Among moral attributes true virtue alone is sublime. … [I]t is only by means of this idea [of virtue] that any judgment as to moral worth or its opposite is possible. … Everything good that is not based on a morally good disposition … is nothing but pretence and glittering misery. 1.

The author presents and defends three theses: (1) "the first is that it is not profitable for us at present to do moral philosophy; that should be laid aside at any rate until we have an adequate philosophy of psychology." (2) "the second is that the concepts of obligation, And 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...." (3) "the third thesis is that (...) the differences between the well-Known english writers on moral philosophy from sidgwick to the present day are of little importance." (staff). (shrink)

Aristotle believes that an agent lacks virtue unless she enjoys the performance of virtuous actions, while Kant claims that the person who does her duty despite contrary inclinations exhibits a moral worth that the person who acts from inclination lacks. Despite these differences, this chapter argues that Aristotle and Kant share a distinctive view of the object of human choice and locus of moral value: that what we choose, and what has moral value, are not mere acts, but actions: acts (...) done for the sake of ends. Morally good actions embody a kind of intrinsic value that inspires us to do them from duty (in Kant) or for the sake of the noble (in Aristotle). The chapter traces the difference in their attitudes about doing one's duty with pleasure to a difference in their attitudes towards pleasure itself: Aristotle sees it as a perception of the good, while Kant thinks of it as mere feeling. (shrink)

Morals from Motives develops a virtue ethics inspired more by Hume and Hutcheson's moral sentimentalism than by recently-influential Aristotelianism. It argues that a reconfigured and expanded "morality of caring" can offer a general account of right and wrong action as well as social justice. Expanding the frontiers of ethics, it goes on to show how a motive-based "pure" virtue theory can also help us to understand the nature of human well-being and practical reason.

Agent-based virtue ethics has a long history, but is in a minority position in present-day virtue ethics. It holds that right and wrong action can be fully understood in terms of agential character traits and/or motives. Agent-basing can occur in a Nietzschean version or a moral sentimentalist version, but the latter is more promising because Nietzsche ignores the basic human tendency toward sympathy with others. An agent-based virtue ethics in the sentimentalist mode takes empathy as its central analytic tool and (...) seeks to show that empathy can provide the basis for understanding respect for others, social justice, reasons for action, and even deontology. It is superior to utilitarianism because it can account for our considered moral judgments much more adequately than utilitarianism can. It is superior to Aristotelianism because even recent Aristotelians haven’t been able to theorize the important notion of respect for others. It is superior to Kantianism because it can handle problematic political-legal cases in a more intuitive way than the latter can. Moreover, a modernized sentimentalism can provide for full moral objectivity using the idea of reference fixing. (shrink)

Rosalind Hursthouse has written an excellent book, in which she develops a neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics that she sees as avoiding some of the major criticisms leveled against virtue ethics in general, and against Aristotle's brand of virtue ethics in particular.

Duty and virtue are no longer the common coin of daily conversation. Both terms strike many of us as old-fashioned and heavy handed. Yet we incessantly talk about what ought and ought not to be done, and about the sorts of persons we admire or despise. As soon as we talk in these ways we discuss topics traditionally dealt with under the headings of duty and of virtue. If we no longer use these terms, it may be because we associate (...) them with heavily moralistic approaches to life, with obsolete codes and ideals, with ‘Victorian’ values and attitudes, rather than because the concerns our predecessors discussed in these terms have vanished from our lives. (shrink)