virtue ethics theory case study

Applying Virtue Ethics: The Rajat Gupta Case

A short introduction to virtue ethics .

Virtue ethics is an agent-based approach to ethics. This approach focuses on the fundamental character and motivations of the individual moral agent. Moral behavior is not limited or attached to a rule or any guidelines, but rather involves the individual rationally pursuing moral excellence as a goal in and of itself. According to Aristotelian virtue ethics, virtue is defined as a desirable character trait, such as courage, that lies between two extremes, rashness and cowardice. The virtuous agent is involved in a continual quest to find balance in ethical decision-making. Such an agent does not apply any specific ‘rules’ in making ethical decisions, but rather attempts to make decisions that are consistent with the pursuit of a particular kind of excellence that entails exercising sound moral judgment guided by virtues like courage, wisdom, temperance, fairness, integrity and consistency.

Suppose it is obvious that someone in need should be helped. A utilitarian will point to the fact that the consequences of doing so maximizes happiness of those affected by the act of helping. A deontologist points to the fact that, in helping the one in need, the agent is acting in accordance with a moral rule such as “Do unto others as you would be done by”. A virtue ethicist points to the fact that helping the person is exercising the character trait of benevolence. All the three moral theories will agree that helping the person in need is ethically correct.

Aristotle is an early developer of virtue ethics. Aristotle writes, “ The virtue of man also will be the state of character which makes a man good and which makes him do his own work well “. The aim is to perform the right action, with the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, and in the right way. Although this is the objective, Aristotle considers achieving this goodness as rare, laudable, and noble

Aristotle believes people are naturally suited to do the right thing, but do not automatically develop such inclinations to do “ good ”. He strongly believes you are what you do, so in that respect the ideal virtuous person does the right thing because she desires to be virtuous. One cannot be accidentally or coincidentally virtuous.

The virtue ethics approach focuses on the “ integrity” of the moral actor. The goal with this approach is to be a good person. In virtue ethics, one’s character emerges from a “ relevant moral community ”. Therefore, it is important to account for the moral agent’s community or communities within which she operates. This approach is particularly useful for individuals who work within a professional community that has developed high standards of ethical conduct for community members

Moral Virtue is a Habit

Aristotle’s criteria for the virtuous person is as follows: You must have knowledge, consciously choose the acts and choose them for their own sake, and the choice must come from a firm character, in accordance to who you are. You must consistently choose to do good acts deliberately for the right reasons. You cannot be considered virtuous for catching a ball before it hits a child in a baseball game thus saving that child, if you simply wanted to catch the ball and take it home with you as a trophy to show to your friends. You should have saved the child from the incoming ball out of genuine virtue and care towards the child.

To achieve the ability to be moral requires developing the proper character. To develop the proper character requires developing virtues. To develop virtues requires developing moral habits. Aristotle said, “B y abstaining from pleasures we become temperate, and it is when we have become so that we are most able to abstain from them “. What begins as a great effort to give up, in time and with effort and practice becomes quite normal and is no effort at all. Aristotle also believes we learn virtue by doing the right things constantly until we are habituated. We learn by doing as children and character is the result of habits, which in turn, are developed from repeated actions.

There are 2 types of virtues. Intellectual Virtues are excellences of the mind, for example, the ability to understand, reason, & judge well. Intellectual virtue comes from being taught. Moral Virtues are learned by repetition. For example, by practicing honesty we become honest. To be virtuous requires knowledge, practice & consistent effort for character building. Moral virtue results from developing proper habits. Neither intellectual nor moral virtue arise without active intervention and participation. According to Aristotle, “ We first acquire the potentiality and later exhibit the activity “. We develop virtues by practicing them. In a similar vein, we learn the arts and music. We learn virtues by doing them repeatedly and forming the correct habits as a young basketball player learning to shoot the ball.

In personal/life development, virtue ethics transforms the meaning of doing “ What is right and wrong? ” to “ What kind of person you are and does this action fit into what you are? ” Virtue ethics in personal development allows a dynamic way of thinking that allows a person to grow and to learn that everything is not black and white.

A virtuous person is not simply one who just does a good or right act once in a while, rather a virtuous person is someone who “ consistently” chooses the right acts for the right motives. Being virtuous is a habitual act and you are what you do. If you lie constantly, you are a liar and the act of lying establishes that character trait in you. In business, if you cut corners and practice unethical business tactics you are an unethical businessman.

Virtue Ethics Theory Applied:

Rajat gupta and insider trading, the players.

Rajat Gupta is an Indian American businessman who was the managing director of management consultancy McKinsey & Company and a business leader in India and the United States. Rajat Gupta also served as corporate chairman, board director or strategic advisor to Goldman Sachs , Procter and Gamble and American Airlines , and non-profits organizations, The Gates Foundation , The Global Fund and the International Chamber of Commerce .

Rajat Gupta was convicted in June 2012 on insider trading charges. He was sentenced in October 2012 to two years in prison, an additional year on supervised release and ordered to pay $5 million in fines. His trial began on May 22, 2012. On June 15, 2012, Gupta was found guilty on three counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy.

The primary parties are affected are Rajat Gupta, McKinsley & Company, Goldman Sachs, Raj Rajaratnam, Galleon Group, Warren Buffet, and the U.S. equity markets. Other parties indirectly affected are family and friends of Rajat Gupta, employees at McKinsley & Company and Galleon Group, investors in Goldman Sachs and its creditors, and government and officials involved with the case.

The Transactions

In September 2008 Warren Buffet agrees to pay $5 billion to Goldman Sachs in exchange for preferred shares in the company. This news is likely to raise the share price of Goldman Sachs. The news is not supposed to be announced and made public until the end of day. Less than a minute after the board approved the Buffet purchase, Rajat Gupta calls his longtime friend Raj Rajaratnam, a hedge fund manager and billionaire founder of Galleon Group. Once Rajaratnam gets this information, he immediately buys shares of Goldman Sachs. Next day when the stock market opens, Raj Rajaratnam makes nearly $1.2 million in profits as Goldman Sachs shares rose. The SEC estimates the tip leaked by Rajat Gupta generates profits and avoids losses of more than $23 million.

