Virtue ethics emphasizes the importance of an individual's character and virtues in determining what constitutes a good person, focusing on qualities like temperance, courage, wisdom, and justice. Plato and Aristotle are central figures in this philosophy, stressing that happiness (eudaimonia) stems from virtuous living and the development of both moral and intellectual virtues. While virtue ethics offers a motivational approach to morality and emphasizes education and role models, it also faces challenges, such as the lack of concrete guidance in crisis situations and the difficulty in uniformly defining what makes an action virtuous.

1. Virtue
Ethics

2. Virtue Ethics
• Virtue ethics states that what makes a good person is based on their
qualities or virtues
• A virtue is a habitual and firm disposition to do the good. It allows
the person not only to perform good acts, but to give the best of himself
• Virtue = the quality of doing what is right and avoiding what is
wrong
• What types of things could be classified as virtues?
− Patience? Kindness? Humility?
• It is agent centred morality rather than act centred – asks “what sort of
person ought I to be?”
• Agent centred = focus on the duties and obligations of the person;
each person may have different duties/obligations (it is relative
according to Virtue Ethics)
Question: Who is to say what a “good” person is, or what virtues are
universal? Do we have an objective standard?

3. Plato
• Maintains a virtue-based conception of ethics. That is to say,
happiness or well-being (eudaimonia) is the highest aim of moral
thought and conduct, and the virtues are the requisite skills and
dispositions needed to attain it.
• Focused on “the good life”
• “The unexamined life is not worth living for a human being.”
(Apology 38a) => the importance of being vigilant about
separating opinion (doxa) from knowledge (episteme)
• “The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in
avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs deeper than death.”
(Apology 38-39e) => being good/virtuous is essential to having a
good life – one cannot have the kind of life one desires without
living it in a certain way.
• So, how does Plato describe a virtuous person?

4. A Virtuous Person According to Plato:
➢ ruled by reason and highly self-disciplined
➢ guided by a proper understanding of truth, honor,
justice, beauty, etc…
➢ concerned about the development of the character
➢ conscientious & avoids claiming to know things that
have not been properly examined and demonstrated
to be so
➢ not swayed by popular opinion or emotional rhetoric
➢ not concerned about seeking comfort or illusions of
happiness.

5. Plato’s Central Virtues
• Temperance (restraint), courage,
wisdom and justice (Cardinal
Virtues) are the central virtues
• These virtues work together: not
enough to have just one alone.
• When these virtues are in balance
= good person.

6. Aristotle
• Plato's student
• Central philosopher of virtue ethics and wrote about his
ideas in Nicomachean Ethics
• Final end of human activity is to achieve happiness –
eudaimonia (human flourishing)
• Flourishing is "a state where people experience
positive emotions, positive psychological functioning
and positive social functioning, most of the time,"
living "within an optimal range of human functioning."
• What might our culture say ‘human flourishing’ is?
• How might we as Christians define ‘human
flourishing’?

7. Aristotle’s Virtues
Intellectual Virtues
• Intellectual virtues:
training/ education
• To become virtuous is like
playing a musical
instrument = needs
teaching and practise
Moral virtues
• Moral Virtues: habit
formed by deep seeded
belief
• E.g. habit of being
generous rather than just
being told to be generous
• All people have the potential to develop moral and intellectual
virtues but only a few actually achieve this.
• Depends on social factors: can be shaped by where we are
brought up and live.
• Eudaimonia is reached when someone uses their reason well
• REASON is the supreme human virtue.
○ Aristolte says reasoning is the ability to calculate and
responsibly control your desires to focus on moral

8. Pattern of Behaviour
Virtue Ethics is focused on Patterns of behaviour: starting with a
simple unrelated action leads to a pattern of behaviour –
repeatedly doing wrong actions can escalate and become worse –
this leads to a pattern of un-virtuous actions.
Consider the following:
1. Why is recycling virtuous? Or is it?
2. Is being “green” and buying “fair-trade” virtuous?
3. Should we walk/bike instead of driving? Is this virtuous?
4. Why is cheating on a test non-virtuous? Or is it?
5. What makes something virtuous or non-virtuous? Does one
choice mean you will continue to follow that behaviour? (ie. a
non-virtuous choice means your next choice will also be non-
virtuous)

9. So... Virtuous People?
• Virtue is acquired through doing.
• One way to learn how to be virtuous is to follow the
example of virtuous people.
• Watching others and imitating them = best way to learn.
• Can you think of an example in your life of a virtuous
person?
• Role models - they challenge us to go beyond the
minimum – to aspire to ‘moral heights’ to see what can be
achieved.
• Who has been a good role model for you?
Question: What constitutes a virtuous person? Who would
be a good example? Why?

10. Virtuous People?
What about the following people? Are they virtuous?
How would we measure this? Should we look to them
as examples to follow?
- Gandhi?
- Nelson Mandela?
- Justin Trudeau?
- Hillary Clinton?
- Martin Luther King?
- Abraham Lincoln?
- Donald Trump?

11. Strengths of Virtue Ethics
• Avoids use of a formula (e.g. hedonic calculus) = focuses
instead on what kind of person ought I be
• Distinguishes between people that are good and people that just
follow the law.
• Motivating people to be good
• Stresses importance of education in showing that good can be
taught/ learnt
• Involves our entire lives – whole life process
• Even mundane opportunities gives us chance to practise virtues
• Every aspect of our lives is involved e.g. family, friends,
community, emotions, responsibilities – so is more intune with
how people react in ethical dilemmas.

12. Weaknesses of Virtue Ethics
• Virtue ethics does not give us concrete answers (since it focuses
on the individual) so it is hard to apply to moral situations.
• Virtue ethics does not help people facing a crisis because there
are no clear set rules for action.
• Virtue ethics seems to praise some virtues that others might see
as immoral e.g. soldier fighting unjust wars may be courageous
but not morally good
• It is difficult to decide who is virtuous, as acts which appear
virtuous on the outside may not necessarily have good motives
• Virtue Ethics is focused on a universal moral code to make
everyone better, but what objective standard is it using if it is not
God?