and realism is to be connected with virtue” (Murdoch 1971: 82). The virtues get defined, then, in terms of qualities that help one “pierce the veil of selfish consciousness and join the world as it really is” (91). And good agency is defined by the possession and exercise of such virtues. Within Chappell’s and Murdoch’s framework, then, not all normative properties get defined in terms of virtue. Goodness, in particular, is not so defined. But the kind of goodness which is possible for creatures like us is defined by virtue, and any answer to the question of what one should do or how one should live will appeal to the virtues.

Another Platonistic variant of virtue ethics is exemplified by Robert Merrihew Adams. Unlike Murdoch and Chappell, his starting point is not a set of claims about our consciousness of goodness. Rather, he begins with an account of the metaphysics of goodness. Like Murdoch and others influenced by Platonism, Adams’s account of goodness is built around a conception of a supremely perfect good. And like Augustine, Adams takes that perfect good to be God. God is both the exemplification and the source of all goodness. Other things are good, he suggests, to the extent that they resemble God (Adams 1999).

The resemblance requirement identifies a necessary condition for being good, but it does not yet give us a sufficient condition. This is because there are ways in which finite creatures might resemble God that would not be suitable to the type of creature they are. For example, if God were all-knowing, then the belief, “I am all-knowing,” would be a suitable belief for God to have. In God, such a belief—because true—would be part of God’s perfection. However, as neither you nor I are all-knowing, the belief, “I am all-knowing,” in one of us would not be good. To rule out such cases we need to introduce another factor. That factor is the fitting response to goodness, which Adams suggests is love. Adams uses love to weed out problematic resemblances: “being excellent in the way that a finite thing can be consists in resembling God in a way that could serve God as a reason for loving the thing” (Adams 1999: 36).

Virtues come into the account as one of the ways in which some things (namely, persons) could resemble God. “[M]ost of the excellences that are most important to us, and of whose value we are most confident, are excellences of persons or of qualities or actions or works or lives or stories of persons” (1999: 42). This is one of the reasons Adams offers for conceiving of the ideal of perfection as a personal God, rather than an impersonal form of the Good. Many of the excellences of persons of which we are most confident are virtues such as love, wisdom, justice, patience, and generosity. And within many theistic traditions, including Adams’s own Christian tradition, such virtues are commonly attributed to divine agents.

A Platonistic account like the one Adams puts forward in Finite and Infinite Goods clearly does not derive all other normative properties from the virtues (for a discussion of the relationship between this view and the one he puts forward in A Theory of Virtue (2006) see Pettigrove 2014). Goodness provides the normative foundation. Virtues are not built on that foundation; rather, as one of the varieties of goodness of whose value we are most confident, virtues form part of the foundation. Obligations, by contrast, come into the account at a different level. Moral obligations, Adams argues, are determined by the expectations and demands that “arise in a relationship or system of relationships that is good or valuable” (1999: 244). Other things being equal, the more virtuous the parties to the relationship, the more binding the obligation. Thus, within Adams’s account, the good (which includes virtue) is prior to the right. However, once good relationships have given rise to obligations, those obligations take on a life of their own. Their bindingness is not traced directly to considerations of goodness. Rather, they are determined by the expectations of the parties and the demands of the relationship.

A number of objections have been raised against virtue ethics, some of which bear more directly on one form of virtue ethics than on others. In this section we consider eight objections, namely, the a) application, b) adequacy, c) relativism, d) conflict, e) self-effacement, f) justification, g) egoism, and h) situationist problems.

a) In the early days of virtue ethics’ revival, the approach was associated with an “anti-codifiability” thesis about ethics, directed against the prevailing pretensions of normative theory. At the time, utilitarians and deontologists commonly (though not universally) held that the task of ethical theory was to come up with a code consisting of universal rules or principles (possibly only one, as in the case of act-utilitarianism) which would have two significant features: i) the rule(s) would amount to a decision procedure for determining what the right action was in any particular case; ii) the rule(s) would be stated in such terms that any non-virtuous person could understand and apply it (them) correctly.

Virtue ethicists maintained, contrary to these two claims, that it was quite unrealistic to imagine that there could be such a code (see, in particular, McDowell 1979). The results of attempts to produce and employ such a code, in the heady days of the 1960s and 1970s, when medical and then bioethics boomed and bloomed, tended to support the virtue ethicists’ claim. More and more utilitarians and deontologists found themselves agreed on their general rules but on opposite sides of the controversial moral issues in contemporary discussion. It came to be recognised that moral sensitivity, perception, imagination, and judgement informed by experience— phronesis in short—is needed to apply rules or principles correctly. Hence many (though by no means all) utilitarians and deontologists have explicitly abandoned (ii) and much less emphasis is placed on (i).

Nevertheless, the complaint that virtue ethics does not produce codifiable principles is still a commonly voiced criticism of the approach, expressed as the objection that it is, in principle, unable to provide action-guidance.

Initially, the objection was based on a misunderstanding. Blinkered by slogans that described virtue ethics as “concerned with Being rather than Doing,” as addressing “What sort of person should I be?” but not “What should I do?” as being “agent-centered rather than act-centered,” its critics maintained that it was unable to provide action-guidance. Hence, rather than being a normative rival to utilitarian and deontological ethics, it could claim to be no more than a valuable supplement to them. The rather odd idea was that all virtue ethics could offer was, “Identify a moral exemplar and do what he would do,” as though the university student trying to decide whether to study music (her preference) or engineering (her parents’ preference) was supposed to ask herself, “What would Socrates study if he were in my circumstances?”

But the objection failed to take note of Anscombe’s hint that a great deal of specific action guidance could be found in rules employing the virtue and vice terms (“v-rules”) such as “Do what is honest/charitable; do not do what is dishonest/uncharitable” (Hursthouse 1999). (It is a noteworthy feature of our virtue and vice vocabulary that, although our list of generally recognised virtue terms is comparatively short, our list of vice terms is remarkably, and usefully, long, far exceeding anything that anyone who thinks in terms of standard deontological rules has ever come up with. Much invaluable action guidance comes from avoiding courses of action that would be irresponsible, feckless, lazy, inconsiderate, uncooperative, harsh, intolerant, selfish, mercenary, indiscreet, tactless, arrogant, unsympathetic, cold, incautious, unenterprising, pusillanimous, feeble, presumptuous, rude, hypocritical, self-indulgent, materialistic, grasping, short-sighted, vindictive, calculating, ungrateful, grudging, brutal, profligate, disloyal, and on and on.)

(b) A closely related objection has to do with whether virtue ethics can provide an adequate account of right action. This worry can take two forms. (i) One might think a virtue ethical account of right action is extensionally inadequate. It is possible to perform a right action without being virtuous and a virtuous person can occasionally perform the wrong action without that calling her virtue into question. If virtue is neither necessary nor sufficient for right action, one might wonder whether the relationship between rightness/wrongness and virtue/vice is close enough for the former to be identified in terms of the latter. (ii) Alternatively, even if one thought it possible to produce a virtue ethical account that picked out all (and only) right actions, one might still think that at least in some cases virtue is not what explains rightness (Adams 2006:6–8).

Some virtue ethicists respond to the adequacy objection by rejecting the assumption that virtue ethics ought to be in the business of providing an account of right action in the first place. Following in the footsteps of Anscombe (1958) and MacIntyre (1985), Talbot Brewer (2009) argues that to work with the categories of rightness and wrongness is already to get off on the wrong foot. Contemporary conceptions of right and wrong action, built as they are around a notion of moral duty that presupposes a framework of divine (or moral) law or around a conception of obligation that is defined in contrast to self-interest, carry baggage the virtue ethicist is better off without. Virtue ethics can address the questions of how one should live, what kind of person one should become, and even what one should do without that committing it to providing an account of ‘right action’. One might choose, instead, to work with aretaic concepts (defined in terms of virtues and vices) and axiological concepts (defined in terms of good and bad, better and worse) and leave out deontic notions (like right/wrong action, duty, and obligation) altogether.

Other virtue ethicists wish to retain the concept of right action but note that in the current philosophical discussion a number of distinct qualities march under that banner. In some contexts, ‘right action’ identifies the best action an agent might perform in the circumstances. In others, it designates an action that is commendable (even if not the best possible). In still others, it picks out actions that are not blameworthy (even if not commendable). A virtue ethicist might choose to define one of these—for example, the best action—in terms of virtues and vices, but appeal to other normative concepts—such as legitimate expectations—when defining other conceptions of right action.

As we observed in section 2, a virtue ethical account need not attempt to reduce all other normative concepts to virtues and vices. What is required is simply (i) that virtue is not reduced to some other normative concept that is taken to be more fundamental and (ii) that some other normative concepts are explained in terms of virtue and vice. This takes the sting out of the adequacy objection, which is most compelling against versions of virtue ethics that attempt to define all of the senses of ‘right action’ in terms of virtues. Appealing to virtues and vices makes it much easier to achieve extensional adequacy. Making room for normative concepts that are not taken to be reducible to virtue and vice concepts makes it even easier to generate a theory that is both extensionally and explanatorily adequate. Whether one needs other concepts and, if so, how many, is still a matter of debate among virtue ethicists, as is the question of whether virtue ethics even ought to be offering an account of right action. Either way virtue ethicists have resources available to them to address the adequacy objection.

Insofar as the different versions of virtue ethics all retain an emphasis on the virtues, they are open to the familiar problem of (c) the charge of cultural relativity. Is it not the case that different cultures embody different virtues, (MacIntyre 1985) and hence that the v-rules will pick out actions as right or wrong only relative to a particular culture? Different replies have been made to this charge. One—the tu quoque , or “partners in crime” response—exhibits a quite familiar pattern in virtue ethicists’ defensive strategy (Solomon 1988). They admit that, for them, cultural relativism is a challenge, but point out that it is just as much a problem for the other two approaches. The (putative) cultural variation in character traits regarded as virtues is no greater—indeed markedly less—than the cultural variation in rules of conduct, and different cultures have different ideas about what constitutes happiness or welfare. That cultural relativity should be a problem common to all three approaches is hardly surprising. It is related, after all, to the “justification problem” ( see below ) the quite general metaethical problem of justifying one’s moral beliefs to those who disagree, whether they be moral sceptics, pluralists or from another culture.

A bolder strategy involves claiming that virtue ethics has less difficulty with cultural relativity than the other two approaches. Much cultural disagreement arises, it may be claimed, from local understandings of the virtues, but the virtues themselves are not relative to culture (Nussbaum 1993).

Another objection to which the tu quoque response is partially appropriate is (d) “the conflict problem.” What does virtue ethics have to say about dilemmas—cases in which, apparently, the requirements of different virtues conflict because they point in opposed directions? Charity prompts me to kill the person who would be better off dead, but justice forbids it. Honesty points to telling the hurtful truth, kindness and compassion to remaining silent or even lying. What shall I do? Of course, the same sorts of dilemmas are generated by conflicts between deontological rules. Deontology and virtue ethics share the conflict problem (and are happy to take it on board rather than follow some of the utilitarians in their consequentialist resolutions of such dilemmas) and in fact their strategies for responding to it are parallel. Both aim to resolve a number of dilemmas by arguing that the conflict is merely apparent; a discriminating understanding of the virtues or rules in question, possessed only by those with practical wisdom, will perceive that, in this particular case, the virtues do not make opposing demands or that one rule outranks another, or has a certain exception clause built into it. Whether this is all there is to it depends on whether there are any irresolvable dilemmas. If there are, proponents of either normative approach may point out reasonably that it could only be a mistake to offer a resolution of what is, ex hypothesi , irresolvable.

Another problem arguably shared by all three approaches is (e), that of being self-effacing. An ethical theory is self-effacing if, roughly, whatever it claims justifies a particular action, or makes it right, had better not be the agent’s motive for doing it. Michael Stocker (1976) originally introduced it as a problem for deontology and consequentialism. He pointed out that the agent who, rightly, visits a friend in hospital will rather lessen the impact of his visit on her if he tells her either that he is doing it because it is his duty or because he thought it would maximize the general happiness. But as Simon Keller observes, she won’t be any better pleased if he tells her that he is visiting her because it is what a virtuous agent would do, so virtue ethics would appear to have the problem too (Keller 2007). However, virtue ethics’ defenders have argued that not all forms of virtue ethics are subject to this objection (Pettigrove 2011) and those that are are not seriously undermined by the problem (Martinez 2011).

Another problem for virtue ethics, which is shared by both utilitarianism and deontology, is (f) “the justification problem.” Abstractly conceived, this is the problem of how we justify or ground our ethical beliefs, an issue that is hotly debated at the level of metaethics. In its particular versions, for deontology there is the question of how to justify its claims that certain moral rules are the correct ones, and for utilitarianism of how to justify its claim that all that really matters morally are consequences for happiness or well-being. For virtue ethics, the problem concerns the question of which character traits are the virtues.

In the metaethical debate, there is widespread disagreement about the possibility of providing an external foundation for ethics—“external” in the sense of being external to ethical beliefs—and the same disagreement is found amongst deontologists and utilitarians. Some believe that their normative ethics can be placed on a secure basis, resistant to any form of scepticism, such as what anyone rationally desires, or would accept or agree on, regardless of their ethical outlook; others that it cannot.

Virtue ethicists have eschewed any attempt to ground virtue ethics in an external foundation while continuing to maintain that their claims can be validated. Some follow a form of Rawls’s coherentist approach (Slote 2001; Swanton 2003); neo-Aristotelians a form of ethical naturalism.

A misunderstanding of eudaimonia as an unmoralized concept leads some critics to suppose that the neo-Aristotelians are attempting to ground their claims in a scientific account of human nature and what counts, for a human being, as flourishing. Others assume that, if this is not what they are doing, they cannot be validating their claims that, for example, justice, charity, courage, and generosity are virtues. Either they are illegitimately helping themselves to Aristotle’s discredited natural teleology (Williams 1985) or producing mere rationalizations of their own personal or culturally inculcated values. But McDowell, Foot, MacIntyre and Hursthouse have all outlined versions of a third way between these two extremes. Eudaimonia in virtue ethics, is indeed a moralized concept, but it is not only that. Claims about what constitutes flourishing for human beings no more float free of scientific facts about what human beings are like than ethological claims about what constitutes flourishing for elephants. In both cases, the truth of the claims depends in part on what kind of animal they are and what capacities, desires and interests the humans or elephants have.

The best available science today (including evolutionary theory and psychology) supports rather than undermines the ancient Greek assumption that we are social animals, like elephants and wolves and unlike polar bears. No rationalizing explanation in terms of anything like a social contract is needed to explain why we choose to live together, subjugating our egoistic desires in order to secure the advantages of co-operation. Like other social animals, our natural impulses are not solely directed towards our own pleasures and preservation, but include altruistic and cooperative ones.

This basic fact about us should make more comprehensible the claim that the virtues are at least partially constitutive of human flourishing and also undercut the objection that virtue ethics is, in some sense, egoistic.

(g) The egoism objection has a number of sources. One is a simple confusion. Once it is understood that the fully virtuous agent characteristically does what she should without inner conflict, it is triumphantly asserted that “she is only doing what she wants to do and hence is being selfish.” So when the generous person gives gladly, as the generous are wont to do, it turns out she is not generous and unselfish after all, or at least not as generous as the one who greedily wants to hang on to everything she has but forces herself to give because she thinks she should! A related version ascribes bizarre reasons to the virtuous agent, unjustifiably assuming that she acts as she does because she believes that acting thus on this occasion will help her to achieve eudaimonia. But “the virtuous agent” is just “the agent with the virtues” and it is part of our ordinary understanding of the virtue terms that each carries with it its own typical range of reasons for acting. The virtuous agent acts as she does because she believes that someone’s suffering will be averted, or someone benefited, or the truth established, or a debt repaid, or … thereby.

It is the exercise of the virtues during one’s life that is held to be at least partially constitutive of eudaimonia , and this is consistent with recognising that bad luck may land the virtuous agent in circumstances that require her to give up her life. Given the sorts of considerations that courageous, honest, loyal, charitable people wholeheartedly recognise as reasons for action, they may find themselves compelled to face danger for a worthwhile end, to speak out in someone’s defence, or refuse to reveal the names of their comrades, even when they know that this will inevitably lead to their execution, to share their last crust and face starvation. On the view that the exercise of the virtues is necessary but not sufficient for eudaimonia , such cases are described as those in which the virtuous agent sees that, as things have unfortunately turned out, eudaimonia is not possible for them (Foot 2001, 95). On the Stoical view that it is both necessary and sufficient, a eudaimon life is a life that has been successfully lived (where “success” of course is not to be understood in a materialistic way) and such people die knowing not only that they have made a success of their lives but that they have also brought their lives to a markedly successful completion. Either way, such heroic acts can hardly be regarded as egoistic.

A lingering suggestion of egoism may be found in the misconceived distinction between so-called “self-regarding” and “other-regarding” virtues. Those who have been insulated from the ancient tradition tend to regard justice and benevolence as real virtues, which benefit others but not their possessor, and prudence, fortitude and providence (the virtue whose opposite is “improvidence” or being a spendthrift) as not real virtues at all because they benefit only their possessor. This is a mistake on two counts. Firstly, justice and benevolence do, in general, benefit their possessors, since without them eudaimonia is not possible. Secondly, given that we live together, as social animals, the “self-regarding” virtues do benefit others—those who lack them are a great drain on, and sometimes grief to, those who are close to them (as parents with improvident or imprudent adult offspring know only too well).

