Virtue Ethics and Right Action

Author: R. Das¹

Source: Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Volume 81, Number 3, September 01, 2003 , pp. 324-339(16)

Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group

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Abstract:

In this paper I evaluate some recent virtue-ethical accounts of right action [Hursthouse 1999; Slote 2001; Swanton 2001]. I argue that all are vulnerable to what I call the insularity objection: evaluating action requires attention to worldly consequences external to the agent, whereas virtue ethics is primarily concerned with evaluating an agent's inner states. More specifically, I argue that insofar as these accounts are successful in meeting the insularity objection they invite the circularity objection: they end up relying upon putatively virtue-ethical considerations that themselves depend on unexplained judgments of rightness. Such accounts thus face a dilemma that is characteristic of virtue-ethical accounts of right action. They avoid the insularity objection only at the cost of inviting the circularity objection: they become intuitively plausible roughly to the extent that they lose their distinctively virtue-ethical character.

Document Type: Original article

Affiliations: 1: Victoria University of Wellington

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