Ethical Analysis

Would a virtuous person have leaked the information to Raj Rajaratnam? Rajat Gupta showed a failure of character:

Integrity : Integrity is honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of a person’s action. Rajat Gupta does not show integrity to his company Goldman Sachs, where he was a Board of Director. Instead gives away insider information for personal benefits.

Trust : Rajat Gupta broke the trust to other Directors on Goldman’s board and to of other people with whom he has done business. His actions affect the relationship with McKinsley & Company.

Fairness: Rajat Gupta’s actions are not fair for two reasons. First, other investors who do not have the information on Buffett’s deal are at a disadvantage. Second, he uses the information entrusted to him to benefit himself and Rajaratnam.

Honesty: He was not honest with Goldman Sachs and his fellow board members to whom he implicitly promised not to share inside information.

Self-Control: If Rajat Gupta had self-control he would not have leaked inside information to Rajaratnam for personal gain.

Gupta was commended by people who knew him as a person who helped others. He was very active in providing medical and humanitarian relief to the developing countries. Born to humble circumstances, he became a pillar of the consulting community and a trusted advisor to the world’s leading companies and organizations. A word that was used repeatedly in media coverage for Rajat Gupta during his trial was “ respected .” In the past, much less so now, we assume people in leadership positions are virtuous. However, instances like the Rajat Gupta insider trading case and other financial scandals remind us that the assumption is not well-founded

As a true professional, the good manager strives to achieve a moral excellence that includes honesty, fairness, prudence , and courage. Various mechanisms are suggested to develop moral character amongst practitioners and avoid ethical lapses as in the Rajat Gupta case. Suggestions include tighter government regulations, better systems and processes in financial institutions, enhanced corporate governance, and increasing the awareness of customers. Yet, a root of the problem is not addressed: not teaching financial ethics in business schools, where moral decision making should be the core lesson. If business schools provide future financial managers with a proper ethical education, there is a chance that situations like “Rajat Gupta and Insider Trading” may occur less frequently.

By: Pratik Patel

Works Cited

http://www.innovation.cc/scholarly-style/virtue-ethics-corruption.htm
Linda K. Trevino, Katherine A Nelson, “Managing Business Ethics”, (2010) Fifth Edition
James Rachel, “The Elements of Moral Philosophy”, (2009) Sixth Edition
Raj Gupta: Virtue is never a Given, Retrieved from
http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnbaldoni/2012/10/25/raj-gupta-virtue-is-never-a-given/
Blame Business Schools, Electronics Resource, Retrieved from http://www.businessweek.com/debateroom/archives/2008/11/us_financial_cr.html
http://ejbo.jyu.fi/articles/0901_3.html
http://edoc.ub.uni-muenchen.de/12156/1/Villa_Jesus_Simeon.pdf
John Graafland & Bret Van de Ven, “The Credit Crisis & the Moral Responsibility of Professional in Finance”
Normative Ethics
Moral Character
Consequentialism
Moral Community
Insider Trading
Virtue Ethics
Moral Judgment
Responsibility
Trust/trustworthiness
Name First Last
Your Message

Log in using your username and password

Search More Search for this keyword Advanced search
Latest content
Current issue
JME Commentaries
BMJ Journals More You are viewing from: Google Indexer

Most moral dilemmas in medicine are analysed using the four principles with some consideration of consequentialism but these frameworks have limitations. It is not always clear how to judge which consequences are best. When principles conflict it is not always easy to decide which should dominate. They also do not take account of the importance of the emotional element of human experience. Virtue ethics is a framework that focuses on the character of the moral agent rather than the rightness of an action. In considering the relationships, emotional sensitivities, and motivations that are unique to human society it provides a fuller ethical analysis and encourages more flexible and creative solutions than principlism or consequentialism alone. Two different moral dilemmas are analysed using virtue ethics in order to illustrate how it can enhance our approach to ethics in medicine.

virtue ethics
four principles of medical ethics
Raanan Gillon

https://doi.org/10.1136/jme.29.5.297

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Request permissions.

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

I am not a philosopher. Neither am I an experienced ethicist. I am, rather, a general practitioner (GP), who deals with moral issues and dilemmas every day of my working life. These range from the daily awareness of distributive justice as I sign every prescription, to discussing and balancing the complex issues involved in choices made by patients with terminal disease. I find many of these situations challenging and some quite perplexing.

This is why I decided to study medical ethics at Imperial College London (ICL), where I was privileged not only to meet Professor Raanan Gillon but to be taught by him as well.

When I qualified as a GP in 1984, I had experienced no formal ethical teaching or training at all. By 1994 when I prepared to sit my Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) membership exam I was delighted to find that ethical teaching was firmly on the GP educational agenda. In general practice training, young doctors are raised on the four principles! This approach was initially developed in the United States by Beauchamp and Childress 1 ; but has been widely and enthusiastically advocated in the UK by Professor Gillon. 2– 4 Although there is some mention of the consequentialist approach, it is the four principles that win the day as a universally acceptable and practical way of considering moral issues. For non-philosophers it is an attractive prospect, when faced with an ethical difficulty, to have some simple, intelligible, and applicable guiding principles against which to measure any moral problem.

I am now an examiner for the RCGP membership exam and expect all candidates to not only be conversant with the four principles but also to be able to apply them appropriately. It is a tremendous credit to Professor Gillon that he has been such an effective mover and shaper of ethical understanding and judgment in British general practice.

During my studies at ICL I was introduced to a number of ethical frameworks and approaches, some of which were completely new to me. My understanding of moral reasoning grew considerably, but one approach captivated me and, I shall argue, adds a unique and essential dimension to ethical considerations.

VIRTUE ETHICS

Virtue ethics resonates with my experience of life in which the nature of our character is of fundamental importance. Ethical principles that tell us what action to take do not take into account the nature of the moral agent. Although we must make moral decisions with much care and consideration, I do not consider it wise to strip this process of affect or attitude and focus on reason alone. Humans are sophisticated creatures with an ability to reason that is tempered by our emotional reactions. These reactions are an integral part of how we perceive and assess the world around us but they also influence our judgments. Virtue ethics recognises this important component of our moral experience. It explores how moral agents can learn by habitual practise how to develop good characteristics that will enable us to behave well. I found it a refreshing and exciting discovery that the character of the moral agent could be of pivotal importance.

