Chapter 8: Virtue Ethics Virtues and Everyday Life ◦ Virtues push us to be what we ought to be rather than what we ought to do What is Virtue? - The virtuous life focuses on character - According to Aristotle – intellectual virtues and moral virtues

Chapter 8: Virtue Ethics Virtues and Everyday Life ◦ Virtues push us to be what we ought to be rather than what we ought to do What is Virtue? - The virtuous life focuses on character - According to Aristotle – intellectual virtues and moral virtues

Chapter 8: continued Evaluating Virtue Ethics ◦ Are there any universally valuable traits? ◦ Foot’s dilemma of demonstrating virtures ◦ Is virtue ethics really a distinct type of ethics?

Chapter 8: continued Reading: The Nicomachean Ethics ◦ The nature of the good – what makes one good? ◦ Happiness: living well and doing well - the disagreement in defining ◦ What is the function of a person? ◦ Virtue - Intellectual - Moral

Chapter 8: continued ◦ Deficiency and excess in virtues can be equally fatal ◦ The nature of virtue - As a moral state - The character of that moral state o Virtue as a mean between excess and deficiency ◦ Specific virtues ◦ Why it is so difficult to be virtuous

Chapter 8: continued Reading: Virtues and Vices ◦ We need virtue both for our own sake and that of our fellows ◦ The relationship between human good and virture ◦ The two parts of wisdom ◦ The virtues as corrective of desire and motivation ◦ Virtues and bad actions