ABSTRACT
Without ignoring the profound cultural differences among virtue traditions, the action-guidance focuses upon the roots of virtue rather than its ultimate deliverances. While the how of becoming virtuous provides a great deal of general guidance for a living well, the what of virtue must reflect the specific setting of the moral practice. Any plausible virtue ethics must be rooted in a more or less stable range of human moral capacities, and in the absence of some radical alteration to our basic psychology, there is no reason to think that humans will suddenly acquire a wholly new repertoire of moral responses to the world. The virtue is much more demanding than what the narrow use of the English term ‘civility' implies, namely self-restrained and polite engagement.