I shall briefly explain the fundamental concepts of virtue ethics in order to then demonstrate how such an approach can be used when considering two different medical ethical problems.

Virtue ethics began with the ancient Greek philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. They searched for the elements that made a person good but in so doing they did not look at how a person acted but at what sort of character he had. They suggested that a good person who behaves well must develop virtues, which, through habitual use, become part of that person’s character.

The virtues

So what is a virtue? Perhaps the most useful definition is that offered by Rachels, who suggests that a virtue is “a trait of character, manifested in habitual action, that it is good for a person to have”. 5

Aristotle believed that a virtue lay in the middle of two contrary vices and described it as “the mean by reference to two vices: the one of excess and the other of deficiency”. 6 Courage—for example, lies between foolhardiness and cowardice. Compassion lies between callousness and indulgence.

There is no comprehensive list of virtues. The cardinal virtues expounded by ancient Greek philosophers are courage, prudence, temperance, and justice. The theological virtues, faith, hope, and charity are not widely explored in secular moral philosophy although Toon has reviewed them in a medical context and shows them to be very useful. 7 Beauchamp and Childress have considered five virtues applicable to the medical practitioner: trustworthiness, integrity, discernment, compassion, and conscientiousness (see reference 1, pp 32–8). Other modern philosophers have listed up to 24 possible virtues although some could be argued to be social rather than moral virtues. 8

Philosophers may, in time, distil the growing list down to those that are essential and of core importance in order that humans may thrive.

The meaning of life!

Aristotle believed that the purpose of human existence is to achieve a state of eudaemonia, which is a difficult word to translate. “Happiness” is too superficial and subjective. We may feel happy if we satisfy our desires but this is no guarantee of any enduring contentment. To be eudaemon is rather to have the sort of happiness that is deep, lasting, and worth having. It is a deeply rooted joy in the dynamic process of our lives. It is hard to find a single word to sum up this concept but the closest approximation is “flourishing”.

A human person flourishes and leads a good life when she fulfils the purpose and function of human beings. Philippa Foot encapsulated this wonderfully:

Men and women need to be industrious and tenacious of purpose not only so as to be able to house, clothe and feed themselves, but also to pursue human ends having to do with love and friendship. They need the ability to form family ties, friendships and special relations with neighbours. They also need codes of conduct. And how could they have all these things without virtues such as loyalty, fairness, kindness and in certain circumstances obedience?” 9

The virtue ethicist has a deep understanding of the social and interpersonal nature of our human existence and how this can affect and be influenced by our moral behaviour.

The place of reason

Aristotle suggests that reason is the function unique to humans that sets them apart from all other living creatures. We have a capacity to make choices based on reason, which the most intelligent of higher order creatures do not appear to possess. Animals do not recognise ends as such and do not have the capacity for choosing to do something that will lead to a less good end when faced with two options (see reference 9, pp 25–51). It is by reasoning that a person determines how to act and feel in ways appropriate to a given circumstance. It is not sufficient to possess virtues; one must have the capacity to know when and how to exhibit them. Thus the virtuous person uses rationality (practical wisdom) to decide how to be.

In order to flourish, to be eudaemon , a person will possess virtues and exercise them with practical wisdom in order to make good choices in acting well. The virtues will become integral to her character and so become part of her flourishing, not just a means to that end. She will flourish as she makes virtuous choices and becomes wise, courageous, compassionate, and self controlled. 10 So the virtues benefit the possessor as they become deeply entrenched in a person’s character such that she deeply desires to behave well.

The role of emotion

For centuries moral philosophers have approached ethical dilemmas by stripping away emotional responses and trying to reason out a solution, but our feelings are fundamental to our human experience. Indeed those with little or no emotional response are considered abnormal, untrustworthy, wicked or frankly dangerous—for example, those with psychopathic personality disorders.

In order to do something we must first perceive that an action is necessary. We must observe what’s going on and recognise the morally pertinent aspects of the situation but ethical perception is not only a cognitive process. Emotional reactions make us sensitive to particular circumstances, and thus illuminate our perceptions. It is possible to perceive a situation dispassionately but we would then have an incomplete appreciation of the circumstances. Our emotions influence how and what we see and are necessary to register and record facts with resonance and depth. Equally what we see shapes how and what we feel. Thus perception and affect are closely intertwined in informing our choices. Undoubtedly our emotions need cultivating so that we learn towards whom, when, and to what degree we should express them. We need to exercise critical judgment when assessing and displaying our emotional responses. Emotions are not to be accepted as instinctive unmanageable reactions but as sensitivities that inform our judgments.

The role of motivation

The virtuous person perceives a situation, judges what is right, and wants to act accordingly because it is in her disposition to act well.

It is not sufficient to follow rules irrespective of internal attitudes, feelings, and reason. The virtuous moral agent has a deep desire to behave well. This contrasts with Kant’s view: he believed it was more virtuous to act well from duty even if one is not disposed to do so. 11 This may allow good action, but it does not encourage us to live well, and develop virtuous characteristics.

Imagine being visited in hospital by a friend; if the friend comes because she is compassionate, judges that it is the right thing to do and wants to visit, is this not more pleasing for you than if she comes purely because it is her duty? 12 Is she not a kinder and more compassionate person if she wants to make your day better by visiting you than if she comes because she ought to? Do these qualities not enrich our lives as social beings with special relationships?

Virtue ethics’s account of motivation surely sits well with human society in which we develop special bonds and alliances that encourage us to behave well out of friendship, love, and loyalty. It is these elements that bind communities together and it is the weakening of such commitments that are seen when communities begin to fragment.

Let me now turn to two different moral dilemmas. In one, a patient requests a course of action at variance with the professional judgment of his doctor. In the second I consider the moral implications of permitting individuals to sell kidneys. I shall show that by using a virtue ethics approach we can thoroughly examine the ethical difficulty that these cases present and can deduce a morally good plan of action. 13

Case 1: The “standard” Jehovah’s Witness case

A competent adult patient loses a massive amount of blood from a blood vessel bleeding in an acute duodenal ulcer. The best chance of saving his life is an urgent blood transfusion along with operative intervention to arrest the bleeding. The patient refuses blood but asks for treatment instead with the best available non-blood products, and surgery, accepting the substantial risk that surgery without blood transfusion is much less likely to save his life than surgery with blood transfusion.

