Virtue Ethics

Virtue is a condition of a person's character. Having virtue makes doing the right thing the obvious choice among options. Having virtue means that immoral courses of action are ruled out, and this quickens decision making. Virtuous persons would have already determined that they ought to do only whatever is right in a situation. If a person has virtue, this means that he or she does not merely have good intentions but has the ability to act on them. People who manage to be consistently ethical are likely to have virtue to some degree. Those who knowingly act immorally lack virtue. And those who cannot tell the difference between wrong and right lack virtue.

Whether virtue is a set of qualities or just one; whether virtue ...