The most recent objection (h) to virtue ethics claims that work in “situationist” social psychology shows that there are no such things as character traits and thereby no such things as virtues for virtue ethics to be about (Doris 1998; Harman 1999). In reply, some virtue ethicists have argued that the social psychologists’ studies are irrelevant to the multi-track disposition (see above) that a virtue is supposed to be (Sreenivasan 2002; Kamtekar 2004). Mindful of just how multi-track it is, they agree that it would be reckless in the extreme to ascribe a demanding virtue such as charity to people of whom they know no more than that they have exhibited conventional decency; this would indeed be “a fundamental attribution error.” Others have worked to develop alternative, empirically grounded conceptions of character traits (Snow 2010; Miller 2013 and 2014; however see Upton 2016 for objections to Miller). There have been other responses as well (summarized helpfully in Prinz 2009 and Miller 2014). Notable among these is a response by Adams (2006, echoing Merritt 2000) who steers a middle road between “no character traits at all” and the exacting standard of the Aristotelian conception of virtue which, because of its emphasis on phronesis, requires a high level of character integration. On his conception, character traits may be “frail and fragmentary” but still virtues, and not uncommon. But giving up the idea that practical wisdom is the heart of all the virtues, as Adams has to do, is a substantial sacrifice, as Russell (2009) and Kamtekar (2010) argue.

Even though the “situationist challenge” has left traditional virtue ethicists unmoved, it has generated a healthy engagement with empirical psychological literature, which has also been fuelled by the growing literature on Foot’s Natural Goodness and, quite independently, an upsurge of interest in character education (see below).

Over the past thirty-five years most of those contributing to the revival of virtue ethics have worked within a neo-Aristotelian, eudaimonist framework. However, as noted in section 2, other forms of virtue ethics have begun to emerge. Theorists have begun to turn to philosophers like Hutcheson, Hume, Nietzsche, Martineau, and Heidegger for resources they might use to develop alternatives (see Russell 2006; Swanton 2013 and 2015; Taylor 2015; and Harcourt 2015). Others have turned their attention eastward, exploring Confucian, Buddhist, and Hindu traditions (Yu 2007; Slingerland 2011; Finnigan and Tanaka 2011; McRae 2012; Angle and Slote 2013; Davis 2014; Flanagan 2015; Perrett and Pettigrove 2015; and Sim 2015). These explorations promise to open up new avenues for the development of virtue ethics.

Although virtue ethics has grown remarkably in the last thirty-five years, it is still very much in the minority, particularly in the area of applied ethics. Many editors of big textbook collections on “moral problems” or “applied ethics” now try to include articles representative of each of the three normative approaches but are often unable to find a virtue ethics article addressing a particular issue. This is sometimes, no doubt, because “the” issue has been set up as a deontologicial/utilitarian debate, but it is often simply because no virtue ethicist has yet written on the topic. However, the last decade has seen an increase in the amount of attention applied virtue ethics has received (Walker and Ivanhoe 2007; Hartman 2013; Austin 2014; Van Hooft 2014; and Annas 2015). This area can certainly be expected to grow in the future, and it looks as though applying virtue ethics in the field of environmental ethics may prove particularly fruitful (Sandler 2007; Hursthouse 2007, 2011; Zwolinski and Schmidtz 2013; Cafaro 2015).

Whether virtue ethics can be expected to grow into “virtue politics”—i.e. to extend from moral philosophy into political philosophy—is not so clear. Gisela Striker (2006) has argued that Aristotle’s ethics cannot be understood adequately without attending to its place in his politics. That suggests that at least those virtue ethicists who take their inspiration from Aristotle should have resources to offer for the development of virtue politics. But, while Plato and Aristotle can be great inspirations as far as virtue ethics is concerned, neither, on the face of it, are attractive sources of insight where politics is concerned. However, recent work suggests that Aristotelian ideas can, after all, generate a satisfyingly liberal political philosophy (Nussbaum 2006; LeBar 2013a). Moreover, as noted above, virtue ethics does not have to be neo-Aristotelian. It may be that the virtue ethics of Hutcheson and Hume can be naturally extended into a modern political philosophy (Hursthouse 1990–91; Slote 1993).

Following Plato and Aristotle, modern virtue ethics has always emphasised the importance of moral education, not as the inculcation of rules but as the training of character. There is now a growing movement towards virtues education, amongst both academics (Carr 1999; Athanassoulis 2014; Curren 2015) and teachers in the classroom. One exciting thing about research in this area is its engagement with other academic disciplines, including psychology, educational theory, and theology (see Cline 2015; and Snow 2015).

Finally, one of the more productive developments of virtue ethics has come through the study of particular virtues and vices. There are now a number of careful studies of the cardinal virtues and capital vices (Pieper 1966; Taylor 2006; Curzer 2012; Timpe and Boyd 2014). Others have explored less widely discussed virtues or vices, such as civility, decency, truthfulness, ambition, and meekness (Calhoun 2000; Kekes 2002; Williams 2002; and Pettigrove 2007 and 2012). One of the questions these studies raise is “How many virtues are there?” A second is, “How are these virtues related to one another?” Some virtue ethicists have been happy to work on the assumption that there is no principled reason for limiting the number of virtues and plenty of reason for positing a plurality of them (Swanton 2003; Battaly 2015). Others have been concerned that such an open-handed approach to the virtues will make it difficult for virtue ethicists to come up with an adequate account of right action or deal with the conflict problem discussed above. Dan Russell has proposed cardinality and a version of the unity thesis as a solution to what he calls “the enumeration problem” (the problem of too many virtues). The apparent proliferation of virtues can be significantly reduced if we group virtues together with some being cardinal and others subordinate extensions of those cardinal virtues. Possible conflicts between the remaining virtues can then be managed if they are tied together in some way as part of a unified whole (Russell 2009). This highlights two important avenues for future research, one of which explores individual virtues and the other of which analyses how they might be related to one another.

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• Yu, Jiyuan, 2007, The Ethics of Confucius and Aristotle: Mirrors of Virtue , New York: Routledge.
• Zagzebski, Linda, 1996, Virtues of the Mind , New York: Cambridge University Press.
• –––, 1998, “The Virtues of God and the Foundations of Ethics,” Faith and Philosophy , 15 (4): 538–553.
• –––, 2004, Divine Motivation Theory , New York: Cambridge University Press.
• –––, 2017, Exemplarist Moral Theory , New York: Oxford University Press.
• Zwolinski, Matt and David Schmidtz, 2013, “Environmental Virtue Ethics,” in Russell (2013), pp. 221–239.

How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

• Bibliography on Virtue Ethics (in PDF, listed alphabetically), and Bibliography on Virtue Ethics (in PDF, listed chronologically), by Jörg Schroth.

Aristotle | character, moral | character, moral: empirical approaches | consequentialism | ethics: deontological | moral dilemmas

Acknowledgments

Parts of the introductory material above repeat what was said in the Introduction and first chapter of On Virtue Ethics (Hursthouse 1999).

Copyright © 2022 by Rosalind Hursthouse Glen Pettigrove < glen . pettigrove @ glasgow . ac . uk >

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9.4 Virtue Ethics

Learning objectives.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Identify the central principles of virtue ethics.
• Distinguish the major features of Confucianism.
• Evaluate Aristotle’s moral theory.

Virtue ethics takes a character-centered approach to morality. Whereas Mohists and utilitarians look to consequences to determine the rightness of an action and deontologists maintain that a right action is the one that conforms to moral rules and norms, virtue ethicists argue that right action flows from good character traits or dispositions. We become a good person, then, through the cultivation of character, self-reflection, and self-perfection.

There is often a connection between the virtuous life and the good life in virtue ethics because of its emphasis on character and self-cultivation. Through virtuous development, we realize and perfect ourselves, laying the foundation for a good life. In Justice as a Virtue , for example, Mark LeBar (2020) notes that “on the Greek eudaimonist views (including here Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and Epicurus) our reasons for action arise from our interest in [ eudaimonia , or] a happy life.” The ancient Greeks thought the aim of life was eudaimonia . Though eudaimonia is often translated as “happiness,” it means something closer to “a flourishing life.” Confucianism , with its strong emphasis on repairing the fractured social world, connects the promotion of virtuous development and social order. Confucians believe virtuous action is informed by social roles and relationships, such that promoting virtuous development also promotes social order.

Confucianism

As discussed earlier, the Warring States period in ancient China (ca. 475–221 BCE) was a period marked by warfare, social unrest, and suffering. Warfare during this period was common because China was comprised of small states that were not politically unified. New philosophical approaches were developed to promote social harmony, peace, and a better life. This period in China’s history is also sometimes referred to as the era of the “Hundred Schools of Thought” because the development of new philosophical approaches led to cultural expansion and intellectual development. Mohism, Daoism, and Confucianism developed in ancient China during this period. Daoism and Confucianism would later spread to Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, where they would be adopted and changed in response to local social and cultural circumstances.

Confucius (551–479 BCE) rose from lowly positions to become a minister in the government of a province in eastern China. After a political conflict with the hereditary aristocracy, Confucius resigned his position and began traveling to other kingdoms and teaching. Confucius’s teachings centered on virtue, veering into practical subjects such as social obligations, ritual performance, and governance. During his lifetime, Confucius despaired that his advice to rulers fell on deaf ears: “How can I be like a bitter gourd that hangs from the end of a string and can not be eaten?” (Analects 17:7). He did not foresee that his work and ideas would influence society, politics, and culture in East Asia for over 2000 years.

Confucius is credited with authoring or editing the classical texts that became the curriculum of the imperial exams, which applicants had to pass to obtain positions in government. His words, sayings, and exchanges with rulers and his disciples were written down and recorded in the Lun Yu , or the Analects of Confucius , which has heavily influenced the moral and social practice in China and elsewhere.

Relational Aspect of Virtue

Like Mohism, Confucianism aimed to restore social order and harmony by establishing moral and social norms. Confucius believed the way to achieve this was through an ordered, hierarchical society in which people know their place in relationship to other people. Confucius said, “There is government, when the prince is prince, and the minister is minister; when the father is father, and the son is son” (Analects, 7:11). In Confucianism, relationships and social roles shape moral responsibilities and structure moral life.

A cornerstone of Confucian virtue is filial piety . Confucius felt that the role of the father was to care for and educate his son, but the duty of the son must be to respect his father by obediently abiding by his wishes. “While a man's father is alive, look at the bent of his will; when his father is dead, look at his conduct. If for three years he does not alter from the way of his father, he may be called filial” (Analects, 1:11). Indeed, when the Duke of Sheh informed Confucius that his subjects were so truthful that if their father stole a sheep, they would bear witness to it, Confucius replied, “Among us, in our part of the country, those who are upright are different from this. The father conceals the misconduct of the son, and the son conceals the misconduct of the father. Uprightness is to be found in this.” The devotion of the son to the father is more important than what Kant would call the universal moral law of truth telling.

There is therefore an important relational aspect of virtue that a moral person must understand. The virtuous person must not only be aware of and care for others but must understand the “human dance,” or the complex practices and relationships that we participate in and that define social life (Wong 2021). The more we begin to understand the “human dance,” the more we grasp how we relate to one another and how social roles and relationships must be accounted for to act virtuously.

Ritual and Ren

Important to both early and late Confucian ethics is the concept of li (ritual and practice). Li plays an important role in the transformation of character. These rituals are a guide or become a means by which we develop and start to understand our moral responsibilities. Sacrificial offerings to parents and other ancestors after their death, for example, cultivate filial piety. By carrying out rituals, we transform our character and become more sensitive to the complexities of human interaction and social life.

In later Confucian thought, the concept of li takes on a broader role and denotes the customs and practices that are a blueprint for many kinds of respectful behavior (Wong 2021). In this way, it relates to ren , a concept that refers to someone with complete virtue or specific virtues needed to achieve moral excellence. Confucians maintain that it is possible to perfect human nature through personal development and transformation. They believe society will improve if people abide by moral and social norms and focus on perfecting themselves. The aim is to live according to the dao . The word dao means “way” in the sense of a road or path of virtue.

Junzi and Self-Perfection

Confucius used the term junzi to refer to an exemplary figure who lives according to the dao . This figure is an ethical ideal that reminds us that self-perfection can be achieved through practice, self-transformation, and a deep understanding of social relationships and norms. A junzi knows what is right and chooses it, taking into account social roles and norms, while serving as a role model. Whenever we act, our actions are observed by others. If we act morally and strive to embody the ethical ideal, we can become an example for others to follow, someone they can look to and emulate.

The Ethical Ruler

Any person of any status can become a junzi . Yet, it was particularly important that rulers strive toward this ideal because their subjects would then follow this ideal. When the ruler Chi K’ang consulted with Confucius about what to do about the number of thieves in his domain, Confucius responded, “If you, sir, were not covetous, although you should reward them to do it, they would not steal” (Analects, 7:18).

Confucius thought social problems were rooted in the elite’s behavior and, in particular, in their pursuit of their own benefit to the detriment of the people. Hence, government officials must model personal integrity, understand the needs of the communities over which they exercised authority, and place the welfare of the people over and above their own (Koller 2007, 204).

In adherence to the ethical code, a ruler’s subjects must show obedience to honorable people and emulate those higher up in the social hierarchy. Chi K’ang, responding to Confucius’s suggestion regarding thievery, asked Confucius, “What do you say to killing the unprincipled for the good of the principled?” Confucius replied that there was no need to kill at all. “Let your evinced desires be for what is good, and the people will be good.” Confucius believed that the relationship between rulers and their subjects is and should be like that between the wind and the grass. “The grass must bend, when the wind blows across it” (Analects, 7:19).

Japanese Confucianism

Although Confucianism was initially developed in China, it spread to Japan in the mid-sixth century, via Korea, and developed its own unique attributes. Confucianism is one of the dominant philosophical teachings in Japan. As in China, Japanese Confucianism focuses on teaching individual perfection and moral development, fostering harmonious and healthy familial relations, and promoting a functioning and prosperous society. In Japan, Confucianism has been changed and transformed in response to local social and cultural factors. For example, Confucianism and Buddhism were introduced around the same time in Japan. It is therefore not uncommon to find variations of Japanese Confucianism that integrate ideas and beliefs from Buddhism. Some neo-Confucian philosophers like Zhu Xi, for example, developed “Confucian thinking after earlier study and practice of Chan Buddhism” (Tucker 2018).

Aristotelianism

Aristotle (384–322 BCE) was a preeminent ancient Greek philosopher. He studied with Plato (ca. 429–347 BCE) at the Academy , a fraternal organization where participants pursued knowledge and self-development. After Plato’s death, Aristotle traveled, tutored the boy who would later become Alexander the Great, and among other things, established his own place of learning, dedicated to the god Apollo (Shields 2020).

Aristotle spent his life in the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom. His extant works today represent only a portion of his total life’s work, much of which was lost to history. During his life, Aristotle was, for example, principal to the creation of logic, created the first system of classification for animals, and wrote on diverse topics of philosophical interest. Along with his teacher, Plato, Aristotle is considered one of the pillars of Western philosophy.

Human Flourishing as the Goal of Human Action

In the first line of Book I of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics , he observes that “[every] art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good” (Aristotle [350 BCE] 1998, 1094a). If everything we do aims at some good, he argues, then there must be a final or highest good that is the end of all action (life’s telos ), which is eudaimonia , the flourishing life (Aristotle [350 BCE] 1998, 1097a34–b25). Everything else we pursue is pursued for the sake of this end.

Connections

See the chapter on epistemology for more on the topic of eudaimonia .

Nicomachean Ethics is a practical exploration of the flourishing life and how to live it. Aristotle, like other ancient Greek and Roman philosophers (e.g., Plato and the Stoics), asserts that virtuous development is central to human flourishing. Virtue (or aretê ) means “excellence. We determine something’s virtue, Aristotle argued, by identifying its peculiar function or purpose because “the good and the ‘well’ is thought to reside in the function” (Aristotle [350 BCE] 1998, 1097b25–1098a15). We might reasonably say, for example, that a knife’s function is to cut. A sharp knife that cuts extremely well is an excellent (or virtuous) knife. The sharp knife realizes its function and embodies excellence (or it is an excellent representation of knife-ness).

Aristotle assumed our rational capacity makes us distinct from other (living) things. He identifies rationality as the unique function of human beings and says that human virtue, or excellence, is therefore realized through the development or perfection of reason. For Aristotle, virtuous development is the transformation and perfection of character in accordance with reason. While most thinkers (like Aristotle and Kant) assign similar significance to reason, it is interesting to note how they arrive at such different theories.

Deliberation, Practical Wisdom, and Character

To exercise or possess virtue is to demonstrate excellent character. For ancient Greek and Roman philosophers, the pursuit of intentional, directed self-development to cultivate virtues is the pursuit of excellence. Someone with a virtuous character is consistent, firm, self-controlled, and well-off. Aristotle characterized the virtuous character state as the mean between two vice states, deficiency and excess. He thought each person naturally tends toward one of the extreme (or vice) states. We cultivate virtue when we bring our character into alignment with the “mean or intermediate state with regard to” feelings and actions, and in doing so we become “well off in relation to our feelings and actions” (Homiak 2019).

Being virtuous requires more than simply developing a habit or character trait. An individual must voluntarily choose the right action, the virtuous state; know why they chose it; and do so from a consistent, firm character. To voluntarily choose virtue requires reflection, self-awareness, and deliberation. Virtuous actions, Aristotle claims, should “accord with the correct reason” (Aristotle [350 BCE] 1998, 1103b30). The virtuous person chooses what is right after deliberation that is informed by practical wisdom and experience. Through a deliberative process we identify the choice that is consistent with the mean state.

The Role of Habit

Aristotle proposed that humans “are made perfect by habit” (Aristotle [350 BCE] 1998, 1103a10–33). Habit therefore plays an important role in our virtuous development. When we practice doing what’s right, we get better at choosing the right action in different circumstances. Through habituation we gain practice and familiarity, we bring about dispositions or tendencies, and we gain the requisite practical experience to identify the reasons why a certain action should be chosen in diverse situations. Habit, in short, allows us to gain important practical experience and a certain familiarity with choosing and doing the right thing. The more we reinforce doing the right thing, the more we grow accustomed to recognizing what’s right in different circumstances. Through habit we become more aware of which action is supported by reason and why, and get better at choosing it.