Health care professionals are usually motivated to improve the wellbeing of their patients. In pursuing this end, they must balance their expert knowledge and understanding with the preferences of their patients, taking into consideration the means by which that person has made their choice and ensuring they themselves do not transgress any medical moral code.

Doctors are bound by professional codes of practice with a strong emphasis on doing good and saving lives. Despite the current ubiquitous nature of the four principles, it is curious that since the 4th century, the various codes of practice and oaths sworn by doctors declare a commitment to virtuous behaviour. 14– 18

The main intention of medical oaths seems to be to declare the core values of the profession and to engender and strengthen the necessary resolve in doctors to exemplify professional integrity, including moral virtues such as compassion and honesty. 19

Doctors in the 21st century are encouraged to work in partnership with their patients, informing, guiding, advising, and helping them to make appropriate choices about how to deal with their illness. These choices are typically adapted to suit individuals, taking into consideration such factors as their health beliefs, cultural background, and social situation. The patient is likely to be deeply influenced by their upbringing, their personal priorities, the community in which they live, or indeed their faith. These factors may well influence them to make a choice that is at variance with the professional judgment of their doctor. This can be challenging when a patient chooses to reject a doctor’s guidance—for example, refusing treatment, which the doctor knows may adversely affect her patient’s wellbeing. Doctors are trained how to tolerate such uncertainty and the risks involved but when such a decision might affect the survival of the patient, the moral burden for the doctor can be tremendous.

The patient

If the patient is deemed competent to make decisions about his health, he is therefore competent to make decisions about his spiritual faith.

It is wise and prudent to respect the faith that an individual has chosen to follow of his own free will and under no duress. In a multicultural society, disparate groups will live more contentedly together and will thrive if they not only tolerate each other’s differences but also respect each other. If they are able to seek commonality in their value systems they will deepen the important bonds of friendship and comradeship that bind their communities together.

As we have recognised, patients’ understanding and beliefs will influence the priority they give to options in managing their health. In this situation the patient has chosen to prioritise what he believes is his eternal existence over that of his current physical health. He is prepared to take the risk that he might die in order to ensure, according to his own belief system, that he will have eternal life.

The virtuous doctor examines the facts of the case, identifies her emotional response, which will illuminate and deepen her assessment of the situation, and considers the motivation of the patient and herself.

She may feel disappointment that her professional judgment is rejected, frustration that she cannot do her job as she would wish to, anxiety that the patient may die unnecessarily, and sorrow for the patient’s family who may experience the death of their beloved relative.

Some of the emotional reaction is caused by the effect the patient’s decision has in frustrating her professional purpose while some is a response to the possible outcome for the patient and his family.

Is she motivated to transfuse him to improve her productivity figures or does she genuinely want to help this individual patient find a solution to this particular predicament?

Is the patient motivated freely and sincerely by faith or is there an element of coercion from his religious community or indeed his family?

Having considered all these elements she then reflects on the virtues that would be most helpful in these circumstances.

Compassion is “ . . . an active regard for another’s welfare with an imaginative awareness and emotional response of deep sympathy, tenderness and discomfort at another’s misfortune or suffering.” 1

In being compassionate, the doctor would imagine what it must be like to be a person who is prepared to risk death because of the sincerity and devotion to their faith. She is likely to recognise the courage of her patient, which in turn may provoke feelings of respect and admiration.

Trustworthiness is one of the corner stones of doctorpatient relationships. Patients bring their deepest and most personal concerns and problems, allow the most intimate of examinations, and confide their private vulnerabilities. They rely on the moral character and competence of their doctor and must be able to trust that their doctor will behave well.

The patient in our example has disclosed his profound faith and how much that influences his decisions about his future, even in the face of this dramatic and life threatening event. He has trusted his doctor with an insight into a profoundly personal part of his being. It is incumbent on all health care professionals to hold this trust securely and respond to it by being trustworthy.

In this situation it is very unlikely that we will be able to persuade the patient to change his ideology at this stage. If the doctor overrides the patient’s request and imposes her medical solution upon him, the patient will have difficulty in trusting his doctor again and indeed may not trust the medical profession in the future.

Discernment brings sensitive insight, understanding, and wise judgment to the situation. A discerning doctor would identify the complex emotional elements of the case, would be able to weigh up her motivation to look after her patient’s health as effectively as possible with the motivation of the patient whose life is founded on and underpinned by his faith even if devotion to his ideology costs him his life. She is likely to conclude that the discerning doctor would, with regret, respect the patient’s wishes and not enforce a blood transfusion.

Regret : it is of importance to recognise the place of regret. Tragic dilemmas are typically very hard because there is a conflict in the principles being applied when trying to find a solution—for example, abortion in the case of rape. In much of the ethical literature there is a drive to find the correct solution, to try to decide which principles should take precedence or which consequences are preferable. After considerable debate, a course of action is chosen and is deemed to be the right thing to do. The moral agent need worry no more; they have done the right thing.

It is likely, however, that whatever actually happens, there will be regret for those involved; regret for what might have been, for the situation arising in the first place or for the undesirable effects of the action on those involved. Virtue ethics, because of its focus on the agent rather than the act, encourages moral agents to take account of and express the pain and regret they may experience when negotiating solutions to tragic dilemmas. It displays a sensitivity and concern that may go some way towards helping those who are experiencing it to come to terms with the situation. While consequentialists and deontologists do undoubtedly experience regret it would be an enhancing addition to their approach to express it more explicitly rather than focus entirely on the rightness of their action. 20

In summary the virtue ethicist, after fully exploring the facts and considering the ethical sensitivities, would conclude that a compassionate, trustworthy, and discerning doctor would characteristically respect this patient’s’ wishes in this situation. This does not, however, amount to a rule.

