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Virtue Ethics

Virtue ethics makes human virtues or excellences rather than principles central to ethics. Ethics is about the kind of person one is—courageous, honest, and so forth—more than about the kind of acts one performs. Virtue ethicists typically claim that one ought to be a generous person, rather than that one ought to contribute to certain needy persons under certain circumstances.

Conceptual Overview

Virtues and Principles

Most virtue ethicists do not rule out principles. A generous person may act according to principles derived from the nature of generosity in happily lending money to needy friends who cannot repay. But virtue ethicists deny that the principles on which we can reach a consensus are specific, unexceptionable, or reliably action-guiding. What credible moral principle tells us how much to lend and when?

Even if an ethical person does act according to certain principles, it does not follow that the best way to teach Smith to be ethical is to give her principles to follow. By analogy, we can show that Smith is an excellent employee by stating her sales figures, but a training professional will focus on strengthening her knowledge and skills to improve her sales figures. The analogue in ethics is strengthening Smith's virtues to improve her behavior. Smith's honesty and courage help explain her behavior because they cause certain of her actions. She blows the whistle not because she is a troublemaker but because she is honest. She rescues the drowning child not because she is a show-off but because she is courageous.

Principle-based theorists try to make sound moral judgments by applying principles to situations. Virtue ethicists argue that that is difficult. For example, we might have to decide whether Smith should be given a consulting assignment in a culture that does not accept women in positions of authority: She might be less effective than a man. Virtue ethicists deny that we can apply and weigh principles to get the right answer in such a case. Instead, thanks to experience and moral intelligence, a person of good character can see the salient features of the situation and act accordingly. In this respect, the virtuous person is like an experienced strategist: Both know the rules, but they make good decisions because of their experience-honed intuitive grasp of situations and options. Business ethics courses as well as strategy courses use case studies to help develop this ability.

Inclinations and Emotions

Inclinations matter to virtue ethicists. Many parents raise children not only not to lie, but to be honest—to be inclined not to lie, to feel some repugnance even when lying justifiably. A virtue ethicist, unlike many utilitarians, disapproves of a person who lies in some cases in which it hurts no one.

Aristotle and most other virtue ethicists believe that good people have good and rational desires. David Hume famously believed that rationality is a characteristic only of how we choose means when the ends are given. For neoclassical economists, utility is desire satisfaction. According to virtue ethics, we do the right thing because we have the right desires. It is characteristic of a good person to enjoy doing the right thing, not to do it reluctantly. Virtue ethicists therefore see no tension for a good person between self-interest and doing the right thing.

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