Habit and repetition develop dispositions. In Nicomachean Ethics , for example, Aristotle reminds us of the importance of upbringing. A good upbringing will promote the formation of positive dispositions, making one’s tendencies closer to the mean state. A bad upbringing, in contrast, will promote the formation of negative dispositions, making one’s tendencies farther from the mean state (Aristotle [350 BCE] 1998, 1095b5).

Read Like a Philosopher

Artistotle on virtue.

Read this passage from from Book II of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics , considering what Aristotle means when he states that moral virtues come about as a result of habit. How should individuals make use of the two types of virtue to become virtuous?

Virtue, then, being of two kinds, intellectual and moral, intellectual virtue in the main owes both its birth and its growth to teaching (for which reason it requires experience and time), while moral virtue comes about as a result of habit, whence also its name (ethike) is one that is formed by a slight variation from the word ethos (habit). From this it is also plain that none of the moral virtues arises in us by nature; for nothing that exists by nature can form a habit contrary to its nature. For instance, the stone which by nature moves downwards cannot be habituated to move upwards, not even if one tries to train it by throwing it up ten thousand times; nor can fire be habituated to move downwards, nor can anything else that by nature behaves in one way be trained to behave in another. Neither by nature, then, nor contrary to nature do the virtues arise in us; rather we are adapted by nature to receive them, and are made perfect by habit. Again, of all the things that come to us by nature we first acquire the potentiality and later exhibit the activity (this is plain in the case of the senses; for it was not by often seeing or often hearing that we got these senses, but on the contrary we had them before we used them, and did not come to have them by using them); but the virtues we get by first exercising them, as also happens in the case of the arts as well. For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them, e.g. men become builders by building and lyreplayers by playing the lyre; so too we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts. This is confirmed by what happens in states; for legislators make the citizens good by forming habits in them, and this is the wish of every legislator, and those who do not effect it miss their mark, and it is in this that a good constitution differs from a bad one. Again, it is from the same causes and by the same means that every virtue is both produced and destroyed, and similarly every art; for it is from playing the lyre that both good and bad lyreplayers are produced. And the corresponding statement is true of builders and of all the rest; men will be good or bad builders as a result of building well or badly. For if this were not so, there would have been no need of a teacher, but all men would have been born good or bad at their craft. This, then, is the case with the virtues also; by doing the acts that we do in our transactions with other men we become just or unjust, and by doing the acts that we do in the presence of danger, and being habituated to feel fear or confidence, we become brave or cowardly. The same is true of appetites and feelings of anger; some men become temperate and good-tempered, others self-indulgent and irascible, by behaving in one way or the other in the appropriate circumstances. Thus, in one word, states of character arise out of like activities. This is why the activities we exhibit must be of a certain kind; it is because the states of character correspond to the differences between these. It makes no small difference, then, whether we form habits of one kind or of another from our very youth; it makes a very great difference, or rather all the difference.

Social Relationships and Friendship

Aristotle was careful to note in Nicomachean Ethics that virtuous development alone does not make a flourishing life, though it is central to it. In addition to virtuous development, Aristotle thought things like success, friendships, and other external goods contributed to eudaimonia .

In Nicomachean Ethics , Aristotle points out that humans are social (or political) beings (Aristotle [350 BCE] 1998, 1097b10). It’s not surprising, then, that, like Confucius, Aristotle thinks social relations are important for our rational and virtuous development.

When we interact with others who have common goals and interests, we are more likely to progress and realize our rational powers. Social relations afford us opportunities to learn, practice, and engage in rational pursuits with other people. The ancient Greek schools (e.g., Plato’s Academy, Aristotle’s Lyceum , and Epicurus’s Gardens) exemplify the ways individuals benefit from social relations. These ancient schools offered a meeting place where those interested in knowledge and the pursuit of wisdom could participate in these activities together.

Through social relations, we also develop an important sense of community and take an interest in the flourishing of others. We see ourselves as connected to others, and through our interactions we develop social virtues like generosity and friendliness (Homiak 2019). Moreover, as we develop social virtues and gain a deeper understanding of the reasons why what is right, is right, we realize that an individual’s ability to flourish and thrive is improved when the community flourishes. Social relations and political friendships are useful for increasing the amount of good we can do for the community (Kraut 2018).

The important role Aristotle assigns to friendship in a flourishing life is evidenced by the fact that he devotes two out of the ten books of Nicomachean Ethics (Books VIII and IX) to a discussion of it. He notes that it would be odd, “when one assigns all good things to the happy man, not to assign friends, who are thought the greatest of external goods” (Aristotle [350 BCE] 1998, 1169a35–b20). Aristotle distinguishes between incidental friendships and perfect friendships . Incidental friendships are based on and defined by either utility or pleasure. Such friendships are casual relationships where each person participates only because they get something (utility or pleasure) from it. These friendships neither contribute to our happiness nor do they foster virtuous development.

Unlike incidental friendships, perfect friendships are relationships that foster and strengthen our virtuous development. The love that binds a perfect friendship is based on the good or on the goodness of the characters of the individuals involved. Aristotle believed that perfect friends wish each other well simply because they love each other and want each other to do well, not because they expect something (utility or pleasure) from the other. He points out that “those who wish well to their friends for their sake are most truly friends” (Aristotle [350 BCE] 1998, 1156a27–b17). Aristotle argues that the happy man needs (true) friends because such friendships make it possible for them to “contemplate worthy [or virtuous] actions and actions that are [their] own” (Aristotle [350 BCE] 1998, 1169b20–1170a6). This affords the good individual the opportunity to contemplate worthy actions that are not their own (i.e., they are their friend’s) while still thinking of these actions as in some sense being their own because their friend is another self. On Aristotle’s account, we see a true friend as another self because we are truly invested in our friend’s life and “we ought to wish what is good for his sake” (Aristotle [350 BCE] 1998, 1155b17–1156a5).

Perfect friendships afford us opportunities to grow and develop, to better ourselves—something we do not get from other relationships. Aristotle therefore argues that a “certain training in virtue arises also from the company of the good” (Aristotle [350 BCE] 1998, 1170a6–30). Our perfect friend provides perspective that helps us in our development and contributes to our happiness because we get to participate in and experience our friend’s happiness as our own. Perhaps it is not surprising, then, that Aristotle considered true friends “the greatest of external goods” (Aristotle [350 BCE] 1998, 1169a35–b20).

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How Should One Live? Essays on the Virtues

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Contains 14 specially commissioned papers on aspects of virtue ethics, and a substantial introduction that also serves as an introduction to virtue ethics. Topics covered include the practical application of the theory, ancient views, partiality, Kant, utilitarianism, human nature, natural and artificial virtues, virtues and the good, vices, emotions, politics, feminism and moral education, and community.

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What can Virtue Ethics Teach Us About Modern Ethical Problems?

Could the very first way of approaching moral philosophy also be the key to solving modern ethical problems?

The complexity of modern life makes ethics even more difficult. From new technologies like genome editing and artificial intelligence, to political turmoil and cultural conflict, knowing how to do the right thing is incredibly hard. Could it be that an ancient – indeed, arguably the very first – approach to ethics offers us a solution? This article will explore virtue ethics, its history, several of its key thinkers and its applicability to modern moral problems. Whether or not one becomes a virtue ethicist and believes in this way of doing ethics as a whole, virtue ethics offers a reconsideration of the implications of our character and the importance of developing it in the context of ethical theory.

Virtue Ethics in Ancient Greece  

For better or worse, Ancient Greece is normally identified as the place where philosophy as we know it was first practiced. Many of these first philosophers wouldn’t have seen themselves as philosophers, and indeed their investigations ranged over a whole host of other disciplines; astronomy, meteorology, physics and mathematics to name just a few. However, then as now, ethics was firmly at the center of philosophy from the get-go. Many of the earliest philosophers, known now as the Pre-Socratics, were concerned with how to be good. Treatments of the subject we now refer to as ‘ethics’ tend to imply a virtue ethical standpoint, even if no theory or holistic approach as such is being advanced.

Aristotle and the Nicomachean Ethics

The first direct treatment of the subject comes from Aristotle , who wrote two books on Ethics, the more famous of which is known as the Nicomachean Ethics . This is an extensive treatment of morality, and can’t be summarised easily, not least because Aristotle can be seen as a systematic philosopher in the sense that his works on ethics are meant to support his work on politics , language, epistemology , metaphysics , aesthetics , and other areas of philosophy. However, the central notion many philosophers took from this work is that of ‘virtue’, and the associated or subordinate concepts of practical wisdom and eudaimonia. His work isn’t the first time anyone sat down and thought about how to be good or how to live the best possible life. However, it may be the first explicit treatment of the subject as an independent area of enquiry, and so bears special attention.

The Role of Virtue

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What is virtue? Virtue is best understood as a way of being. It is something that we are, rather than something that we do. There are virtuous traits – courage and honesty are classic examples – meaning that virtue is a quality not of actions, but of people themselves. These aren’t just any traits or tendencies of course. To put the distinction another way, virtue ethics supposes that actions are the consequence of our being a certain kind of person. People tend to act in a certain way, and to that extent the most important thing for determining how we act is who we are.

The Virtuous Person

In evaluating the strength of virtue as a concept with which we can approach morality, how we choose to phrase ethical questions becomes a matter of real importance. In particular, whether we choose to emphasise the consequences of an action, the moral qualities of the action itself, or the intrinsic qualities of the person who acts is significant. Although virtue ethics emphasises the qualities of the person who acts, that doesn’t mean it offers no answer to the question of what makes an action or its consequences good. We can always ask – what would the virtuous person do? And in analysing what makes a good person good, we might find ourselves illustrating a blueprint to a virtuous character which in turn contains an assessment of the ethical status of certain actions as well as persons.

Practical Reasoning 

Practical wisdom, or phronesis , is the manner in which human beings should reason about our actions. Having discussed the virtues and defined them as positive traits, we can see that even traits which we generally take to be good (say, courage) are not necessarily good in all cases. Indeed, although a deficit of courage is obviously a fault – nobody wants to be a coward – so is an excess of it. Nobody wants to be a rash fool either. What’s more, having the ability to make judgments rather than simply following rules blindly might well make us better at coping with uncertainty , and indeterminacy in ethical judgments more generally – an issue which is particularly important today, as we will see later in the article.

Virtue Ethics and Interconnectedness 

Virtue ethics has been applied to modern moral problems in numerous ways. Perhaps the central claim virtue ethics has over other approaches is that virtue ethics might adjust better to the ethical problems of interconnectedness. When I do something innocuous – say, buy an apple from a supermarket – I know that I can never fully evaluate the consequences of that action. That is, I can never hope to fully calculate the ripple effect (however small) my purchase has on the supermarket, its suppliers, the farmer in another country, her family and so on. Would it have been better to shop elsewhere, buy some other fruit that has a more sustainable supply chain ? These questions might take a lifetime to answer, and after all I have a whole shopping list to get through.

Virtue ethics says – on one interpretation – stop obsessing about the consequences of actions, indeed stop obsessing about actions generally. Focus on you and your character. Are you a conscientious, generous, kind person acting out of a sense of good will for your fellow creatures? If so, then you’ll probably do some amount of research into sustainability, you’ll probably avoid certain fruits which have to be flown from thousands of miles away or require farmers to be underpaid or abused. But your goodness is not a measure of correctly calculating the effect of every action. You are good because of the kind of person you are.

Modern Life and Religious Faith

So, the interconnectedness of modern life poses one species of issue which virtue ethics purports to solve – or, at least, engage with more productively than other ethical systems. Another feature of modern life, particularly life in Western societies, which virtue ethics engages with is the loss of religious faith and its implications for ethical thinking. Elizabeth Anscombe’s ground-breaking article ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’ argued that formulating rules about the rightness of actions amounted to the creation of moral laws which, unless we simultaneously believe in some form of law-giving deity , have no law giver to those authority we can hope to appeal to.

This might offer us one reason for ceasing to give assessments of actions or to conceive of morality in terms of laws or law-like rules, and instead focusing on human beings, their traits, and how we might become better as human beings rather than better as subjects to an – apparently – non-existent being. But of course, whether all forms of modern morality take the form of laws is up for debate. We can indeed be very particular about the criteria by which we assess actions, or can choose to value only one thing – pleasure, as it was for Epicurus – or take that one thing and turn it into  one overriding principle – maximize pleasure and minimize pain, as in Jeremy Bentham’s version of utilitarianism – and make all moral reasoning a matter of interpreting the world according to this criterion.

We might equally wonder whether the natural implication of Anscombe’s argument isn’t that we should alter the emphasis of secular morality and move it away from law like constructions, but rather that we should not be secular at all! Anscombe herself was a strict Catholic , and orthodox Catholicism of this kind is a Catholicism of rules and moral laws. She clearly didn’t think much of secular moral ideals herself. Catholicism has a somewhat fluid relationship with virtues, and normally seems to conceive of them as subordinate to moral laws – indeed, the Church itself has had its own legal institutions and legal processes for centuries. Yet there is an ingrained sense that many philosophers and ordinary people have that answers to ethical questions follow from our descriptions of reality, like whether there is a God in it, and not the other way around.

Virtue Ethics: Some Criticisms

Virtue ethics has much to commend it, and certainly attentiveness to one’s character is a feature of any successful approach to ethical problems. But certain issues remain for virtue ethics to engage with, and this article will conclude by considering one of them. One issue is that it may not offer sufficiently explicit guidance on how we should behave. It is all very well to define the virtues, but what does it mean to be courageous? And if one were to act courageously, yet not have the requisite inner trait of ‘courage’, would that be acceptable? Can one only act courageously if one is actually courageous, or do cowards have their moments too? Virtue ethicists’ answers differ on this. But even if this is a problem, it suggests not that we should ignore the insights of virtue ethics, but that at best they need some elaboration or at worst they need to be considered along with contributions focusing on action as well as character. Considerations of character therefore remain an integral part of ethical theory.

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Kantian Deontology, Utilitarianism, and Virtue Ethics

This essay about Kantian Deontology, Utilitarianism, and Virtue Ethics explores three prominent ethical theories and their approaches to moral decision-making. Kantian Deontology emphasizes duty and universal principles, while Utilitarianism prioritizes maximizing happiness for the greatest number. In contrast, Virtue Ethics focuses on character development and cultivating virtuous traits. Each theory offers unique perspectives and challenges, shaping how individuals navigate moral dilemmas and strive for ethical conduct. Through critical analysis, the essay highlights the strengths and limitations of each approach, encouraging readers to deepen their understanding of ethics and moral philosophy.

How it works

In the vast realm of moral philosophy, three stalwarts stand out, each offering a distinct lens through which to view and engage with ethical dilemmas: Kantian Deontology, Utilitarianism, and Virtue Ethics. These philosophical giants serve as guides for individuals seeking to navigate the complex landscape of moral decision-making and moral character development.

Kantian Deontology, with its roots firmly planted in the enlightenment philosophy of Immanuel Kant, champions the idea of moral duty as the cornerstone of ethical action. Kant proposes the concept of the categorical imperative, which mandates that individuals act in accordance with principles that can be universally applied.

This principle underscores the inherent dignity and worth of all human beings, regardless of circumstances or outcomes. It’s akin to traversing a path illuminated by the unwavering light of duty, where each step is guided by the principles of moral law.

On the other hand, Utilitarianism, spearheaded by the likes of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, takes a consequentialist approach to ethics, prioritizing the maximization of happiness or utility for the greatest number of people. In this ethical framework, actions are evaluated based on their outcomes, with the aim of minimizing suffering and maximizing pleasure. It’s akin to navigating a turbulent sea, where the moral compass points toward the direction that promises the greatest good for the greatest number, even if it means weathering the storms of individual sacrifice.

Meanwhile, Virtue Ethics, as championed by Aristotle, shifts the focus from actions to the character of the moral agent. Virtue Ethics posits that ethical behavior stems from the cultivation of virtuous traits, such as courage, honesty, and compassion. Rather than adhering to rigid moral rules or calculating consequences, Virtue Ethics encourages individuals to strive for moral excellence through the habitual practice of virtuous acts. It’s akin to tending to the garden of the soul, nurturing the seeds of virtue to blossom into the flowers of moral character.

Each ethical theory offers its own set of strengths and weaknesses, presenting both opportunities and challenges for moral deliberation and ethical conduct. Kantian Deontology provides a robust framework for principled decision-making but may falter in addressing the complexities of real-world scenarios. Utilitarianism offers a pragmatic approach to maximizing utility but risks sacrificing individual rights for the collective good. Virtue Ethics prioritizes character development but may lack concrete guidelines for action.

In the tapestry of moral philosophy, Kantian Deontology, Utilitarianism, and Virtue Ethics weave a rich and intricate pattern, each thread contributing to the broader tapestry of human ethics. By engaging with these ethical traditions, individuals can deepen their understanding of morality and cultivate the virtues necessary to navigate the complexities of ethical decision-making in a diverse and ever-changing world.

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15 Virtue Ethics Examples

Virtue ethics is a moral philosophy and theory of normative ethics that emphasizes individuals’ character and personality traits instead of their actions. 

Rather than asking whether an action is right or wrong, virtue ethics focuses on assessing the individual’s qualities and cultivating these noble characteristics to reach the best possible outcome.

For example, someone practicing virtue ethics might analyze an individual’s character traits, such as honesty, intelligence, and compassion, before deciding how best to respond in a given situation. 

It may result in different decisions than one made by employing a consequentialist approach to evaluate the likely outcomes of specific actions. 

So, virtue ethics emphasizes the importance of cultivating good character qualities rather than relying solely on assessing potential outcomes when making decisions. It requires individuals to take personal responsibility for their actions and strive for excellence in all aspects of life.

Definition of Virtue Ethics

Virtue ethics is a type of moral theory that focuses on the character of agents rather than their actions. 