One of the attractions of virtue ethics is the flexibility to assess each situation individually, searching for action guidance in considering what a characteristically virtuous person would do. This would be illuminated and informed by the relevant facts and individual ethical sensitivities of that circumstance. This allows and encourages creative solutions to very hard problems, which might be more difficult to find when applying rules and principles. If—for example, the adult patient in our case was a 19 year old born into a Jehovah’s Witness community who felt an obligation to make decisions based on his parents’ faith system while not truly believing it, the moral assessment might be quite different. The doctor may deduce that a different course of action would be virtuous.

Case 2: Selling kidneys for transplantation: should people be allowed to sell kidneys for transplantation? 13

Kidney donation is a vital process whereby people with renal failure who suffer chronic invalidity can, after transplantation, be restored to reasonable health, a substantially better quality of life, and improved life expectancy. Most donated organs are cadaverous, given by relatives of individuals who have died but still have viable internal organs. The supply of such kidneys is not enough to provide for those patients who wait and, not infrequently, die of renal failure while on the transplant waiting list. Some kidneys are donated from living individuals who are usually relatives, close friends or, more rarely, willing volunteers. There is, nevertheless, a serious shortage of organs for transplantation. Permitting willing volunteers to sell a kidney could address this shortage but this suggestion raises serious ethical issues.

The need for donor organs

This is an important factor to consider as, in the absence of demand, kidney sales would be unnecessary. There are likely to be many citizens who are unaware that there is such a shortage of donor kidneys and have not considered the implications for those in renal failure and their relatives. Nor is it likely that all members of the general public have thought in any depth about the implications of donating their own organs should they die prematurely. A high profile campaign to educate ordinary people about the need for cadaver donation, with assurances about the rigorous requirements when defining time of death, is likely to considerably raise awareness. This could make a big impact on organ supplies. Enticing people to sell one of their own kidneys is an ineffective way of trying to increase that supply and has major implications for the donor.

The rights of the individual

It has been argued that as long as there are no unpleasant consequences for other people and as long as it does no harm, an individual has the autonomous right to do as he chooses with his own body. Forcing an action on an unwilling participant is not acceptable—for example, indecent exposure, assault, or rape but choosing to indulge in bungie jumping certainly is! Let us put aside the argument of rights, principles, or consequences, however, and approach this suggestion from a virtue ethics perspective.

What are the facts of the situation?

What is likely to be the situation of a person who would want to sell their kidney? To whom might they wish to sell? How much will they be paid? What safeguards are in place to protect the health of the donor and the recipient? What are the circumstances of donors and what dependants have they? Are donors psychologically and emotionally stable? Have they been subject to any duress? We require these facts to begin our analysis.

What emotions does such a proposal arouse?

Affect and cognition both contribute to our perception and must be considered together to achieve a comprehensive assessment. There is an instinctive distaste for the proposal that an individual should sell an irreplaceable part of his body thus compromising his future health. Why should this be? For most of us, life is precious and we desire a long, happy, and healthy existence. In order to do this, we must look after and maintain our bodies. There are very many people, however, who choose not to do so by selecting unhealthy lifestyles. They judge that the short term gain is worth the long term risk of poor health or premature death. Similarly, the potential donor may consider that money now is worth the risk of surgery, complications, or long term ill health. Indeed it takes considerable courage to take this risk.

Perhaps any distaste is influenced by wider factors. An industry trading in organs is likely to attract volunteers who have so much to gain from the payment that they are willing to take a substantial risk with their lives. In short they will probably be very poor or deprived. Surely a business such as this plays on the vulnerability of the poor and desperate. This situation generates feelings of sadness and pity for the deprived but also anger towards those who might make money from such a business. Those who are affluent and powerful could potentially profit financially from the despair of the underprivileged.

What are the likely motivations of the people involved?

The risks to the donor of the operation and consequent life with only one kidney are substantial and would not be considered lightly.

The potential donor may be motivated by compassion for his dependants and decide that his health is worth risking for the benefit now to his family.

While he may well have concern for the recipient, it is unlikely that this is the driving force behind his decision because if this was a commercial enterprise there is no assurance that donors and recipients would ever know of each other as individuals.

It is not a realistic proposal that a person would feel so moved to improve the plight of those in renal failure that he would offer his kidney for sale. Donating one kidney may help one person only and does nothing for the plight of the thousands who are in renal failure. It is most likely that any potential donor is motivated by the financial reward.

Those who are willing to buy kidneys from willing donors could be so touched by the plight of those in renal failure that they are prepared to set up a commercial business to increase the supply of available organs. It could be set up in a carefully regulated fashion to ensure high quality medical care and follow up for donors and recipients alike. We must not assume the only motivation is money although it is unlikely that anyone would set up such a business to run at a loss. Should there be financial gain this makes it a more attractive and viable proposition.

It could be argued that those who set up such a business do so because they want to help those who are disadvantaged in society by offering them a way of making money. I do not think we need dwell long on this suggestion, as this is in reality a very ineffective way of tackling deprivation. Should this be their motivation it would be more likely that they would try to provide for such deprived people without expecting them to take such huge health risks.

I suggest that anyone setting up such a business has not thought through carefully the impact on those who are poor and marginalised in society. Is it likely that people who are financially secure would take such risks with their lives? I propose that the only supply of donors is likely to come from those who are poor, marginalised, or oppressed. The poorer and more desperate the person, the more attractive would be the offer to buy his kidney.

Which virtues might guide our behaviour in such a difficult dilemma?

Where is the justice in a society where some people are so poor or deprived they are prepared to sell their bodies for whatever function, be it kidney donation or prostitution? We have recognised that humans are social animals who thrive in communities where they establish special bonds of love and friendship. Those who experience deprivation or starvation devote their time and energy to their survival and have little reserves left to contribute to their community. So, if a society is to flourish, all individuals must achieve some minimally decent standards of living. This will require the community to be fair in its approach to the vulnerable, ensuring they are protected from exploitation and have some basic security. The creative and just way forward in this particular predicament might be to protect the vulnerable from exploitation while developing innovative ways of improving the supply of kidneys donated after death.

The compassionate person would care deeply about the plight of the deprived and marginalised. Although there may be occasions when such people have chosen to opt out of society’s usual structure—for example, the homeless, travellers, or drug addicts, there is always some reason why they have done so, which stems from deprivation, whether that be economic, emotional, or social. Compassion would have us care so deeply that we would be moved to improve their situation.

