ABSTRACT
Like consequentialist, deontological and needs-centred theories, virtue ethical theories focus on just one of the four elements of ethical practice I distinguished in Chapter 3. In virtue ethical theories, it is the agent who takes centre-stage, whose character and virtues are regarded as somehow the most fundamental elements, with the greatest capacity to tell us what ethics is and so how to do it well. Again like most modern moral philosophers, virtue ethicists do not tend
to see ethics as a distinctive practice. This means they take their task to be broader than that of telling the story of a single, albeit central and important, practice. But where deontologists and consequentialists claim to tell the story of practical rationality, virtue ethicists aim to give an account of the whole of human life excellently lived. Their theories aim to provide answers to the Socratic question I discussed in Chapter 2, ‘How shall I live?’ The discussion of virtue ethics in this chapter follows the pattern of the previous two chapters, beginning with a description of virtue theory, and continuing with a critical discussion of the theory in the light of the arguments developed in this book.