It holds that an individual’s ethical behavior should be measured by their trait-based characteristics such as honesty, courage , and wisdom, rather than by the consequences of their actions or the particular duties they are obliged to obey. 

This approach emphasizes cultivating good virtues within individuals to attain desirable outcomes (Hu & Shen, 2018).

According to Sharma (2021),

“…virtue ethics is a broad term for theories that emphasize the role of character and virtue in moral philosophy rather than either doing one’s duty or acting in order to bring about good consequences” (p. 74).

Virtue ethics can be seen as a teleological ethical system that takes a goal-oriented approach toward morality. This goal is to develop desirable traits in individuals who will lead to a greater good for society as a whole (Duignan, 2011).

It also draws upon concepts from ancient philosophy, such as Aristotle’s conception of the golden mean, which states that virtue lies in moderation between two extremes.

Simply, virtue ethics is concerned with developing good character traits within individuals and helping them become the best versions of themselves.

15 Examples of Virtue Ethics

• Loyalty : Being faithful, reliable, and dedicated to something or someone. It requires a commitment to helping others succeed and working together for common goals despite the difficulty.
• Courage : The ability to act despite fear, adversity, or danger. It can include physical bravery but also moral courage, such as standing up for what one believes is right and just, even when it may be unpopular.
• Honesty : Being truthful and sincere in all aspects of life. Honesty includes being open with others about disagreements or mistakes rather than attempting to cover them up.
• Compassion : Having empathy for the plight of others and willingness to reach out with understanding and assistance. Compassion is often seen as the basis for altruistic behavior, such as charitable giving or volunteerism.
• Patience : The capacity to endure hardships or unpleasant situations without losing one’s temper. Patience is often considered key to resolving conflicts peacefully or creating productive relationships with others.
• Wisdom : The capacity to think deeply and use judgment based on experience. Wisdom involves understanding how the parts of a problem fit together rather than simply focusing on isolated details.
• Kindness : Acting with generosity, gentleness, and concern for others. Kindness requires more than simply being nice but involves actively seeking opportunities to help those around you who may be struggling or need assistance.
• Integrity : Living according to one’s principles no matter what the cost. Integrity involves taking responsibility for your actions, keeping promises, and having a consistent set of values regardless of circumstances or social pressure.
• Humility : Acknowledging one’s own limitations while still recognizing personal strengths. Humility can involve admitting when we are wrong, praising another’s achievements rather than our own, and not placing oneself above other people.
• Respect : Valuing the rights, beliefs, feelings, needs, preferences, and opinions of yourself and those around you. Respect requires treating everyone fairly regardless of background, race, gender identity, etc.
• Gratitude: Appreciating the people, things, and experiences in one’s life and expressing thankfulness. Gratitude can lead to a greater sense of well-being and a more positive outlook on life.
• Forgiveness: Letting go of anger or resentment towards someone who has wronged you. Forgiveness can help heal relationships and promote inner peace.
• Creativity: Thinking outside the box and finding unique solutions to problems. Creativity involves taking risks and embracing failure as part of the learning process.
• Justice: Upholding what is fair and equitable, and advocating for the rights of all individuals. Justice involves fighting against discrimination, inequality, and oppression.
• Determination : Having the drive and persistence to achieve one’s goals despite obstacles or setbacks. Determination involves hard work , focus, and resilience in the face of challenges.

History of Virtue Ethics

Virtue ethics is rooted in ancient Greek and Roman philosophical thought, particularly the writings of Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato.

Aristotle proposed his theory of virtue ethics in the 4th century BC, suggesting that humans should be guided by their character rather than external rules or regulations (Armstrong, 2007).

He argued that cultivating certain habits and traits, known as virtues, was essential to living an ethical life and reaching a state of eudaimonia (human flourishing).

The writings of Socrates were influential in the development of Aristotelian virtue ethics. 

He taught that being wise meant knowing oneself and what makes a person happy or sad. He focused on inner reflection rather than rule-following, a radical idea for his time (Van Hooft & Athanassoulis, 2014).

Plato also contributed to the development of virtue ethics in his writings. For example, he suggested that striving for justice and harmony within oneself was more important than following external rules or laws (Armstrong, 2007).

In the 1st century BC, Roman philosopher Marcus Aurelius wrote extensively about Stoicism, emphasizing virtuous behavior as opposed to rigid external rules. 

He believed that all emotions should be suppressed in favor of reason and logic to achieve emotional balance (Van Hooft & Athanassoulis, 2014).

In recent times, Immanuel Kant proposed his version of virtue ethics, which emphasized self-discipline above all else. 

His theory suggested that if people acted with harmonious wills, they could make ethical decisions without resorting to outside moral guidelines or codes (Hill, 2012).

Today, virtue ethics continues to influence ethical thinking. It has been incorporated into many modern philosophical theories, such as utilitarianism and deontology. 

By developing strong virtues such as courage, kindness, humility, and respect, individuals can become better versions of themselves while positively influencing society.

Central Concepts in Virtue Ethics

Virtue ethics, originating from Plato and Aristotle, consist of three main ideas: Aretê (excellence), Eudaimonia (“happiness” or “bliss”), and Phronêsis (practical wisdom). As a result of these core concepts, virtue ethics have been used for centuries to aid people in living their lives virtuously.

Here is a brief overview of these concepts:

1. Virtue (aretê)

This concept refers to genuine moral excellence of character. It is an internal quality that manifests itself in external actions and attitudes. 

Examples of virtues include courage, kindness, honesty, justice, and temperance. A virtuous person embodies these qualities and acts with integrity even when faced with temptation or adversity (Green, 2016).

2. Eudaimonia (“happiness” or “human flourishing”)

This concept is based on the idea that humans should lead a life full of purpose and meaning. It involves being true to oneself while living according to one’s values and beliefs to reach a state of contentment. 

Examples of eudaimonia-driven behavior would be taking care of your health by engaging in physical activities or pursuing meaningful relationships with friends and family that enhance our sense of belonging (Fowers, 2016).

3. Practical Wisdom (phronêsis)

This concept focuses on the importance of rational decision-making based on empirical evidence and logical reasoning.

It involves understanding the consequences of one’s actions and having good judgment when faced with moral dilemmas or conflicting interests (Kinsella & Pitman, 2012).

Examples include weighing the pros and cons before making a big decision or being able to think critically about different situations from multiple perspectives to find a just outcome.

Major Forms of Virtue Ethics

Contemporary researchers identify three major forms of virtue ethics, including ethics of care, agent-based theories, and the eudaimonism approach, all emphasizing different aspects of living an ethically upright life.

Here is a brief overview of each one:

1. Ethics of Care

This approach to ethical decision-making focuses on caring for others, particularly vulnerable individuals such as the sick, elderly, or disabled (Timpe & Boyd, 2015).

For example, when a doctor is tasked with treating a terminally ill patient, they should consider both the patient’s wishes and their own obligations to provide medically and ethically sound care. 

In this example, the doctor’s moral decision might be influenced by their sense of empathy, compassion, and justice rather than simply following laws or regulations.

2. Agent-Based Theories

This type of virtue ethics emphasizes individual agents’ importance and societal roles. It questions traditional views on morality, focusing on large groups or abstract principles rather than individual actions (Timpe & Boyd, 2015).

An example would be an individual who chooses to pursue a career path based on their own values rather than what society expects them to do.

In doing so, they are taking responsibility for their own decisions and showing strength of character, an important aspect of virtue ethics.

3. Eudaimonist Approach

Eudaimonism is an ethical framework based on Ancient Greek philosophy. It postulates that individuals should strive for self-fulfillment by developing virtues such as courage, temperance, and wisdom to lead a good life (Fowers, 2016).

For example, if a person is faced with a difficult situation involving personal conflict between two people who are close to them, eudaimonism suggests that they should find a resolution that involves clear communication and mutual respect.

This approach puts less emphasis on punishment or retribution and more emphasis on finding a just outcome that allows everyone involved to flourish.

Critique of Virtue Ethics

While virtue ethics is quite a popular approach to ethical decision-making, it has some limitations, such as a lack of clear guidance for moral decision-making, high subjectivity, and lack of clear incentives for virtuous living. 

• Lack of Clear Guidance: First, critics argue that the approach does not provide clear guidance for moral decision-making because there are no universal virtues. Instead, each individual must decide which virtues they should pursue to lead a good life (Swanton, 2010). Such lack of specificity can make it difficult to determine the right course of action in any given situation, especially if conflicting values are at play.
• Subjectivity : some consider this approach to be too subjective and open to interpretation (Hursthouse & Pettigrove, 2003). Since individual agents have the autonomy to prioritize their values over social norms or legal regulations, they may end up making decisions detrimental to their moral integrity or the well-being of others.
• Lack of obvious rewards for virtuous behaviors: critics point out that virtue ethics does not provide enough incentive for individuals to act virtuously since there are no external rewards or punishments associated with this approach (Hursthouse & Pettigrove, 2003). Instead, people must have an intrinsic motivation to behave according to their moral codes.

Virtue ethics emphasizes cultivating good character traits within individuals rather than simply evaluating the consequences of their actions or adhering to a set of external rules or regulations. 

This philosophy is rooted in ancient Greek and Roman thought and has influenced ethical thinking for centuries. 

Virtue ethics involves developing virtues such as honesty, courage, compassion, and humility and using practical wisdom to make moral decisions. 

Despite some limitations, virtue ethics is still a relevant and popular approach to ethical decision-making in many contexts. 

Through careful reflection and practice, individuals can use this approach to cultivate strong moral character and lead meaningful lives.

Armstrong, A. E. (2007). The origins, development and tenets of virtue ethics.  Nursing Ethics , 77–94. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230206458_5

Duignan, B. (2011).  The history of Western ethics . Britannica Educational Pub.

Fowers, B. J. (2016). The deep psychology of eudaimonia and virtue: Belonging, loyalty and the anterior cingulate cortex.  Varieties of Virtue Ethics , 199–216. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59177-7_12

Green, A. (2016).  The virtue ethics of levi gersonides . New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Hill, T. E. (2012).  Virtue, rules, and justice: Kantian aspirations . Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hu, J., & Shen, J. (2018). Virtue ethics: Reflection on and construction of moral education in colleges.  Proceedings of the International Conference on Contemporary Education, Social Sciences and Ecological Studies (CESSES 2018) . https://doi.org/10.2991/cesses-18.2018.42

Kinsella, E. A., & Pitman, A. (2012).  Phronesis as professional knowledge: Practical wisdom in the professions . London: Sensepublishers.

Sharma, M. (2021).  Assam public service commission (APSC) main exam: General studies 4 & general studies 3 study package . New York: Maniram Sharma.

Swanton, C. (2010). Virtue ethics and the problem of moral disagreement. Philosophical Topics , 38 (2), 157–180. Doi: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43154586

Timpe, K., & Boyd, C. A. (2015).  Virtues and their vices . Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Van Hooft, S., & Athanassoulis, N. (2014).  The handbook of virtue ethics . New York: Acumen Publishing Limited.

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Home — Essay Samples — Philosophy — Ethics and Moral Philosophy — Virtue Ethics

Essays on Virtue Ethics

Virtue ethics essay topics for college students.

As a college student, choosing the right essay topic is crucial to your success. It's not just about fulfilling an assignment; it's an opportunity to explore your interests, exercise critical thinking, and showcase your creativity. Here, we provide you with a comprehensive list of Virtue Ethics essay topics to inspire and guide you in your writing endeavors.

Essay Types and Topics

Argumentative essay.

• The Role of Virtue Ethics in Modern Society
• Challenges in Applying Virtue Ethics to Business Practices
• The Relationship Between Virtue Ethics and Personal Happiness

Example Paragraph:

In today's fast-paced world, the concept of virtue ethics has become increasingly relevant. As individuals and businesses navigate ethical dilemmas, the role of virtue ethics in shaping our decisions cannot be overlooked. This essay will explore the challenges and opportunities of applying virtue ethics in modern society, shedding light on its impact on personal and professional lives.

By examining the challenges and opportunities of applying virtue ethics in modern society, it becomes evident that this ethical framework offers valuable insights into our decision-making processes. As we strive for personal and professional growth, embracing virtue ethics can lead to a more fulfilling and purposeful life.

Compare and Contrast Essay

• Virtue Ethics vs. Utilitarianism: A Comparative Analysis
• The Role of Virtue Ethics in Eastern vs. Western Philosophies
• Applying Virtue Ethics to Personal vs. Professional Decision Making

Descriptive Essay

• The Virtuous Life: A Personal Reflection
• An Exploration of Virtue Ethics in Literature and Art
• The Ethical Landscape: A Descriptive Analysis of Virtue Ethics in Contemporary Society

Persuasive Essay

• Why Virtue Ethics Should Be Integrated into Business Education
• The Ethical Imperative: Convincing Others to Embrace Virtue Ethics
• Advocating for a Virtue Ethics Approach in Political Decision Making

Narrative Essay

• A Personal Experience That Shaped My Understanding of Virtue Ethics
• The Journey to Virtue: A Narrative Exploration of Moral Development
• Discovering Virtue: A Narrative Reflection on Ethical Transformation

Engagement and Creativity

As you explore these essay topics, we encourage you to engage with the concepts of virtue ethics in a creative and thoughtful manner. Consider how you can infuse your unique perspective and experiences into your writing, making your essays both informative and personally meaningful.

Educational Value

Each essay type offers unique opportunities for learning and skill development. An argumentative essay allows you to hone your analytical thinking and persuasive writing skills, while a descriptive essay provides a platform for honing your descriptive abilities. A narrative essay, on the other hand, enables you to practice storytelling and narrative techniques, fostering a deeper understanding of virtue ethics through personal experiences.

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Article contents

Virtue ethics and international relations.

• Kirsten Ainley Kirsten Ainley Department of International Relations, The London School of Economics and Political Science
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.107
• Published online: 20 November 2017

Virtue Ethics (VE) is a way of thinking about how to behave well which focuses on the character of moral agents and the nature of the good life. This contrasts with dominant approaches to international ethics which prioritize the identification or development of moral rules or duties (deontological approaches) or the consequences of actions (consequentialist approaches). The relevance of virtue ethics to international affairs is established by setting out the critique of the dominant law-based approaches offered by VE and then exploring the positive contribution VE can make. Virtue ethicists argue that character and a concrete conception of the human good are central to ethics—that the right question to ask when working out what it means to be ethical is not “what should I do” but “what sort of person should I be?” The three central concepts in VE—virtue, practical wisdom, and flourishing—have not been applied systematically qua VE in international political theory or international relations, but their appearance in various guises in recent scholarship suggests avenues for future research. Four such avenues are identified, ranging from the moderate to the radical, which offer innovative ways to confront key ethical dilemmas faced in international affairs.

• practical wisdom
• flourishing
• consequentialism

Virtue Ethics (VE) is a way of thinking about how to behave well which has not received a great deal of attention within the discipline of International Relations (IR) or the practice of international politics. Dominant approaches to international ethics focus on the identification or development of moral rules or duties (deontological approaches) or, to a lesser extent, the consequences of actions (consequentialist approaches). Virtue ethics, in contrast, emphasizes the importance of moral character—in particular the possession of some combination of “virtues,” including practical wisdom—in determining right action, and understands right action with reference to concrete conceptions of the good, or human flourishing. The relevance of this for IR is not immediately obvious, as VE focuses on individual character traits rather than on the kinds of ethical concepts more familiar to us in IR and political theory, such as rights, rules, and norms. However, both the rejection of rule-based ethics offered by VE, and the key place in virtue-based approaches for virtues, flourishing, and practical wisdom challenge us to think about international politics in new and often radical ways.

One of the most significant developments in contemporary IR has been the revival of interest in arguments concerning ethics. After years in which realist theory and political science methods dominated the discipline, many scholars are now concerned to discuss not (or at least not only) the ways that states, institutions, and individuals must behave, given the constraints of the international system, but the ways that they should behave. This field of study (which is widely known as International Political Theory or IPT, but can also be described as global ethics, Hutchings, 1999 ; Lang, 2014 )—has brought focus onto the duties that states have towards each other (Jackson, 2000 ), towards their own citizens (Evans, 2009 ), and towards foreign citizens (Wheeler, 2000 ), as well as the universal rights that human beings may be able to claim against states, institutions, and each other (Dunne & Wheeler, 1999 ; Donnelly, 2006 ; Vincent, 1986 ; Shue, 1980 ).

Many international political theorists ground their work in the liberal philosophy of the Enlightenment—in particular that of Immanuel Kant—or build on the work of the political theorist who did most to bring Kantian thought into the 20th century , John Rawls. Theorists in this tradition argue in favor of various forms of liberal universalist ethics and imagine various incarnations of a global liberal polity (e.g., Beitz, 1979 ; Caney, 2005 ; Held, 2004 ; O’Neill, 2000 ; Pogge, 2002 ). Following Kant’s emphasis on the centrality of duty and rules to moral life, these theorists usually support the spread of international law and regimes codifying, in particular, the moral obligations states and individuals have in respect of human rights and conduct in conflict. This work has been tremendously important in putting ethics on the agenda in international politics, but it is based, as explained below, on problematic foundations. These foundations have been contested in numerous ways in recent philosophy and political theory, much of which has found its way into IPT (e.g., Cochran, 1999 ; Erskine, 2008 ; Hutchings, 1999 , 2010 ). However, virtue-based approaches, which challenge the notion of moral obligation itself, have not yet been fully explored within IPT scholarship.

Before explaining the fundamentals of virtue ethics, this article first sets out the context of its contemporary form. Interest in virtue ethics was revived in response to the refutations of moral obligation and of particular characterizations of moral arguments employed in modern moral philosophy set out in the second half of the 20th century . In response, virtue ethicists (most of whom are not “theorists,” which would be the usual shorthand, as they reject the value of theory in ethical study), argue that character, practical reason, and human flourishing are central to ethics—that the right question to ask when working out what it means to be ethical is not “what should I do” but “what sort of person should I be?” This position is explained and evaluated, after which the application of virtue ethics and its central concepts to IR, in particular IPT, is explored. The piece finishes with a discussion of possibilities for future research, arguing that virtue ethics offers us original ways to confront the kind of ethical dilemmas that we face in international affairs.