The compassionate person would also care deeply about those with renal failure who need medical care and wait for suitable transplant opportunities. This must be balanced with the chronic suffering of the deprived but the two needs are not mutually exclusive. The virtuous moral agent would compassionately appreciate the desperation of both groups.

She would practise discernment in sensitively understanding those needs and using wise judgment to balance her compassion for those in renal failure and the deprived who may be enticed into selling organs. Having considered the facts, the emotional response, and the motivations of all concerned, she would look for creative solutions that might address the needs of both groups.

Rather than permitting sale of kidneys, society would flourish better if it ensured that the poor were adequately provided for, and that the supply of organs was actively pursued through education and promotion of cadaverous donation.

In summary the virtue ethicist would recognise the needs of both groups, would balance compassion for them both with the need to behave fairly towards all individuals, and would discern that there are creative ways of resolving the need for kidney donations and the needs of the disadvantaged. They would recognise the compelling arguments for protecting the vulnerable and would most certainly recommend that we do not behave well as a society if we permit the sale of kidneys for profit.

In these examples I have chosen a number of virtues that seem useful for my analysis. There may be others of relevance such as integrity, conscientiousness, or hope, which could be relevant in a more lengthy and detailed examination. There is no limit to which or how many virtues should or can be scrutinised but the prudent virtue ethicist would try to select those of greatest pertinence to a particular predicament.

THE PLACE OF VIRTUE ETHICS

When I began studying medical ethics I hoped I would learn the right answers to difficult moral dilemmas. I discovered to my disappointment but perhaps with some relief, that there are none! Instead, there are many different ways of approaching difficult moral dilemmas, which help to tease out justification for a particular course of action.

Consequentialists do what will produce the best consequences but debate revolves around how to define what is best. 21

Deontologists adhere to correct moral principles but how are we to decide which are the right principles? Professor Gillon has extensively demonstrated that the four principles are acceptable to people from widely disparate cultures and religions. 4 But when they conflict how do we prioritise and decide which takes precedence?

Virtue ethics has a number of advantages over the four principles:

It recognises that emotions are an integral and important part of our moral perception.

It considers the motivation of the agent to be of crucial importance. Decisions are anchored in the characteristic virtuous disposition of the moral agent who typically wants to behave well.

As there are no rigid rules to be obeyed, it allows any choices to be adapted to the particulars of a situation and the people involved. Two people might both behave well when resolving the same situation in different ways.

This flexibility encourages the pursuit of creative solutions to tragic dilemmas.

Virtue ethicists recognise that tragic dilemmas can rarely be resolved to the complete satisfaction of all parties and that any conclusion is likely to leave some remainder of pain and regret .

I do not suggest that virtue ethics is an ethical framework that is superior to or replaces those of consquentialism and deontology. I do propose that it deeply enhances our approach to moral dilemmas. Is it possible that the virtues are the foundations of morally decent behaviour? If we develop secure foundations, by habitually practising virtuous characteristics such as honesty, discernment, courage, and integrity then a desire to fulfil our duties and obligations will follow naturally. The consequences of living a virtuous life are likely to be good as such behaviour contributes to the dynamic process of human flourishing.

Moral agents who develop virtuous characteristics by such habitual practice will find that their nature becomes the embodiment of the values that encourage human flourishing.

In the words of St Thomas Aquinas: “Virtue is that which makes its possessor good, and his work good likewise”. 22

↵ Beauchamp T , Childress J. Principles of biomedical ethics [5th ed]. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001 : 57–272.
↵ Gillon R. Philosophical medical ethics London: Wiley, 1985 .
Gillon R . Medical ethics: four principles plus attention to scope. BMJ 1994 ; 309 : 184 –8. OpenUrl FREE Full Text
↵ Gillon R , Lloyd A, eds. Principles of health care ethics . London: Wiley, 1994 .
↵ Rachels J. The elements of moral philosophy. London: McGraw-Hill International, 1999 : 178.
↵ Aristotle. Nicomachean ethics [translated by Thompson JAK]. London: Penguin, 1976 .
↵ Toon P. Towards a philosophy of general practice. Occasional paper 78. London: Royal College of General Practitioners, 1999 .
↵ Comte-Sponville A. A short treatise on the great virtues. London: William Heinemann, 2002 .
↵ Foot P. Natural goodness. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001 .
↵ Sherman N. The fabric of character. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989 :7.
↵ Kant I . Good will, duty and the categorical imperative [translated by Abbott TK]. In: Sommers C, Sommers F, eds. Vice and virtue. London: Harcourt College Publishers, 2001 .
↵ Stocker M . The schizophrenia of modern ethical theories. J Philos 1976 ; 73 : 453 –66. OpenUrl CrossRef Web of Science
↵ Gillon R . Four scenarios. J Med Ethics 2003 ; 29 : 267 –8. OpenUrl FREE Full Text
↵ Hippocrates. The Hippocratic oath: text, translation, and interpretation [translated by Edelstein L]. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1943 .
Maimonides . Oath and prayer of Maimonides [translated by Friedenwald H]. Bull Johns Hopkins Hosp 1917 ; 28 : 260 –1. OpenUrl
Lasagna L. Hippocratic Oath—modern version. www.pbs.org/ and follow the links for the index (accessed 15 September 2002).
Robin E. The Hippocratic oath updated. BMJ 1994 ; 309 : 952 . OpenUrl FREE Full Text
↵ World Medical Association. Declaration of Geneva. London: World Medical Association, 1995 .
↵ Hurwitz B , Richardson R. Swearing to care: the resurgence in medical oaths. BMJ 1997 ; 315 : 1671 –4. OpenUrl FREE Full Text
↵ Hurtshouse R. On virtue ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999 .
↵ Mill JS . Utilitarianism . In: Sommers C, Sommers F, eds. Vice and virtue . London: Harcourt College Publishers, 2001 .
↵ Aquinas St T. The Summa theologica of St Thomas Aquinas [translated by fathers of the English Dominican Province]. New York: Benziger Brothers, 1947 .

