ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the relevance of virtue ethics to social work and the ways in which virtues can assist in understanding and developing good practice. The author's interest in this aspect of professional ethics comes from recognising that virtue ethics is addressed much less frequently than the key principles of human rights and social justice. However, McBeath and Webb that most of the debate about ethics in social work tends to focus on deontology and consequentialism, with relatively little attention paid to virtue ethics. This in turn leads Banks to suggest that a virtue ethics approach must be spelled out in relation to central purposes or ideals that inform social work practice. Thus the analysis used a mixed-methods approach and, although the resulting information is quite descriptive, it also reveals some details about the extent of attention to virtue ethics in foundational professional social work education. The chapter sets out the background issues of virtue ethics in social work.