Recanting Kant: The Problem of Obligation

Virtue ethics is a diverse body of thought, developed over many centuries. Forms of VE were set out by Ancient Greek and Ancient Chinese philosophers and can be found within many religious traditions. Yet despite its prevalence as an ethical approach, VE was usurped in Western philosophy by approaches that judge right action either in reference to moral rules (deontology) or to the likely consequences of actions (consequentialism). Rather than describing the various forms of VE which have found favor at different times (chapters by Kamtekar, Ivanhoe, and Porter in Russell, 2013 , give excellent histories of VE), this article focuses on contemporary VE and its relevance to IR.

The story of the recent resurgence of VE starts in the late 1950s, with attacks on the notion of moral obligation found in secular moral theory, particularly Kantian philosophy, and on the nature of moral claims. In 1958 , Anscombe published what transpired to be an enormously influential article attacking modern moral philosophy and calling for a return to ancient concerns. Anscombe argues that modern approaches to ethics (principally Kantian and utilitarian) take a law-based approach—they see morality as stemming from law of some form, and as centrally concerned with defining duties and obligations. This trend in morality towards a focus on obligation became embedded, according to Anscombe, due to the rise of Christianity, which saw morality as proceeding from divine law. Rather than thinking about morality in terms of the virtues, as the Greeks did, “we” (Western analytic philosophers, and, following them, Western political theorists) began to think in terms of obligation: “[i]n consequence of the dominance of Christianity for many centuries, the concepts of being bound, permitted or excused became deeply embedded in our language and thought” (Anscombe, 1958 , p. 5). However, she argues, law conceptions of ethics only make sense if there is a law-giver—an authoritative agent or place from which the laws emanate and which acts as a foundation to our obligations. In the past, this was God, but in contemporary society we do not share a conception of God that would allow us to view him as an authoritative foundation for moral law. She dismisses the possibility of alternative law-givers, arguing that “the concepts of [moral] obligation, and [moral] duty . . . and of what is morally right and wrong, and of the moral sense of ought, ought to be jettisoned if this is psychologically possible” (Anscombe, 1958 , p. 1).

Foot, also in 1958 , published two articles equally as damning of the moral philosophy of the time (Foot, 1958a , 1958b ). Just as Anscombe exposed ideas of the “right” as reliant upon an assumed authoritative legislator, so Foot attacked the idea that moral evaluations could be separated from a robust and shared concept of the “good,” in terms of human well-being. She shows that for ethical positions (on duties, rightness, obligations, goodness, etc.) to be intelligible (rather than simply logical), they cannot just be an expression of preference or approval. Rather, they must observe the commonly understood grammar inherent in each ethical concept, which links whatever it is that is being commended back to human flourishing in some relatively objective way. There is, for Foot, something concrete about morality, such that moral statements are connected to the factual rather than simply the interpretative, and can thus be judged as better or worse rather than only viewed as one among a range of equally plausible attitudes or manifestations of emotion.

These articles brought about something of a revolution in Western moral philosophy and were followed by a more sustained critique of moral obligation and the relation of the right and the good developed by Bernard Williams. Williams took particular aim at Kant and his “morality system” and the damage to human ethical lives it threatens (Williams, 1985 , p. 174). Williams argues that the morality system is concerned to find general propositions about how to behave, through the ambitious use of the concept of obligation. It attempts to convert all of the ethical considerations that we may face in a situation (for instance, about responses to the situation that would be agreeable, or worthwhile, or heroic, as well as those which would be obligatory or demanded) into the language of obligation (Williams, 1985 , p. 179), and in doing so both impoverishes ethics as a rich and complex field of human practice and leads to an unjust focus on blame and blameworthiness. One of the fundamental assumptions behind Kantian morality is the freedom of the moral agent to act according to her reason. If agents are free and actions are voluntary, then actors who breach moral rules can be blamed (and, by implication, punished) for doing so. Williams was deeply skeptical about the kind of voluntary agency implied by the morality system as he thought it impossible to separate out the voluntary features of an action (the “focused, particularised judgment” that this is the correct action to take) from the character-based or contextual features:

[t]here is a pressure within [morality] to require a voluntariness that will be total and will cut through character and psychological or social determination, and allocate responsibility on the ultimately fair basis of the agent’s own contribution, no more and no less. It is an illusion to suppose that this demand can be met . . . . (Williams, 1985 , p. 194)

This point leads to a critique of the “purity” of morality, “its insistence on abstracting the moral consciousness from other kinds of emotional reaction or social influence” (Williams, 1985 , p. 195), in order to support the Kantian ideal that human existence can be just. Williams noted that Kant constructed a system in which the good things in life which are distributed in a nonjust way (happiness, talent, health, and so on) are relegated to being secondary concerns: The ultimate value is the value of morality, and one gains moral value by trying to behave morally. Kant effectively denied the role of luck as being important in living a good life—if moral value is the ultimate value, we can control whether we achieve it, as we are all free to follow moral rules if we choose to do so. Pure justice, therefore, is possible in human affairs—a position rejected outright by Williams ( 1981 ).

The criticisms leveled at modern Western moral philosophy by Anscombe, Foot, and Williams were persuasive to many who worked in the field. The seeds of discontent they sowed, coupled with their equally excoriating rebukes to utilitarianism as the most influential version of consequentialism (Anscombe, 1958 ; Williams with J. J. C. Smart, 1973 ; Foot, 1983 ), led to a rejection of modern forms of moral reasoning in favor of a rereading of ancient ethics.

Rejecting Rules, Reviving Virtue

The key difference between modern and ancient ethics, at least in the West, is in their central questions. Ancient Greek (and also Ancient Chinese, though this piece does not engage with Confucianism) thinkers were less concerned with the question “what should I do?” as they were with questions of “how should I live?” or “what sort of person should I be?” These questions suggest a different way to make moral judgments, based on an appraisal of what is “good” (i.e., leads to flourishing) rather than what is “right” (i.e., is obligatory from the point of view of a moral law or a calculation of consequences). The implications of this shift in view are substantial and lead (back) to a distinct type of ethics: virtue ethics.

There are as many varieties of virtue ethics as there are of deontology and consequentialism, and the chapter will not attempt to describe them all (see Foot, 1978 , 2001 ; Geach, 1977 ; Hursthouse, 1999 ; MacIntyre, 2004 , 2009 ; Nussbaum, 1993 , 1999b , 2000 , 2006 ; Slote, 2001 , 2007 , 2010 ; Swanton, 2003 , as a selection of the most important contemporary examples of VE; Sanford, 2015 , for a typology based on the relation of these approaches to Anscombe’s challenge to modern moral philosophy; Athanassoulis, 2005 , for a typology based on the relative importance of the good, of the sentiments, or of particular virtues within each approach). Rather, some of the commonalities between virtue-based accounts of ethics will be explored through discussion of the exponent of ancient virtue ethics drawn upon most frequently in recent work: Aristotle ( 384–322 bce ).

Contemporary virtue ethicists all locate themselves in some way relative to Aristotle, with the key tenets of Aristotelian ethics being as follows: Something is good when it does its function well (so a good umbrella is one that keeps the rain off its owner, a good book is enjoyable or informative, and so on) and the function of human beings, what sets us apart from other animals, is our reason. Therefore, the telos (purpose or goal) of human life is action in accordance with reason, as this will lead to eudemonia , or flourishing. Aristotle built from this an ethics detailing the virtues or character traits a person needs to develop in order to flourish ( 1999 ). He noted that there are two kinds of virtue: moral virtues, including courage, temperance, pride, gentleness, agreeableness, truthfulness, wittiness, and modesty (Books III and IV), and virtues of the intellect, consisting of theoretical wisdom, science ( epistêmê ), intuitive understanding ( nous ), practical wisdom ( phronesis or prudence), and craft expertise (Book VI).

The three concepts in Aristotle’s work which define virtue ethics are virtue itself ( arête ), practical wisdom ( phronesis ), and flourishing ( eudemonia ). All subsequent virtue approaches include comparable concepts, and see a strong relationship between the three, though there are substantial differences between contemporary works only gestured at here. The virtues, in general, are seen as consistent and, once acquired, relatively fixed features of a person’s character that lead to action. A person with a disposition towards kindness will tend to be moved by that disposition to act with kindness, regardless of the costs of being kind in any given situation, and will be kind across time and to a range of different people. The virtues are acquired by practice—by performing virtuous acts repeatedly until being virtuous becomes habitual—and through processes of socialization and education to encourage virtuous traits and discourage vicious ones. It is important to note in relation to modern moral philosophy that arête can also be translated as “excellence” rather than virtue: Virtues are not just those traits that we associate with moral behavior as controlled by moral systems, but range much more broadly: “we reckon physical, intellectual and psychological qualities as virtues if they typically help people to live well and achieve great things; to create great works of art or scholarship, for example” (Cafaro, 1998 , fn. 11).

Wisdom or reason is central to human life, but it should not, according to virtue ethicists, be employed only to gain theoretical knowledge. It also has a key role to play in guiding conduct, particularly important once the notion of a system of moral obligations or rules which can be relied upon to dictate right action has been called into question. Phronesis involves the knowledge and understanding of how to act in the right way, which comes about through sensitivity to context and the ability to perceive the morally salient features of a situation, including the good of individuals or groups involved. But phronesis must harmonize with emotion or the sentiments—reason does not reign supreme. Perception of the morally salient features of a situation means being empathic as well as rational, and the virtuous person should find that her reasons to act and her desires to act are in accord. This means that a concept of moral obligation is largely redundant in VE, as we should not have to fight our desires in order to act in the right way (Slote, 2010 , is a major restatement of moral sentimentalism, which argues that empathy rather than reason is the foundation of our moral intuitions).

The idea that acting virtuously brings happiness or emotional satisfaction to the virtuous person is central to eudemonia or flourishing. But flourishing does not consist in happiness (a subjective state); rather, it comprises an objective standard of a life worth living that is at least partly constituted by virtuous character and action (i.e., ethics and self-interest are not in opposition). Writers in this tradition have diverging ideas of what human flourishing—the good—consists in, and disagree about the extent to which standards of excellence can be divorced from their social context, but all evaluate character traits according to the extent to which they bring about objective or intersubjective conceptions of human flourishing.

The contemporary exponent of virtue ethics whose work is most relevant to international political theory and action is Alasdair MacIntyre ( 2004 , 2009 ), though his stated concern is with ethics and politics inside the nation-state. In After Virtue ( 2004 ), an impassioned attack on the paucity of ethical life in contemporary liberal capitalist societies, MacIntyre explains that modern moral philosophy lacks purchase because it has jettisoned the ideas of a human telos or purpose and, grounded on this, justice as a shared conception of social order. This leaves political theorists unable to find procedures to adjudicate between the competing claims of individuals who hold interests and values assumed to be unrelated to those of others. Compounding their lack of firm foundations, modern moral philosophers and political theorists make claims to (varied, often incommensurable) universal values, ignoring the importance of context. Ideas are stolen from past ages to bolster universalist claims without reference to the social and political context in which the theorists were acting: “Kant ceases to be part of the history of Prussia, Hume is no longer a Scotsman” (MacIntyre, 2004 , p. 11). Without a conception of telos or an understanding of context, ethics becomes empty, and moral claims become incoherent. To remedy this, MacIntyre surveys conceptions of virtue through Western moral philosophy and argues that a form of virtue ethics centered around ethical practices is necessary to rejuvenate ethical life and enable human flourishing.

As has already been noted, VE is not a unified set of approaches, and MacIntyre’s position is among the most radical in the field. He rejects the notion that virtues and or a substantive human telos could be universal, and invokes the concept of a practice to build an ethics and a politics that acknowledge the central roles in human flourishing played by communities and particular moral and political traditions. It is precisely this recognition that there exists a plurality of ways of life, across time and space, that makes MacIntyre so relevant to IPT. In place of universals, he examines concrete practices to derive both the meaning of the good and the virtues required to flourish. A practice, for MacIntyre, is: “any coherent and complex form of socially established cooperative human activity through which goods internal to that form of activity are realized in the course of trying to achieve those standards of excellence which are appropriate to, and partially definitive of, that form of activity, with the result that human powers to achieve excellence, and human conceptions of the ends and goods involved, are systematically extended” (MacIntyre, 2004 , p. 187). The links back to Aristotle are clear: excellences of character, or virtues, are required for, and partly constitutive of, flourishing. But flourishing is seen here as mediated through, or facilitated by, participation in social practices, such as playing football or chess, being a historian or a biologist, a painter or a musician. These practices provide two types of goods or benefits to those participating in them: external goods (money, status and power) and internal goods (particular physical, creative, or intellectual skills, strategic vision, and types of knowledge). This leads to a definition of virtues as follows:

[t]he virtues . . . are to be understood as those dispositions which will not only sustain practices and enable us to achieve the goods internal to practices, but which will also sustain us in the relevant kind of quest for the good, enabling us to overcome the harms, dangers, temptations, and distractions which we encounter, and which will furnish us with increasing self-knowledge and increasing knowledge of the good. ( 2004 , p. 219)

It further leads to the necessity for those who seek to participate in practices to develop three particular virtues—justice, courage, and honesty—because the goods of a practice can only be achieved by working together with others. Practices do additional ethical work, according to MacIntyre, providing narrative structure and intelligibility to our lives, reducing alienation and situating the self. And, connecting ethics to politics, practices presuppose the existence of a wider polis or community which supports them and values the goods internal to them and which is in turn strengthened as participants in the practices become cognizant of and loyal to the communal tradition embodied by those practices.

In After Virtue , MacIntyre rejects Aristotle’s biological teleology that saw a substantive human telos as stemming from a natural faculty of reason and makes an argument on sociological grounds in favor of a relatively weak telos : constancy or integrity. This leads to some frustration with his work, because despite his lengthy discussions of practices and virtues, there is very little in After Virtue that points us towards actual practices and virtues which might lead to actual human flourishing. In his more recent work he has revised his views and now argues it is impossible to entirely separate ethics from biology (MacIntyre, 2009 ). The three key features of human existence that affect ethics, he now claims, are that we are dependent (on other people, particularly at the beginning and end of our lives, but also for the development of our ethics and our rationality), we are rational (a fact usually grossly overemphasized in moral theory), and we are animals (with significant resemblance to and commonality with members of at least some other intelligent species). These three characteristics are linked, and MacIntyre argues that to flourish as an “independent practical reasoner” (which he now argues to be the human telos ) we need to understand our deep vulnerability as animals and our mutual dependence with other humans throughout our lives for love, care, teaching, the development of reason, and so on. The human condition, in this later work, is characterized as a form of “reciprocal indebtedness” ( 2009 ), and this new role for biology in his work enables MacIntyre to give far more content to his idea of the good than he could in After Virtue , including arguing in favor of specific virtues to help us grow towards independence (risk-taking, patience, courage, and temperateness) and to help us live with our dependence (gratitude, courtesy, and forbearance). While this article does not explore the relation of virtue ethics to an ethics of care (Held, 2005 ; Robinson, 1999 ; Slote, 2007 ), our dependence on others in the latest iteration of MacIntyre’s virtue ethics, and the extent to which our good depends on our contribution to the development of the good in others, clearly demonstrates the relation between the two.

MacIntyre’s work, while only one of a range of contemporary virtue-based approaches, illustrates many of the strengths and drawbacks of virtue ethics. One of the principal advantages of the approach is that whole people and whole lives are understood as relevant to ethics—not just the narrow range of choices or actions judged to be within the field of “morality” or governed by the language of obligation. This fits more accurately with our everyday sense of flourishing—living well is not just about doing right or wrong, but incorporates all of the areas of life that form our character (relationships with others, participation in practices and politics, performance in social roles, and so on). Flourishing, including the development of virtues or excellences of character is a life-long task, and the need for narrative unity in human lives is taken seriously within a virtue-based approach, because: “the good life cannot be discussed if the sense of that life is lost in its atomization into a series of unrelated acts” (Cafaro, 1998 , fn. 6).

VE is also attractive because it enables us to talk about human lives with a vocabulary that extends beyond “right” and “wrong.” Using “thick concepts” to guide action, such as what counts as just or unjust, loving or cruel, kind or mean, wise or foolish, and so on, can significantly improve the quality of our ethical understanding within and between cultures or traditions (Williams, 1985 , pp. 140–143).

We should not, however, expect that VE can bring us to substantial agreement over how to act in any abstract or general sense—there is nothing akin to the utility calculus or the categorical imperative within virtue ethics, nor methods to ground abstract moral claims such as implied contracts, imagined dialogue, or reasonable consensus. The right thing to do in any situation is whatever it is that a virtuous person would do, but this is not determinable before the situation—the lived context—is known. We can talk with some abstraction about the nature of virtue, but only by developing phronesis and a virtuous disposition can we know how to act. Flourishing, however, is potentially a much more generalizable concept. There is a great deal of difference between virtue ethicists in terms of how objective they regard human flourishing to be—someone like Alistair MacIntyre, at least in After Virtue , saw flourishing as entirely dependent on the contexts and cultures (or, in his term, “traditions”) in which we find ourselves living and the practices in which we participate. Others, such as Martha Nussbaum ( 2000 , discussed in more detail below) see flourishing in a way that is closer to an Aristotle—something that can be read off the human condition rather than varying according to context. This position still does not deliver abstract guides to action, but it is grounded on a significant claim to objectivity that lends itself to rather more abstraction than most virtue ethicists are comfortable with (Nussbaum, in her more recent work [ 2000 , 2006 ], aligns her virtue approach with Rawlsian liberalism).

