Abstract
Virtue ethics has been diverse in several ways, offering divergent lists of virtues, presupposing different metaphysical backgrounds, especially of fundamental anthropology, understanding differently the relation between the virtues and emotions, having divergent understandings of the broad conceptual structure of morality, some being aretaically monistic while others are pluralistic. Others offer monisms that make some dimension of the moral life other than virtue fundamental, and derive their concept of virtue from this other single foundation. And finally, the purpose of the activity of virtue ethics can be variously conceived.
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Notes
- 1.
Notice how Watson, Slote and Kawall neglect any attention to particular virtues; they are only interested in using the concept of virtue to construct a theory.
- 2.
Bernard Williams (1985) would share many of the above concerns. See also Talbot Brewer (2009), especially the Introduction, which is a brief but pungent history of contemporary virtue ethics. For a spirit akin in some ways to “radical” virtue ethics, see Michael Stocker (1976) on the schizophrenia of modern ethical theories.
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- 4.
I am grateful to Ryan West and David Carr for very helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.
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Roberts, R.C. (2017). Varieties of Virtue Ethics. In: Carr, D., Arthur, J., Kristjánsson, K. (eds) Varieties of Virtue Ethics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59177-7_2
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