ABSTRACT
This chapter considers some of the problems that arise when trying to apply virtue ethics to moral problems. It focuses on Aristotelian virtue ethics, but much of what people have to say on this matter will be true of other forms of virtue ethics as well. Many virtue ethicists have come to endorse the v-rules as part of the response to the action guidance objection. Virtue ethicists strongly oppose the suggestion that the virtues have to be supplemented by a set of d-rules. In an influential paper, "Virtue Theory and Abortion," Rosalind Hursthouse applies virtue ethics to the morality of abortion. Applied ethicists have generally approached the matter by focusing on questions to do with women's rights as well as questions about the status of the fetus. Damian Cox argues that Aristotelian virtue ethics is vulnerable to what he calls the "charge of moral narcissism." The chapter considers the role of rules and principles in moral thought and decision-making.
