Ross Virtue Ethics Essay

561 Words3 Pages
Out of the four options, virtue ethics is the ethical theory that is most accurate and in congruence with the intuition of human beings. Virtue ethics states that “an act is morally right just because it is one that virtuous person, acting in character, would do in that situation.” This person is imaginary and embodies all of the virtues perfectly. This is the only method that does not have a simple answer to solve every single ethical dilemma. Morality is usually viewed as something that is too complex for someone of a young age to understand perfectly. As virtue ethics purports, humans need experience, emotional maturity, reflection, and training in order to acquire moral wisdom. This cannot be gained simply by learning a rule and applying it to all situations regardless of your experience. Virtue ethics is also based on character traits. These traits take into account your intentions and what you are thinking which seem like a reasonable choice for an ethical decision. Now examine act utilitarianism. Take an illustration of a person who was in an arena, aimed at his friend, accidentally missed,…show more content…
Admittedly, this is similar to virtue ethics in many regards. He has 7 main duties that he believes should be placed above everything else. The fundamental flaw in this theory is how he chose these 7 duties. It seems like the only reason the duties are on the list are because they are intuitively deemed as “good.” Who’s to say that a virtue like self-improvement should be on their while something like empathy isn’t? The other criticism is how to decide which decision to pick when there are two duties that compete. With virtue ethics at least there is somebody you can kind of look up to. For example, a well-respected leader in some regard. Someone with experience who has gained moral wisdom through trial and error and learning from others. For the duties, there is nothing that can really distinguish one trait among the
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