Read the full text or download the PDF:

Virtue Ethics

Virtue ethics is currently one of three major approaches in normative ethics. It may, initially, be identified as the one that emphasizes the virtues, or moral character, in contrast to the approach which emphasizes duties or rules (deontology) or that which emphasizes the consequences of actions (consequentialism). Suppose it is obvious that someone in need should be helped. A utilitarian will point to the fact that the consequences of doing so will maximise well-being, a deontologist to the fact that, in doing so the agent will be acting in accordance with a moral rule such as "Do unto others as you would be done by" and a virtue ethicist to the fact that helping the person would be charitable or benevolent.

Three of virtue ethics' central concepts, virtue, practical wisdom and eudaimonia are often misunderstood. Once they are distinguished from related but distinct concepts peculiar to modern philosophy, various objections to virtue ethics can be better assessed.

1. Preliminaries

2. virtue, practical wisdom and eudaimonia, 3. objections to virtue ethics, 4. future directions, bibliography, other internet resources, related entries.

Virtue ethics' founding fathers are Plato and, more particularly Aristotle (its roots in Chinese philosophy are even more ancient) and it persisted as the dominant approach in Western moral philosophy until at least the Enlightenment. It suffered a momentary eclipse during the nineteenth century but re-emerged in the late 1950's in Anglo-American philosophy. It was heralded by Anscombe's famous article "Modern Moral Philosophy" (Anscombe 1958) which crystallised an increasing dissatisfaction with the forms of deontology and utilitarianism then prevailing. Neither of them, at that time, paid attention to a number of topics that had always figured in the virtue ethics' tradition — the virtues themselves, motives and moral character, moral education, moral wisdom or discernment, friendship and family relationships, a deep concept of happiness, the role of the emotions in our moral life and the fundamentally important questions of what sort of person I should be and how we should live.

Its re-emergence had an invigorating effect on the other two approaches, many of whose proponents then began to address these topics in the terms of their favoured theory. (The sole unfortunate consequence of this has been that it is now necessary to distinguish "virtue ethics" (the third approach) from "virtue theory", a term which is reserved for an account of virtue within one of the other approaches.) Interest in Kant's virtue theory has redirected philosophers' attention to Kant's long neglected Doctrine of Virtue , and utilitarians are developing consequentialist virtue theories. (Hooker 2000, Driver 2001.) It has also generated virtue ethical readings of philosophers other than Plato and Aristotle, such as Martineau, Hume and Nietzsche, and thereby different forms of virtue ethics have developed. (Slote 2001, Swanton 2003.)

But although modern virtue ethics does not have to take the form known as "neo-Aristotelian", almost any modern version still shows that its roots are in ancient Greek philosophy by the employment of three concepts derived from it.These are arête (excellence or virtue) phronesis (practical or moral wisdom) and eudaimonia (usually translated as happiness or flourishing.) As modern virtue ethics has grown and more people have become familiar with its literature, the understanding of these terms has increased, but it is still the case that readers familiar only with modern philosophy tend to misinterpret them.

A virtue such as honesty or generosity is not just a tendency to do what is honest or generous, nor is it to be helpfully specified as a "desirable" or "morally valuable" character trait. It is, indeed a character trait — that is, a disposition which is well entrenched in its possessor, something that, as we say "goes all the way down", unlike a habit such as being a tea-drinker — but the disposition in question, far from being a single track disposition to do honest actions, or even honest actions for certain reasons, is multi-track. It is concerned with many other actions as well, with emotions and emotional reactions, choices, values, desires, perceptions, attitudes, interests, expectations and sensibilities. To possess a virtue is to be a certain sort of person with a certain complex mindset. (Hence the extreme recklessness of attributing a virtue on the basis of a single action.)

The most significant aspect of this mindset is the wholehearted acceptance of a certain range of considerations as reasons for action. An honest person cannot be identified simply as one who, for example, practices honest dealing, and does not cheat. If such actions are done merely because the agent thinks that honesty is the best policy, or because they fear being caught out, rather than through recognising "To do otherwise would be dishonest" as the relevant reason, they are not the actions of an honest person. An honest person cannot be identified simply as one who, for example, always tells the truth, nor even as one who always tells the truth because it is the truth, for one can have the virtue of honesty without being tactless or indiscreet. The honest person recognises "That would be a lie" as a strong (though perhaps not overriding) reason for not making certain statements in certain circumstances, and gives due, but not overriding, weight to "That would be the truth" as a reason for making them.

An honest person's reasons and choices with respect to honest and dishonest actions reflect her views about honesty and truth — but of course such views manifest themselves with respect to other actions, and to emotional reactions as well. Valuing honesty as she does, she chooses, where possible to work with honest people, to have honest friends, to bring up her children to be honest. She disapproves of, dislikes, deplores dishonesty, is not amused by certain tales of chicanery, despises or pities those who succeed by dishonest means rather than thinking they have been clever, is unsurprised, or pleased (as appropriate) when honesty triumphs, is shocked or distressed when those near and dear to her do what is dishonest and so on.

Given that a virtue is such a multi-track disposition, it would obviously be reckless to attribute one to an agent on the basis of a single observed action or even a series of similar actions, especially if you don't know the agent's reasons for doing as she did. (Sreenivasan 2002) Moreover, to possess, fully, such a disposition is to possess full or perfect virtue, which is rare, and there are a number of ways of falling short of this ideal. (Athanassoulis 2000.) Possessing a virtue is a matter of degree, for most people who can be truly described as fairly virtuous, and certainly markedly better than those who can be truly described as dishonest, self-centred and greedy, still have their blind spots — little areas where they do not act for the reasons one would expect. So someone honest or kind in most situations, and notably so in demanding ones may nevertheless be trivially tainted by snobbery, inclined to be disingenuous about their forebears and less than kind to strangers with the wrong accent.

Further, it is not easy to get one's emotions in harmony with one's rational recognition of certain reasons for action. I may be honest enough to recognise that I must own up to a mistake because it would be dishonest not to do so without my acceptance being so wholehearted that I can own up easily, with no inner conflict. Following (and adapting) Aristotle, virtue ethicists draw a distinction between full or perfect virtue and "continence", or strength of will. The fully virtuous do what they should without a struggle against contrary desires; the continent have to control a desire or temptation to do otherwise.

