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Some Problems with Virtue Theory1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2007

Nicholas Everitt
Nicholas Everitt
Affiliation:
University of East Anglia
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Extract

Virtue ethics (VE for short) is currently so widely embraced that different versions of the theory can now be distinguished. Some of these are mapped out in Statman's useful introduction to his collection. There are enough of these versions to constitute a family, and consequently what they share is a family resemblance rather than agreement to a defining set of necessary and sufficient conditions. What I propose to do, therefore, is to criticise one of the main versions of VE. Rosalind Hursthouse is the main proponent of the version which I will criticise. I choose her as a spokesperson, not because her version of VE is especially weak. On the contrary, it is because she is one of the leading protagonists of VE, and because her writings provide a lucid, powerful and elegant exposition of VE that her version of the theory is an appropriate object of scrutiny.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy , Volume 82 , Issue 2 , April 2007 , pp. 275 - 299
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 2007

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References

1 I should like to thank my colleague, Dr. Catherine Osborne, for some helpful discussions.