One of the most striking consequences of a rejection of the Enlightenment moral tradition in favor of virtue ethics is the recognition that there is no natural justice or underlying harmony to human life. Human flourishing is vulnerable to events outside our control and luck plays a profound role in ethical life: Bad things can happen to good people and acting virtuously cannot by itself guarantee happiness (see Athanassoulis, 2005 ; Nussbaum, 1986 ; Statman, 1993 ; Williams, 1981 , for more on moral luck). Our vulnerability and interdependence mean that we need the protection of some form of society: the good life is only possible within a good polis , with social arrangements that are just and favorable to flourishing.

However, there are many who find it hard to accept that ethics is so all-encompassing, that there are no right answers to abstracted moral questions and that moral life can be hostage to luck. VE does indeed place a heavy burden on the individual to develop ethical skills rather than obey moral rules, and ethics ends up as central to life rather than a side constraint upon the pursuit of interest. The “action-guiding” objection tends to overestimate the level of agreement within modern traditions on what the morally right action in any given circumstance is, and to underestimate the power of the language of vice to guide us not to be lazy, impatient, unkind, hypocritical, dishonest, and so forth. It is, however, certainly true, and, advocates would contend, absolutely to be preferred, that VE does not proffer responses to moral questions before they have been asked, nor offer shortcuts to moral maturity (see Schneewind, 1991 ; and Swanton, 2003 , chapter 13, for more on indeterminacy). The response to the problem of moral luck is similarly plain: We may wish that life was ordered by a benevolent creator, and our flourishing under our control, but wishing cannot make it so. The good life is precious in part because it is so fragile and our fundamental vulnerability cannot be reasoned away.

Another objection to VE is the biological essentialism that Aristotelian versions of VE tend towards. Aristotle based his ethics on an essentialist vision of human nature. But the nature he ascribed to various humans—women and slaves in particular—we now find to be profoundly objectionable. So how seriously should we take Aristotelian views on the human telos ? It is not essential to be essentialist in VE, and certainly not necessary to follow Aristotle in his views of particular types of human, but some objective standard of the good, however thin, is necessary. Objective here does not have to mean detached and applicable across all space and time, but susceptible to judgment with respect to concrete, embedded practices in particular contexts (across which the notion of human good may be interpreted differently but will not be unintelligible to those outside the practice). Defining the good, whether within practices or more generally, is as contentious as any attempt in modern moral philosophy to define moral rules. And even softening the requirement of objectivity of the good by linking it to practices does not ameliorate the problem: MacIntyre’s work has been rightly criticized by feminist theorists for valorizing misogynist traditions in which the common good is bad for women (Okin, 1989 ; Gutmann, 1985 ).

Linked to the issue of whether there is anything we can know to be true of human beings in terms of their flourishing, are questions about what we can know to be true about human behavior. Virtue-based approaches assume that once a person has developed virtues, these dispositions will be constant and fixed, driving their bearer’s actions even in the most difficult circumstances. Social psychologists argue, in contrast, that behavior is determined more by situational factors than by stable character traits or virtues (Doris, 2002 ). More recent research builds on this situationist critique to argue that even if stable character traits do exist, they are developed not because agents strive to develop them (as virtue ethicists argue), but in response to cultural norms, personal tastes, or self-perception. If this is true, then virtues cannot have the kind of normative status required by virtue ethics—they have no more moral value in driving behavior than a sweet tooth or an appreciation of jazz music (Prinz, 2009 ). These are extremely powerful, and possibly fatal, critiques of virtue ethics, but they rely on answering empirical questions about behavior, about which there is deep disagreement (Sreenivasan, 2013 ). Until the questions have been answered, there remain good reasons to pursue a virtue-based approach, not least if the development of virtues can be shown to help actors resist situational pressures (Merritt, 2000 ).

If virtues do indeed drive behavior, isn’t that behavior self-centered, a kind of “moral grooming and preening” in the words of Jonathan Wolff, because the focus of the moral actor is on her own character and the achievement of her own flourishing rather than on the suffering of others (Woolf, 2003 , p. 121)? Responses to this objection to VE include the observation that a flourishing life is almost certain to include other-regarding virtues such as kindness, friendship, and justice. Thinkers such as Iris Murdoch also show that a focus on the virtues actually helps us to see the “unself,” to “pierce the veil of selfish consciousness and join the world as it really is” (Murdoch, 1985 , p. 91). It is also worth considering, in response to objections of this kind, why we might feel that behaving ethically should not bring us fulfillment and why following our enlightened self-interest (rather than an abstract notion of moral obligation) should not benefit those around us. Kantian philosophy and Christian theology have led us to expect that being good should not feel good, and that pursuing our self-interest is narcissistic, hedonistic, or otherwise vulgar. But rather than leading to societies in which being good is common, this kind of moralizing has led to individualist, alienated Western cultures in which issues that were central to ancient ethical debate: The definition of the good life, how to achieve fulfillment in relationships, how to be a good friend, parent, citizen, and the like (and which have not become any less interesting to us or central to our lives), have been relegated from intellectual debate into the realm of TV talk shows run by self-help gurus, fiction novels, and Hollywood films. The denial of self has resulted in an “extraordinary inarticulacy” about what constitutes our good, which is hard to see as beneficial for anyone (Taylor, 2008 , p. 18).

Finally, and bringing us back to the rejection of the notion of moral obligation that stimulated the development of contemporary virtue ethics, can we really jettison moral rules entirely? Any empirical assessment of practices and contexts will show shared ethical standards or principles within them, suggesting that VE cannot do all of the ethical work in a society. It is hard to imagine a shared ethical life in which there were no principles: we would struggle, quite correctly, to regard someone as courageous for upholding the practice of slavery, and yet that judgment would be based on an ethical principle (the principle of equal concern and respect) rather than whether or not the actor was exhibiting a virtue. It would likely as not also be impractical to build a society in which there were no moral duties, as these can act as shorthand references for how to act virtuously in common situations. Sympathetic critics of VE argue not that rule-based moral theories should trump virtue-based accounts, but rather that the useful insights of virtue ethics are already incorporated into the best deontological approaches (Schneewind, 1991 ; Nussbaum, 1999a ). Onora O’Neill ( 1996a , developed more fully in 1996b ), for instance, argues that virtue ethicists reject Kant too quickly, and that if we reread him, in particular the Metaphysics of Morals ( 1996 ), we are offered a vision of how duty and virtue can combine. However, even if virtue ethicists will admit that principle and duty play some role in ethical life, their position remains fundamentally distinct from that of the deontologist, given their commitment to the view that life cannot be lived well without character, situated reasoning, and some conception of flourishing at its core.

Virtue Ethics and International Politics

As interesting as this approach to ethics is, it is not straightforward to see how it relates to international politics. What implications does the revival of virtue ethics have for the ways that states and people interact across borders? Answering this question is something of a challenge as there is virtually no literature on virtue in IR—no body of work that systematically or otherwise applies the insights of virtue ethics to the international realm. Virtue ethicists have been too little concerned, so far, with ethics beyond borders, and very few international theorists have made any attempt to think through virtue ethics as a specific approach to international problems.

Despite the dearth of publications on virtue ethics and international relations, there is more potential for constructive engagement than might at first sight be expected. The rejection of moral obligation that inspired contemporary VE sheds light on the failings and perverse effects of rules in the international sphere. And there are various ways in which flourishing, character, and virtue appear in IR scholarship—sometimes in a way which explicitly draws upon virtue-based approaches, sometimes more tangentially.

Anscombe’s critiques of “law conceptions” of ethics and Williams’ critiques of the “morality system” highlight particular tensions in contemporary international affairs. The rise of liberalism in IR has led to ethical discourse being dominated by efforts to identify a universal morality in the form of rights that all human beings can legitimately demand from their own states and from foreign states, and by claims about the obligations owed by agents to each other in respect of their rights (Ainley, 2008 ; Gaskarth, 2012 ). A great deal of work has been done to turn these obligations into international law—an unprecedented legalization of international affairs took place post 1945 , to the point where some now argue that a “global constitution” has emerged (Dunoff & Trachtman, 2009 ; McDonald & Johnston, 2005 ). Certainly, we now have a more complex and embedded web of international legislation than ever before. Yet despite the dramatic increase in law concerning human welfare (principally human rights law and laws on conduct in war) during the 20th century , we also saw a steady swell of death and human suffering in conflict, genocide and atrocity. As Geoffrey Robertson notes: “[t]he twentieth century ended much as it began, in a world of small wars and occasional genocides combated by great powers if it suited their national interest” (Robertson, 2006 ). The identification and codification of moral obligations has not, it appears, led to an improvement in human welfare. Despite claims of ethical progress in international politics—most notably the establishment of the International Criminal Court and the development of the Responsibility to Protect, almost nothing has been done to prevent or punish recent atrocities in Darfur, Syria, and elsewhere (Ainley, 2015 ). The existence of treaties and agreements on human rights has done little to avert gross violations of such rights in the United States and the EU, let alone in Syria, Afghanistan, Burundi, China, Central African Republic, Iraq, Libya, Myanmar, Nigeria, Yemen—the list goes on (Amnesty, 2015–2016 ). And one of the most heavily entrenched norms of international relations—the prohibition on torture—was breached extensively by liberal states post 9/11 (Blakeley & Raphael, 2016 ; Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 2014 ). These failures are in large part caused by, in Anscombe’s terms, the lack (and impossibility) of an authoritative legislator, meaning no deep and motivating consensus on the foundations of the international morality system is possible. The quantity of international law in existence belies its lack of secure and authoritative grounds (Gould, 2011 ; Koskenniemi, 2006 ). Without such grounds, law, norms, and rules can offer little constraint on the pursuit of interest by powerful actors (Hopgood, 2013 ).

Even when rules succeed in guiding behavior in international affairs, harm can result. Lang ( 2007a , 2008b ) argue, for instance, that the rule-governed international order did not break down when the United States invaded Iraq in 2003 —the invasion simply exposed the extent to which the current order still relies on coercion, hierarchy, and the violence of enforcement (in this case of UN Security Council resolutions). Critical lawyers agree, arguing that law can be used to legitimize violence rather than restrain it (af Jochnick & Normand, 1994 ) though Brown ( 2003 ) shows that in those instances when the use of force, in the form of humanitarian intervention, might be justified, a reliance on rules can delegitimize violence in the rare circumstances when it might be warranted. Lang also shows that the preoccupation with blame outlined by Williams is apparent in contemporary international relations, with punitive responses to violators of human rights and international law, such as economic sanctions, military intervention and counterterrorism action violating the very standards they are designed to uphold (Lang, 2008a ). And Coker ( 2007 , 2008 ) argues that contemporary culture has denigrated warriors and the idea of a “warrior ethos,” which has led, perversely, to increased brutality in war. He wagers that this is because it is not law, but the warrior ethos, that prevents atrocity in war—the character of soldiers rather than the rules that they are bound by.

The critique of modern moral philosophy which led to the rejuvenation of virtue ethics can shine light on some of the problems faced in international politics. But does virtue ethics itself have anything constructive to offer? One of the few scholars to explicitly apply a virtue approach to IR is Martha Nussbaum ( 1993 , 2000 ), though she is reluctant to label it as such ( 1999 ). While working as a consultant at the World Institute for Development Economics Research, Nussbaum became frustrated with the crude methods used to judge living standards (which tended to measure aggregate welfare, so ignore the specific, unequal conditions of women) and with a development community so nervous of seeming to privilege Western values that it was left without a language with which to criticize harmful practices. In response to this, Nussbaum sought to develop a cross-cultural and essentialist account of human flourishing. Her initial description of flourishing was heavily influenced by Aristotle:

Everyone has some attitude, and corresponding behavior, towards her own death; her bodily appetites and their management; her property and its use; the distribution of social goods; telling the truth; being kind to others; cultivating a sense of play and delight, and so on. No matter where one lives one cannot escape these questions, so long as one is living a human life. (Nussbaum, 1993 , p. 245)

Nussbaum saw in common human attitudes and behavior a baseline from which to critique cultural practices, compare living standards, and build an objective account of flourishing. She fleshed it out (and shifted it significantly towards Rawlsian liberalism) in Woman & Human Development ( 2000 ), in which the main argument is a response to her observation in her earlier work ( 1986 ) on moral luck that much of the suffering in human life that appears to be outside our control is actually preventable by a just political order: a good state or polis . She presented the “philosophical underpinning for an account of basic constitutional principles that should be respected and implemented by governments of all nations, as a bare minimum of what respect for human dignity requires” (Nussbaum, 2000 , p. 5) and produced a list of human “capabilities” (Life; Bodily Health; Bodily Integrity; Senses, Imagination, and Thought; Emotions; Practical Reason; Affiliation; Other Species; Play; Control Over One’s Political and Material Environment) which are objectively valuable from an ethical standpoint (because they contribute to humans being able to live lives “worthy of a human being” Nussbaum, 2000 , p. 73) and as the object of an overlapping consensus or reflective equilibrium among people with divergent conceptions of the good. It is at this point that she lost her connection to Aristotle in favor of Rawls, and began to look increasingly liberal. Her liberalism was also apparent in the move from seeing functioning as more valuable in 1993 to promoting capabilities in 2000 —she argues that it is inappropriate for any particular comprehensive conception of ethical value to be endorsed by politics and therefore did not see the production of virtuous functioning as a legitimate end of the state. She has moved even closer to Rawlsianism in her most recent work ( 2006 ). However, Nussbaum has succeeded in establishing the conditions for a just political order based, at least to some extent, not on human rights or fair procedures, more usually petitioned for by international political theorists, but on human flourishing.

Nussbaum’s work has sparked a great deal of criticism. She claims to be influenced by Aristotle, the Stoics, Kant, early Marx, Rawls, and feminism, and sought to “appropriate the Greeks as allies of an expanded version of Enlightenment liberalism” ( 1986 , p. xvi)—thereby seeming to have committed the sin decried by MacIntyre of treating historically disparate theorists as participants in a single conversation (Nussbaum, 1986 ). Her work is also criticized for its methodology—she gave no method by which overlapping consensus could be generated, so must have assumed that her earlier essentialist position (that there are certain functions particularly central to human life, and something that it is to do these functions in a truly human way) still held true, despite her move towards political liberalism. However, her application of VE to ethics beyond the nation state does serve to highlight the role of the polis in flourishing. She incorporated into her work the contention of virtue ethicists that, because of the centrality of the capability of sociability or affiliation, the good life is to be found in an active engagement in the community, rather than in protection from it. She also suggests that, as flourishing can only take place in a social context, then the state (or some kind of political organization) is necessary to the provision and protection of capabilities, rather than being simply an institution of potential oppression. For those of us introduced to international political theory via the “cosmopolitan–communitarian” debate, this complication of the distinction between universalist and particularist moralities is a welcome development. Virtue approaches reject characteristically cosmopolitan universal moral claims or approaches that purport to be neutral between ideas of the good. However, they do not automatically lead us to the particular or the communitarian. MacIntyre does tend to be categorized as communitarian, but he has explicitly rejected this label and Kelvin Knight and Blackledge ( 2009 ) argues that MacIntyre’s work is strongly opposed to oppressive communities that are part of the dominant order and polluted by the search for power and wealth. Community is not valued for its own sake and in any form within VE, but for its (necessary) contribution to human well-being. Virtue ethics emphasizes universal human characteristics (our rationality, animality, interdependence, sociality, and so on) as well as the ways that these characteristics can only find expression and be protected within (political) communities.

While few IR scholars have taken Nussbaum’s work on virtues forward explicitly (see Brown, 2000a , 2000b , as exceptions) many have revisited ancient Athens to assert the importance of some form of practical wisdom and/or to explore the impact of moral luck in the form of tragedy. After a 50-year-or-so hiatus, realists (of the “neo-classical” variety) returned to the texts of Thucydides (Lebow, 2003 , 2007 ) and Aristotle (Lang, 2007b ), mostly by way of Hans Morgenthau. Morgenthau, heavily influenced by Aristotelian thought, argues that in the prerationalist age there was an appreciation of “the tragic sense of life, the awareness of unresolvable discord, contradictions, and conflicts which are inherent in the nature of things and which human reason is powerless to solve”—an awareness lost in the Age of Science, to the detriment of men and of politics (Morgenthau, 1946 , p. 206). These theorists (see also Brown, 2007 , 2010 ; Gould, 2014 ) share with virtue ethicists the sense that the world is not morally well-ordered or in underlying harmony and that unresolvable discord is best faced by political leaders in possession of the virtue of prudence. While prudence is a translation of phronesis , it is important to note that realist conceptions of prudence tend to diverge significantly from the Aristotelian conception of a virtue used to identify and understand the good in situations, and focus instead on the effective.

To act successfully, that is, according to the rules of the political art, is political wisdom. To know with despair that the political art is inevitably evil, and to act nevertheless, is moral courage. To choose among several expedient actions the least evil one is moral judgment. In combination of political wisdom, moral courage, and moral judgment, man reconciles his political nature with his moral destiny. (Morgenthau, 1945 , p. 11, quoted in Lang, 2007b , p. 29)

Even further from an Aristotelian view, but also emphasizing the importance of politician being able to be exercise good judgment, adapt to context or the “quality of times,” and cope with the accidents or contingencies of political life, is the work of Machiavelli ( 1965 ).

