Ethics And Ethics: The Characteristics Of Virtue Ethics

1438 Words3 Pages

Moral character is what dictates an individual 's decision making and affects their experiences throughout their life. A person 's morals can be based off one 's upbringing and environmental factors. Virtue ethics is a philosophical view that greatly supports this claim that the choices a person makes and their actions follow those choices, and display their moral character. This is more likely to be true than Kantianism, because this type of ethical view is based off Immanuel Kant, a philosophical thinker whose emphasizes that his writings and beliefs influence the choices people make. However, people do what is morally acceptable in society, but more importantly what they believe is right.
Aristotle describes the virtuous person as one whose …show more content…

However, there can be some factors that do not always work out for this theory. Virtue ethics could sometimes be looked down upon because it does not have much structure. Characteristics for this theory can be unclear, where Kantianism has a more straightforward approach. However, virtue is more personalized and is controlled within ourselves and not by society. For example, Kantianism would be helping a woman get her purse back from a robber because you feel sorry for the lady and that is the right thing to do. You do not want to live with regret or live with the idea that something bad may happen to you. Virtue ethics does not include this feeling of sorrow and guilt because someone else is in trouble, it involves a situation where a lady waiting in front of you at a grocery store does not have enough money so the clerk just covers the rest of her bill. This shows who the person really is, what type of individual they display rather than what they did to be seen as a good person. These type of actions show the natural root of ones character, displaying their true intent rather than personal gain of the matter. These types of views can be labeled as virtuous, making decisions based off their beliefs and what they are responsible

More about Ethics And Ethics: The Characteristics Of Virtue Ethics

Open Document