1. Virtue Ethics What duty do we have to assist others in need?
Ethics of Care: Perspective on moral issues that emphasizes close personal relationships and moral virtues such as compassion, love, and sympathy. 1

2. Virtue Ethics
What duty do we have to ourselves? 2

3. Virtue Ethics
Consequentialist & nonconsequentialist moral theories are concerned with action, and attempt to answer the question, “What should I do?”

4. Virtue Ethics
Virtue ethics, by contrast, attempts to answer the question, “What should I be?”

5. Virtue Ethics
Ethical theory that see the primary focus of ethics to be the character of the person rather than the person’s actions

6. Virtue Ethics Is this lawnmower a good lawnmower?
Is this hammer a good hammer?

7. Virtue Ethics
What attributes or virtues make this a good hammer and good lawnmower?
Virtue – A trait of character that is to be admired because it is a component of excellence

8. Virtue Ethics
What makes a person a good person? 8

9. Virtue Ethics Happiness Human Flourishing Living Well
Living the good life
Human excellence
What is the purpose or goal of our lives?

10. Virtue Ethics
Cultivation of virtue is the way to achieve human flourishing
To Aristotle, a virtue is a stable disposition to act and feel according to some ideal or model of excellence.
It is a deeply embedded character trait that can affect actions in countless situations. 10

11. Virtue Ethics Examples of moral virtues. --Fairness --Benevolence
--Honesty
--Loyalty
--Conscientiousness
--Courage
Aristotle distinguishes between intellectual and moral virtues.
Examples of intellectual virtues.
--Wisdom
--Prudence
--Rationality 11

12. Virtue Ethics
Intellectual virtues can be taught, but moral virtues come about only as a result of habitual practice. 12

13. Virtue Ethics
Moral virtues occupy what Aristotle calls the “Golden Mean”--a balance between two extremes. 13

14. Virtue Ethics
For Aristotle, the Golden Mean expresses a fundamental truth: the virtuous--and happy--life is a life of moderation in all things. 14

15. Virtue Ethics Which flower is a better flower? The one that is healthy
The one that flourishes 15

16. Why Should I Be Moral?
Because of who we become 16