More recently, some significant work on character, drawing directly upon virtue ethics, has been carried out in the field of foreign policy analysis. This work focuses on the virtues exhibited (or not) by individual leaders in practice—in the ways that they make and justify political decisions (Gaskarth, 2011 ). Using MacIntyre to postulate a practice of foreign-policy making within which decision-makers seek particular goods, Gaskarth argues that policy decisions cannot be made only in accordance with rules of international relations. There is significant room, therefore, for decisions to be affected by the character of decision makers—a position he explores with relation to the values (in particular political will, belief, and foresight) espoused by ex-U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair in his justifications of decisions about the 2003 war in Iraq. The values (or virtues) Blair privileged mitigated against the use of other virtues such as self-mastery, reflection, and caution, and led to what is seen by many as a serious (and immoral) policy error in the decision to invade. Gaskarth concludes that a virtue-based approach would view reflection and self-correction, in particular, as essential traits to be developed by foreign-policy decision makers who wish to act ethically. The focus on character in this type of academic work is seen more centrally, though less rigorously, in biographies of political leaders, which almost always make great play of the virtues and vices of the individuals they profile. Finally, more tangential to virtue ethics, but worthy of mention are the theorists who have shown the importance of the identity, or character, of a state to its behavior in international relations (Neumann, 1996 ; Hall, 1999 ; Reus-Smit, 2009 ). Without much mention of the virtue ethics literature, there has nevertheless been a broad range of work within IR, and a more limited range in IPT, concerned either with the critique of rule-based morality offered by virtue ethicists, or with the three characteristics of virtue approaches: flourishing, practical wisdom, and virtue or character.

Potential Contributions of Virtue Ethics to International Political Theory and Practice

The final section of this article outlines some of the possibilities that a more sustained engagement with VE approaches offers to theorists and practitioners of international politics and international law. One of the main difficulties in applying virtue ethics is the lack of a clear bridge from virtue ethics to politics. It is not entirely clear what kind of political system/s would be supported by VE, how political authority and political institutions could be justified with reference to virtue, or how to apply VE to political issues (Lebar, 2013 ). Beyond suggesting that virtuous people have better judgment than the nonvirtuous—hardly in line with contemporary democratic principles—can virtue ethics speak to international politics? Outlined below are moderate and more radical research agendas suggesting that it can.

Gaskarth ( 2012 ) recognizes the importance of rules, norms, and structures in international political practice, but argues to extend the focus of IPT to include analysis and evaluation of the morality of the individuals who create and sustain them. These individuals both interpret their structural and ideational environments and impact upon these environments through their own character traits and moral projects. Following Jackson ( 2000 ), Gaskarth argues that global politics constitutes its own ethics through its practices—an ethics of statescraft—which is underpinned by virtues such as prudence, patriotism, public-spiritedness, forbearance, and toleration (Jackson, 2000 , pp. 21, 139). But Gaskarth believes that for the new solidarism evident in international affairs to flourish, different kinds of virtues will be required. Instead of the more conventional virtues which underpinned an international politics of coexistence or pluralism in the past, Gaskarth argues that virtues of, for instance, tolerance, respect, responsibility, empathy, justice, diligence, and impartiality ( 2012 , p. 444) will be necessary to sustain solidarist projects such as the expansion of international criminal law. Future research is needed to extend his study of the role of virtues in the rhetoric of international statespeople, diplomats, and decision makers within international organizations and nongovernmental organizations, and to test his contention that particular virtues are necessary for the successful operation of international norms ( 2012 , p. 448).

Klabbers ( 2013a , 2013b ) opens up the possibility of a role for virtue ethics in international law—specifically through the concepts of a “culture of formalism” and “constitutionalism as mindset” advocated by Martti Koskenniemi ( 2004 , 2006 ). He argues that Koskeniemmi’s approach to indeterminacy in law is a form of virtue ethics (despite not being acknowledged as such) which entreats us to critically review action by politicians or lawyers by asking more profound questions than simply whether something is right or wrong. Klabbers acknowledges that many international lawyers would feel distinctly uncomfortable at the introduction of virtue ethics to their field, as international law (and law more generally) is founded on the notion that right action can be judged according to its relation to certain rules, rather than by the character of the interpreter of those rules. But Klabbers shows that positive international law already recognizes that certain character traits (integrity, good faith, and so on) are desirable in those who apply law, and thus sees significant potential to develop a substantive idea of a culture of formalism with reference to the kind of virtues it would require. He also sketches what the practice of such a culture in international law and, by extension, international politics might involve: “carefully retelling examples of both virtuous and non-virtuous leadership in global governance . . . [which] might not only draw on real-life events, but . . . could also let itself be inspired by literature and other forms of art” ( 2013b , p. 435). The filling out of this sketch would be a promising next step in the application of virtue ethics to international relations. This would complement work done by, for instance, Williams ( 2005 ), Sen ( 2009 ), and Frost ( 2009 ) on the role of engagement in and reflection upon our own histories and politics, on situated public reasoning, and on the development of “ethical competence” to produce better political decisions than result from abstract reasoning or rules.

These approaches have in common (along with attempts in IPT to list the virtues that might be necessary to be a good cosmopolitan, e.g., Appiah, 2006 ; van Hooft, 2007 ) an acceptance, by and large, of the rules of the game in international politics. They use virtue ethics to advocate reform, but not revolution. But other, more radical, applications of VE suggest a different route. Work on virtue in conflict calls into question the laws and norms of “just war” (Chan, 2012 ; Davis, 1992 ), arguing that legalist approaches to war and peace (exemplified by Walzer, 1977 ) close down space for ethical argument just as it should be opened up. Walzer’s reliance on the primacy of rules to restrain war, but lack of foundation for those rules (beyond a general claim about individual rights) and acceptance that the rules can be set aside in times of “supreme emergency,” leaves us with little scope for ethical consideration of killing and war. In contrast, Davis challenges any notion of necessity in war and starts to think through the implications of a virtue-based approach for war-fighting. Rengger ( 2002 ) makes broader points about the need for a return to casuistry and judgment in favor of rules, when lamenting the legalization of the just war tradition and its change from being a discourse concerning statecraft, the purposes of political community, and the ethical character of action, to a discourse limited to the morally tawdry and illiberal business of determining how much and what kinds of violence might be justified to achieve one’s ends. There is much scope for further research on the ways in which judgment and case-based reasoning can be used in place of rules to guide actors in international politics faced with decisions about whether and how to fight.

More revolutionary still, MacIntyre ( 2004 , 2009 ) offers a profound critique of contemporary politics (domestic and international) which suggests significant changes are necessary to effect real ethical change. He sees politics as too often perverted in order to gain goods external to the practice (goods of effectiveness such as power or status), in fragmented societies with no shared aims or sense of the collective. He advocates not just a discussion of which virtues might improve public life or legal or political decision-making, but the development of a shared idea of the good through a practice of politics that aims at internal goods, such as behaving with justice, generosity, honesty, and integrity. The implications of his approach are weighty, including the casting aside of modern systematic politics, on the basis that “modern politics itself expresses in its institutional forms a systematic rejection of [the] tradition [of the virtues]” ( 2004 , p. 255). The recognition here that structures can prevent particular kinds of ethical behavior is important—and should be factored into analyses, including those from a VE perspective, which suggest that harm in world politics can best be ameliorated by concentrating on the actions or characteristics of individuals (Ainley, 2011 ; Hoover, 2012 ). MacIntyre is not an obvious resource for international political theorists—he does not believe that the common good can be established at the level of the nation-state, let alone at the global level. But even if we do not retreat with him into village idylls small enough to allow for “shared deliberation [and] shared critical enquiry concerning that deliberation and the way of life of which it is a part” ( 1999 , p. 161), research on the implications of the internal and external goods available through particular international political practices would be enlightening. Hoover ( 2016 ) does some of this work, building on Dewey and Connolly to demonstrate the potential of the virtues of agonistic respect and critical responsiveness to build an emancipatory politics of human rights. In a world of populist politics, increasingly divided (at least in the West) about values (Drum, 2016 ; Lord Ashcroft Polls, 2016 ), MacIntyre’s and Hoover’s invocations to use politics not just to gain power but to construct a wider good are critical additions to contemporary critique.

Virtue ethics offers resources to enrich ethical debate within and across communities, practices and ethical positions, and the central concepts of virtue-based approaches (virtue, practical wisdom, and flourishing), along with the critique of rule-based approaches to morality which inspired the recent revival of virtue ethics within moral philosophy, resonate with existing IR scholarship in ways which suggest more attention is due.

Links to Digital Materials

Excellent extended introductions to major ethical positions and thinkers, including substantial bibliographies, are available in online searchable encyclopedias of philosophy, for instance:

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Aristotle and Virtue Ethics

Explore the importance, advantages, application, and other aspects of virtue ethics theory with the help of our reflective essay sample! Get some ideas for your virtue ethics essay!

Virtue Ethics: Essay Introduction

The good girl movie, aristotle virtue ethics theory, application of the theory, personal reflection, virtue ethics: essay conclusion, works cited.

Aristotle holds that virtues originate from actions that human beings perform because one can either be a good or bad person based on actions. In his ethics, Aristotle asserts that whatever activities human beings do ultimately lead to a good or a bad end. Desire and passion compel human beings to pursue certain activities so that they can achieve certain ends, which determine virtue. If there were no desired ends, human beings would pursue activities in vain.

Human beings seek to achieve legitimate ends so that they can obtain happiness in life. Aristotle argues that human actions determine virtues that one achieves and subsequently influence happiness1. For example, a marriage partner who has experienced an unhappy marriage will struggle extremely hard to achieve a happy life out there with friends. Therefore, how does Aristotle’s virtue theory apply to The Good Girl movie?

The movie shows the story of a young woman, Justine, who is so troubled in her marriage because she has no children. Justine is 30 years old and has been unable to conceive because her husband, Phil, is impotent, according to the diagnosis of a doctor. Phil is sterile because he has continually abused drugs, which has permanently made him unable to make his wife conceive. Troubled by dying marriage, Justine planned to seek a man who would make her happy in life by giving her a baby.

Luckily, Justine found a young man aged 22, Holden, who was particularly attractive and mysterious2. From then, Justine and Holden continued with their secret love affair until when her workmates and friends discovered it. Discovery of their secret affair put Justine in a dilemma, as she was already pregnant and did not know what to tell Phil. Justine wanted to save her marriage and, at the same time, keep the baby by marrying Holden. However, Justine and Phil reconciled and lived happily after that with their daughter.

According to Aristotle’s ethical theory, virtues result from human actions, for the perception of the moral character of a person emanates from various activities. Human actions and activities aim at attaining excellence, which is a virtue in every aspect of life. According to Aristotle, every art and pursuit aims at attaining the good, which is a virtue that all human beings cherish3. Synchronized actions focus on achieving one objective or more objectives as ends of excellence.

The difference between plants or animals and human being is a rational principle. The rational principle gives human beings the ability to think and act. Through thoughts, a human being can coordinate actions that determine ethics because actions describe ethics. For instance, ’a good player’ and ’a bad player,’ in this case, good and bad, are descriptions of the action of playing, and they portray the virtues of players.

Actions are imperative in achieving virtues since no one can have virtues by a mere theoretical understanding of what ethics are. Thus, due to diversity and degree of actions, it is extraordinarily complicated to attribute certain actions to specified virtues, making ethics subjective.

The ethics theory further asserts that there are two types of virtues, moral and intellectual virtues; moral virtues emanate from habits, while intellectual virtue is an innate characteristic that undergoes a transformation in the course of life due to teaching and experience. Nature gives primary moral virtues, and through perfection by habitual activities, one attains given moral virtues. Since habituation is a process of achieving ethics for one to be excellent in a certain field, one should continually learn and exercise.

For example, one becomes a runner by running; likewise, people become good when they do good and bad by doing bad things. The emphasis here is that actions have a direct relation with virtues, for virtues cannot occur without actions.

Then, what actions are responsible for certain virtues? Confusingly, the same action produces both a virtue and vice. For instance, in playing as an action, we have both good and bad players. Aristotle argues that virtues exist in a continuum of excess and deficiency of actions, and thus, virtue occurs as an intermediate4. It, therefore, shows that deficiency or excess of action results in vices while intermediate actions give virtues.

Given that Aristotle’s ethics theory postulates that human actions determine their virtues, The Good Girl movie portrays a scenario where Justine’s actions led her to achieve happiness. For many years, Justine had been in a troubled marriage that was gradually dying since Phil was unable to make her conceive. In pursuit of happiness, Justine thought of the best way of achieving happiness amidst the daunting challenges of her marriage that seemed not to end unless she did something about them.

According to Aristotle, actions form the basis of virtue, for they determine goodness or badness as unique ends of actions, but since human beings aim at achieving a good end, happiness is then an end of actions5. Thus, Justine was struggling to achieve happiness in her marriage and life, as well.

The movie has termed her a ‘good’ girl because she thought of the best way of conceiving a baby so that she could achieve happiness in marriage and life. In her troubles, Justine had three options: to tolerate the hard life of marriage, to divorce her husband, or to conceive through a love affair. Relating to Aristotle’s ethical theory, deficiency and excess of action cause a vice that leads to an unhappy life.

Thus, the option of tolerating fruitless marriage life would have been a deficient action, while the option of divorce would have been an excessive action. Hence, the option of conceiving through a love affair, because her husband was sterile, enabled her to have a girl child who made their marriage happy again after reconciliation. Aristotle argues that intermediate passions and actions are the recipes to virtues that lead to happiness6. Therefore, Justine obtained happiness through intermediate passions and actions.

Aristotle’s ethical theory effectively describes how virtues occur in society. The assertion that human actions and passions aim at achieving good is a complex concept that needs elaboration since some actions ultimately lead to vice, no matter their moderation. For instance, an action such as killing has no moderation and hence lacks virtue. Moreover, since human actions are diverse, it is difficult to classify virtues according to diverse actions because it would lead to ambiguity.

Therefore, if actions only determine moral virtues according to Aristotle’s ethics theory, there could be indefinite virtues in society, proving that ethics are not only complex but also subjective. Assertions like human actions determine virtues pose a serious threat to ethical theories because it demands continued teaching of morality. If human moral values constantly change due to the influence of actions, then it is a daunting task to control moral virtues.

Regarding Aristotle concept of moderation, it is quite evident that intermediate actions yield virtues while extreme actions cause vices. The concept is particularly valuable as it shows that the moderation of human actions plays a significant role in shaping one’s morality through habituation.

In the case study of The Good Girl movie, Justine was able to moderate her actions so that she could achieve happiness in life, and she eventually became a ‘good’ girl. Thus, deficiency and excess of action cause vice, while an intermediate of an action results in virtue and happiness.

Since humans do not have stable character traits, ethical theories provide the basis for the understanding of moral virtues, but achieving the virtues demands actions. Knowing what actions give certain moral virtues enables one to pursue morality by habitually exercising them. As in the case of Justine in The Good Girl movie, one needs to know that excesses or deficiencies of actions will result in vices, and moderation of actions is vital in achieving desired virtues.

Pleasures and pains accompany the pursuit of actions because excessive pleasures result in overindulgence, which is a vice, while too much pain results in serious fear, which is also a vice. Hence, moderation of actions enables one to achieve moral virtues, though it is hard to determine what the actions are and the extent of exercising them.

Ross, William. Nicomachean Ethics: Aristotle . Kitchener: Batoche Books, 1999.

Weschler, Raymond. “The Good Girl.” Drama and Comedy , 2002: 1-23.

1 William Ross. Nicomachean Ethics: Aristotle . Kitchener: Batoche Books, 1999, 14

2, Raymond Weschler. “The Good Girl.” Drama and Comedy , 2002: 1.

3 William Ross. Nicomachean Ethics: Aristotle . Kitchener: Batoche Books, 1999.

4 William Ross. (1999): 28

5 William Ross. (1999): 10

6 William Ross. (1999): 31

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A Level Philosophy & Religious Studies

Applied ethics

AQA Philosophy Moral Philosophy

Applied ethics questions

You need to be ready to answer:

5 or 12 mark questions  

Explanation of theory Y on applied ethics topic X.

You need to know how each of Utilitarianism, Deontology, Virtue ethics and Meta-ethical theories apply to each of the applied ethics topics: stealing, deception & the telling of lies, eating animals & simulated killing.

25 mark essay questions

For 25 mark questions on applied ethics you additionally need to be able to evaluate the judgement made on the applied ethics topics by normative/meta-ethical theories.

The question could be whether applied ethics topic X is right/wrong.

Your answer/conclusion could be:

• It is right/wrong to X
• It is not right/wrong to X
• It is sometimes right/wrong to X

Different answers/conclusions such as these will be those given by the normative/meta-ethics theories.

For example, if the question is whether stealing is wrong, Kantian deontologists would answer affirmatively that stealing is wrong.

Utilitarians would answer that it is sometimes wrong to steal.

Anti-realist meta-ethical theories

Error theory would say that all ethical statements are false. So, if the question is whether stealing is wrong, an error theorist would say no, because the statement ‘stealing is wrong’ is false. This doesn’t mean stealing is right though, that would equally be false.

Non-cognitive theories like emotivism would regard all ethical questions as meaningless expressions of emotion.

Unless the question specifies a particular normative/meta-ethical theory, it is up to you which and how many to include.

Evaluation in 25-mark questions

Once you have explained what answer to the question a normative/meta-ethical theory would give and why, the next step is to evaluate that answer.

There is no need to learn special criticisms or objections. The issues you already need to know for normative & meta-ethics work well enough.

You will have explained what answer a theory gives to the question. If you evaluate the theory, you therefore evaluate its answer to the question.

Bringing in issues can sometimes be directly related (most easily through illustration) and sometimes not.

If the question is whether stealing is wrong, Utilitarianism would say that it is sometimes wrong.

Example of an issue being used to directly relate to the applied ethics topic:

Issues with calculation can be brought in. It is difficult to predict the future, including the future consequences that could arise from stealing.

Example of an issue being used to indirectly relate to the applied ethics topic:

Nozick’s experience machine issue can be used. It attempts to undermine the foundational premise of hedonistic Utilitarianism, that happiness/pleasure is our sole ultimate desire. If that premise is false, then Utilitarianism is false. In that case, the judgement Utilitarianism made about stealing is false.

This issue can’t be made or illustrated to have anything to do with the applied ethics topic, but it nonetheless helps us to evaluate the answer to the applied ethics question that Utilitarianism provided.

Utilitarianism on stealing

Evaluation of Utilitarianism on stealing

Kantian ethics on stealing

Evaluation of Kantian ethics on stealing

Virtue ethics on stealing

Evaluation of Virtue ethics on stealing

Meta-ethics on stealing

Evaluation of Meta-ethics on stealing

Simulated killing 

(within computer games, plays, films etc)

Utilitarianism on simulated killing

Evaluation of Utilitarianism simulated killing

Kantian ethics on simulated killing

Evaluation of Kantian ethics on simulated killing

Virtue ethics on simulated killing

Evaluation of Virtue ethics on simulated killing

Meta-ethics on simulated killing

Evaluation of Meta-ethics on simulated killing

Eating animals

Utilitarianism on eating animals

Evaluation of Utilitarianism on eating animals

Kantian ethics on eating animals

Evaluation of Kantian ethics on eating animals

Virtue ethics on eating animals

Evaluation of Virtue ethics on eating animals

Meta-ethics on eating animals

Evaluation of Meta-ethics on eating animals

Deception & telling lies

Utilitarianism on deception & telling lies

Evaluation of Utilitarianism on deception & telling lies

Kantian ethics on deception & telling lies

Evaluation of Kantian ethics on deception & telling lies

Virtue ethics on deception & telling lies

Evaluation of Virtue ethics on deception & telling lies

Meta-ethics on deception & telling lies

Evaluation of Meta-ethics on deception & telling lies

The ethics of eating monsters

From "star wars" and cannibal films to "delicious in dungeon," what – and who – we eat prompts navel-gazing, by michael lee.

His hair was a mess of seaweed, the straggly green strands bobbing up and down on the surface of the water. His expressionless face looking skyward, drained of its life. How he died, they didn’t know. How long he’d been there, they couldn’t tell. He wasn’t exactly human, but some of his features were at least human-like. The party needed sustenance, but looking at this poor creature, floating lifeless in the water, they wondered: “Could we eat him?”

"Delicious in Dungeon" is an anime about food. It is an anime about food and all that food represents as part of human culture. Flavors that excite. Memories recalled by the sensation of taste. The aesthetics of a well-plated entree. The sociology of eating a meal together. Love. And even the ethical considerations we make in our consumption.

It’s that last point that really sets "Delicious in Dungeon" apart from so much of the media on food out there in the cultural zeitgeist. 

Star Wars, throughout its history, has included scenes that allude to an ethics of consumption in its galaxy far, far away. But strangely, these scenes rarely include a confrontation of the ethics (or lack thereof) they depict; rather often these scenes are merely played for laughs. In "The Last Jedi,"  Chewbacca eats a roast Porg in front of a group of Porgs. The adorable creatures look up with their saucer-sized eyes as one of their own is about to be consumed by the Wookiee. Some of the comments on the YouTube video of this scene talk about how funny it is, which is a fair read as it is played in a humorous manner – even as it depicts something horrific for the Porgs, who clearly are sentient beings. Chewbacca shoos the Porgs away so he can eat in peace.

Star Wars, throughout its history, has included scenes that allude to an ethics of consumption in its galaxy far, far away.

Meanwhile, on "The Mandalorian,"  a Kowakian monkey lizard is seen roasting on a spit as the camera slowly pans down to show us another of the monkey lizards in a cage watching his friend slowly roasting over the open flame. He looks distressed, but his horror feels like it’s also being played up as comedy. While these animals have previously been depicted as a nuisance (you may recall Jabba the Hutt's cackling pet Salacious B. Crumb), a scene later on in the series shows the monkey lizards to be quite helpful, warning Mando of an ambush . At what point does an animal go from being simply food, to having a level of intelligence that might make us think twice about whether people in this world should be eating them? 

Unfortunately, Star Wars never really interrogates the ethics of eating. Then again, it isn’t often that the ethics of eating are ever considered in fiction, which is why "Delicious in Dungeon" is such a standout series. Among the many things it does right is it gets us thinking, really thinking, about our relationship to food.

When we write about food, so often it is experiential. It’s understandable, as consuming food is sensory. Food ingrains itself into our brains, into our memories, into our soul so much so that we can’t help but enter a confessional mode of speaking when we talk about it. Food has a strange intimacy to it that allows for such emotional response. But writing on food also speaks to the solipsism of our cultural times , where we place more value in something as an experience and are insistent on including ourselves in our writing. We get absorbed in our own navel gazing. Our relation to food, and the way we talk about it, becomes limited to the personal. Our connection to food is between us and the plate in front of us.

It’s also a sign that we live in outrageous excess that we can wax poetic about an ice cream sandwich the way that only King Louis XV could talk of his love for coffee or bouchée à la reine. Don’t ask an 18th century French peasant how their bread was that day. They’re not performing a monologue and giving that s**t five stars. They’re just happy to have food on the table. We’d rather write about how a heavenly bowl of ramen transformed us rather than grapple with the ethics of what went into the bowl itself. Don’t tell me about the little piggy that sacrificed itself to become chashu for my tummy. 

“ To exist the body needs to take in corpses, things torn up by the roots, ripped out of their natural environment . . . This is the tragedy of eating. Eating always implies sacrificing something, eating must always have a victim, and there is always something or someone who has to die when others eat. ”

–Danish Author Christian Coff

We think very little about where our food comes from. We often don’t want to think of the barbarism of the act, which is why slaughterhouses and factory farms are often located out in the middle of nowhere. Out of sight, out of mind. We may be vaguely aware of modern animal husbandry practices, some of us may have even read "Omnivore's Dilemma" author Michael Pollan ’s seminal 2002 essay " Power Steer ," but what do we really know about the animals that end up on our plate? The truth is we don’t want to know. Our heroes in "Delicious in Dungeon" have no such luxury of distance to shield themselves as the immediacy of the next meal requires them to be involved in the entirety of the food process. By centering food in this way, the series opens up discourse on how, in fact, our lives revolve around food, and challenges some of our thinking on food consumption.

It’s a delicate balance, between the aesthetic and the ethical. The sensation of taste and the pleasure food brings versus the maintaining of a sense of rightness in how we pursue these pleasures. "Delicious in Dungeon" makes attempts to examine this balance through the viewpoints of the main party members. Senshi, a Dwarf and the party’s cook, advocates for a kind of utilitarian conservation. Respecting the balance of nature and taking only what one needs. His concern lies with maintaining the ecosystem of the dungeon. Senshi doesn’t kill for the thrill of the hunt or take more than the party needs to survive. But he does concede that something needs to be sacrificed so the party can eat. Which is why he believes that one must enjoy the meals made from the monsters in the dungeon. To turn one’s nose up at a dish would be disrespectful to the animal that was sacrificed. 

It’s a delicate balance, between the aesthetic and the ethical.

Such is the case with the merfolk that Laios wants to eat. The compromise reached between Chilchuck and Laios is that Laios can use the merfolk’s seaweed hair in a dish, but he also sneaks in some of the merfolk’s eggs, which in the lore of "Delicious in Dungeon" are kept in the hair to protect them from predators. When Marcille notices little pops of flavor, Senshi muses that they must be fish eggs, to which Marcille responds, “They’re delicious!” 

This gets at one of Korsmeyer’s points on the nature of taste sensation: “If one finds a food delicious, then one tacitly recognizes it as good to eat — that is, as nontransgressively edible, in a permissible food category.” Marcille’s reticence towards eating monsters is overridden by her lack of knowledge (or willful ignorance) of a food item’s origin and by the taste being delicious. We do this in the real world too – turning a blind eye to a food’s production when it tastes good. We’re quick to put something into the nontransgressive category simply because we like it. Foie gras anyone?

Human flesh might be the only true universal taboo, but there are a number of foods that for religious or cultural reasons are off limits. To consume them would be to consume something that is transgressively edible, deliberately in opposition to societal norms. In Hinduism, the cow symbolizes a life of nonviolent generosity and has been venerated for millennia as an "unslayable" animal. The pig is considered haram (forbidden) in Muslim cultures. But there are also taboos not based in faith, where a food consumed in one place is frowned upon in another. For example horse meat is consumed in a number of countries in Europe and Asia, but the UK, United States, Canada, Greece and others consider it taboo. Often it is the relationship to a certain animal that can make the consumption of that animal’s flesh a transgressive act. In the world of "Delicious in Dungeon," transgression occurs when someone is willing to take a bite out of a demi-human.  

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It’s here that we get into the way culture and norms shape what foods we see as taboo. From Chilchuck’s perspective, a demi-human has too much in common with a human to be eaten. He notes that the merfolk Laios wants to eat holds a trident as a weapon, making the conclusion that merfolk are smart enough to use tools. He also sees human-like features in the shape of the merfolk’s hands. Laios quickly retorts that humans actually have more DNA in common with the cows and pigs they eat every day and that merfolk are nothing like humans at all.

Erin McKenna, in her essay “Eating Apes, Eating Cows,” examines how different cultural narratives inform eating decisions and what we consider to be off limits. For Americans, the idea of eating a chimpanzee would be an unthinkable taboo. We are “fascinated with accounts of the intelligence and emotional lives of animal beings such as chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans, but there is still a general disbelief when it comes to accounts of intelligence and emotions of animal beings we generally consider livestock.” We suppress any feelings or beliefs that contradict this, by denying that cows and pigs have intelligence and are emotional beings, in order to justify eating them because we think they’re tasty. Despite the thousands of years of cattle domesticity and that connection through history, our relationship to cows is now one of complete dominance, we force dairy cows to produce ten times their natural amount of milk they would produce when raising a calf, which means that a dairy cow now only lives an average of six years, compared to a normal lifespan of 15-20 years. These animals live sad lives for our sake.

Laios’ approach to life in the dungeon is to eat everything he comes across. He is fanatical about monsters; their physiology, their behaviors and, perhaps most importantly to him, their taste. He is compelled by his consumption, which gives him an almost inhuman aura, yet what appears to be a complete lack of any ethics might be a philosophy in itself. Back to Christian Coff again, who states, “Living beings, including the human being, must eat to stay alive: what is eaten is the world. The need for nourishment forces organisms to open up to the outside world and to develop senses orientated towards the outer world.” Hunger makes one reach out into the world and gain understanding through this opening up to it. We often say that someone is “hungry for knowledge” and here we have Laios who seems to be taking the idiom literally and expanding his world through the act of eating. 

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And if we reframe Laios’ hard-headed approach to eating anything and everything as wholly indiscriminate in this manner, tying it into the idea that we are all, equally, part of a circle of life, that we eat or are eaten , his philosophy is perhaps most in tune with the dungeon that sits at the center of "Delicious in Dungeon." He respects all living creatures equally, but with that, his moral stance is that they are all food, only because they would also make food of him should they be given the chance. The dungeon is the alpha and the omega, it is life and death, for every creature to be found there. After all, it's his sister who was swallowed (but not yet digested!) by a red dragon that has prompted Laios' ongoing quest to save her before it's too late. Is it wrong if he enjoys a few meals along the way?

"Delicious in Dungeon" is an anime about food. It is an anime about food and all that food represents as part of human culture. We will all, one day, become food in some form. Buried in the ground, returned to the soil from which grass will grow and be grazed upon by animals that will end up on a dinner plate somewhere. Eat or be eaten, there is no escaping it. 

"Delicious in Dungeon" is streaming on Netflix.

about food narratives on TV

• Jell-O, nostalgia and Nuka-Cola: The subtle genius of the food of "Fallout"
• "The Bear" showed us how easy it is to care for people, three eggs at a time
• How the creators of HBO Max's "Julia" painstakingly recreated The French Chef's kitchen
• The real star of FX's "The Bear"? San Marzano tomatoes

Michael Lee is a writer who might take anime and video games a little too seriously. For more musings on animation, fandom and game worlds, follow him on X @kousatender .

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Guest Essay

I Thought the Bragg Case Against Trump Was a Legal Embarrassment. Now I Think It’s a Historic Mistake.

By Jed Handelsman Shugerman

Mr. Shugerman is a law professor at Boston University.

About a year ago, when Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, indicted former President Donald Trump, I was critical of the case and called it an embarrassment. I thought an array of legal problems would and should lead to long delays in federal courts.

After listening to Monday’s opening statement by prosecutors, I still think the district attorney has made a historic mistake. Their vague allegation about “a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election” has me more concerned than ever about their unprecedented use of state law and their persistent avoidance of specifying an election crime or a valid theory of fraud.

To recap: Mr. Trump is accused in the case of falsifying business records. Those are misdemeanor charges. To elevate it to a criminal case, Mr. Bragg and his team have pointed to potential violations of federal election law and state tax fraud. They also cite state election law, but state statutory definitions of “public office” seem to limit those statutes to state and local races.

Both the misdemeanor and felony charges require that the defendant made the false record with “intent to defraud.” A year ago, I wondered how entirely internal business records (the daily ledger, pay stubs and invoices) could be the basis of any fraud if they are not shared with anyone outside the business. I suggested that the real fraud was Mr. Trump’s filing an (allegedly) false report to the Federal Election Commission, and that only federal prosecutors had jurisdiction over that filing.

A recent conversation with Jeffrey Cohen, a friend, Boston College law professor and former prosecutor, made me think that the case could turn out to be more legitimate than I had originally thought. The reason has to do with those allegedly falsified business records: Most of them were entered in early 2017, generally before Mr. Trump filed his Federal Election Commission report that summer. Mr. Trump may have foreseen an investigation into his campaign, leading to its financial records. He may have falsely recorded these internal records before the F.E.C. filing as consciously part of the same fraud: to create a consistent paper trail and to hide intent to violate federal election laws, or defraud the F.E.C.

In short: It’s not the crime; it’s the cover-up.

Looking at the case in this way might address concerns about state jurisdiction. In this scenario, Mr. Trump arguably intended to deceive state investigators, too. State investigators could find these inconsistencies and alert federal agencies. Prosecutors could argue that New York State agencies have an interest in detecting conspiracies to defraud federal entities; they might also have a plausible answer to significant questions about whether New York State has jurisdiction or whether this stretch of a state business filing law is pre-empted by federal law.

However, this explanation is a novel interpretation with many significant legal problems. And none of the Manhattan district attorney’s filings or today’s opening statement even hint at this approach.

Instead of a theory of defrauding state regulators, Mr. Bragg has adopted a weak theory of “election interference,” and Justice Juan Merchan described the case , in his summary of it during jury selection, as an allegation of falsifying business records “to conceal an agreement with others to unlawfully influence the 2016 election.”

As a reality check: It is legal for a candidate to pay for a nondisclosure agreement. Hush money is unseemly, but it is legal. The election law scholar Richard Hasen rightly observed , “Calling it election interference actually cheapens the term and undermines the deadly serious charges in the real election interference cases.”

In Monday’s opening argument, the prosecutor Matthew Colangelo still evaded specifics about what was illegal about influencing an election, but then he claimed , “It was election fraud, pure and simple.” None of the relevant state or federal statutes refer to filing violations as fraud. Calling it “election fraud” is a legal and strategic mistake, exaggerating the case and setting up the jury with high expectations that the prosecutors cannot meet.

The most accurate description of this criminal case is a federal campaign finance filing violation. Without a federal violation (which the state election statute is tethered to), Mr. Bragg cannot upgrade the misdemeanor counts into felonies. Moreover, it is unclear how this case would even fulfill the misdemeanor requirement of “intent to defraud” without the federal crime.

In stretching jurisdiction and trying a federal crime in state court, the Manhattan district attorney is now pushing untested legal interpretations and applications. I see three red flags raising concerns about selective prosecution upon appeal.

First, I could find no previous case of any state prosecutor relying on the Federal Election Campaign Act either as a direct crime or a predicate crime. Whether state prosecutors have avoided doing so as a matter of law, norms or lack of expertise, this novel attempt is a sign of overreach.

Second, Mr. Trump’s lawyers argued that the New York statute requires that the predicate (underlying) crime must also be a New York crime, not a crime in another jurisdiction. The district attorney responded with judicial precedents only about other criminal statutes, not the statute in this case. In the end, the prosecutors could not cite a single judicial interpretation of this particular statute supporting their use of the statute (a plea deal and a single jury instruction do not count).

Third, no New York precedent has allowed an interpretation of defrauding the general public. Legal experts have noted that such a broad “election interference” theory is unprecedented, and a conviction based on it may not survive a state appeal.

Mr. Trump’s legal team also undercut itself for its decisions in the past year: His lawyers essentially put all of their eggs in the meritless basket of seeking to move the trial to federal court, instead of seeking a federal injunction to stop the trial entirely. If they had raised the issues of selective or vindictive prosecution and a mix of jurisdictional, pre-emption and constitutional claims, they could have delayed the trial past Election Day, even if they lost at each federal stage.

Another reason a federal crime has wound up in state court is that President Biden’s Justice Department bent over backward not to reopen this valid case or appoint a special counsel. Mr. Trump has tried to blame Mr. Biden for this prosecution as the real “election interference.” The Biden administration’s extra restraint belies this allegation and deserves more credit.

Eight years after the alleged crime itself, it is reasonable to ask if this is more about Manhattan politics than New York law. This case should serve as a cautionary tale about broader prosecutorial abuses in America — and promote bipartisan reforms of our partisan prosecutorial system.

Nevertheless, prosecutors should have some latitude to develop their case during trial, and maybe they will be more careful and precise about the underlying crime, fraud and the jurisdictional questions. Mr. Trump has received sufficient notice of the charges, and he can raise his arguments on appeal. One important principle of “ our Federalism ,” in the Supreme Court’s terms, is abstention , that federal courts should generally allow state trials to proceed first and wait to hear challenges later.

This case is still an embarrassment, in terms of prosecutorial ethics and apparent selectivity. Nevertheless, each side should have its day in court. If convicted, Mr. Trump can fight many other days — and perhaps win — in appellate courts. But if Monday’s opening is a preview of exaggerated allegations, imprecise legal theories and persistently unaddressed problems, the prosecutors might not win a conviction at all.

Jed Handelsman Shugerman (@jedshug) is a law professor at Boston University.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

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