Describing the continent as "falling short" of perfect virtue appears to go against the intuition that there is something particularly admirable about people who manage to act well when it is especially hard for them to do so, but the plausibility of this depends on exactly what "makes it hard." (Foot 1978, 11-14.) If it is the circumstances in which the agent acts — say that she is very poor when she sees someone drop a full purse, or that she is in deep grief when someone visits seeking help — then indeed it is particularly admirable of her to restore the purse or give the help when it is hard for her to do so. But if what makes it hard is an imperfection in her character - the temptation to keep what is not hers, or a callous indifference to the suffering of others — then it is not.

Another way in which one can easily fall short of full virtue is through lacking phronesis — moral or practical wisdom.

The concept of a virtue is the concept of something that makes its possessor good: a virtuous person is a morally good, excellent or admirable person who acts and feels well, rightly, as she should. These are commonly accepted truisms. But it is equally common, in relation to particular (putative) examples of virtues to give these truisms up. We may say of someone that he is too generous or honest, generous or honest "to a fault". It is commonly asserted that someone's compassion might lead them to act wrongly, to tell a lie they should not have told, for example, in their desire to prevent someone else's hurt feelings. It is also said that courage, in a desperado, enables him to do far more wicked things than he would have been able to do if he were timid. So it would appear that generosity, honesty, compassion and courage despite being virtues, are sometimes faults. Someone who is generous, honest, compassionate, and courageous might not be a morally good, admirable person — or, if it is still held to be a truism that they are, then morally good people may be led by what makes them morally good to act wrongly! How have we arrived at such an odd conclusion?

The answer lies in too ready an acceptance of ordinary usage, which permits a fairly wide-ranging application of many of the virtue terms, combined, perhaps, with a modern readiness to suppose that the virtuous agent is motivated by emotion or inclination, not by rational choice. If one thinks of generosity or honesty as the disposition to be moved to action by generous or honest impulses such as the desire to give or to speak the truth, if one thinks of compassion as the disposition to be moved by the sufferings of others and to act on that emotion, if one thinks of courage as merely fearlessness, or the willingness to face danger, then it will indeed seem obvious that these are all dispositions that can lead to their possessor's acting wrongly. But it is also obvious, as soon as it is stated, that these are dispositions that can be possessed by children, and although children thus endowed (bar the "courageous" disposition) would undoubtedly be very nice children, we would not say that they were morally virtuous or admirable people. The ordinary usage, or the reliance on motivation by inclination, gives us what Aristotle calls "natural virtue" — a proto version of full virtue awaiting perfection by phronesis or practical wisdom.

Aristotle makes a number of specific remarks about phronesis that are the subject of much scholarly debate, but the (related) modern concept is best understood by thinking of what the virtuous morally mature adult has that nice children, including nice adolescents, lack. Both the virtuous adult and the nice child have good intentions, but the child is much more prone to mess things up because he is ignorant of what he needs to know in order to do what he intends. A virtuous adult is not, of course, infallible and may also, on occasion, fail to do what she intended to do through lack of knowledge, but only on those occasions on which the lack of knowledge is not culpable ignorance. So, for example, children and adolescents often harm those they intend to benefit either because they do not know how to set about securing the benefit or, more importantly, because their understanding of what is beneficial and harmful is limited and often mistaken. Such ignorance in small children is rarely, if ever culpable, and frequently not in adolescents, but it usually is in adults. Adults are culpable if they mess things up by being thoughtless, insensitive, reckless, impulsive, shortsighted, and by assuming that what suits them will suit everyone instead of taking a more objective viewpoint. They are also, importantly, culpable if their understanding of what is beneficial and harmful is mistaken. It is part of practical wisdom to know how to secure real benefits effectively; those who have practical wisdom will not make the mistake of concealing the hurtful truth from the person who really needs to know it in the belief that they are benefiting him.

Quite generally, given that good intentions are intentions to act well or "do the right thing", we may say that practical wisdom is the knowledge or understanding that enables its possessor, unlike the nice adolescents, to do just that, in any given situation. The detailed specification of what is involved in such knowledge or understanding has not yet appeared in the literature, but some aspects of it are becoming well known. Even many deontologists now stress the point that their action-guiding rules cannot, reliably, be applied correctly without practical wisdom, because correct application requires situational appreciation — the capacity to recognise, in any particular situation, those features of it that are morally salient. This brings out two aspects of practical wisdom.

One is that it characteristically comes only with experience of life. Amongst the morally relevant features of a situation may be the likely consequences, for the people involved, of a certain action, and this is something that adolescents are notoriously clueless about precisely because they are inexperienced. It is part of practical wisdom to be wise about human beings and human life. (It should go without saying that the virtuous are mindful of the consequences of possible actions. How could they fail to be reckless, thoughtless and short-sighted if they were not?)

The aspect that is more usually stressed regarding situational appreciation is the practically wise agent's capacity to recognise some features of a situation as more important than others, or indeed, in that situation, as the only relevant ones. The wise do not see things in the same way as the nice adolescents who, with their imperfect virtues, still tend to see the personally disadvantageous nature of a certain action as competing in importance with its honesty or benevolence or justice.

These aspects coalesce in the description of the practically wise as those who understand what is truly worthwhile, truly important, and thereby truly advantageous in life, who know, in short, how to live well. In the Aristotelian "eudaimonist" tradition, this is expressed in the claim that they have a true grasp of eudaimonia .

The concept of eudaimonia , a key term in ancient Greek moral philosophy, is central to any modern neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics and usually employed even by virtue ethicists who deliberately divorce themselves from Aristotle. It is standardly translated as "happiness" or "flourishing" and occasionally as "well-being."

Each translation has its disadvantages. The trouble with "flourishing" is that animals and even plants can flourish but eudaimonia is possibly only for rational beings. The trouble with "happiness", on any contemporary understanding of it uninfluenced by classically trained writers, is that it connotes something which is subjectively determined. It is for me, not for you, to pronounce on whether I am happy, or on whether my life, as a whole, has been a happy one, for, barring, perhaps, advanced cases of self-deception and the suppression of unconscious misery, if I think I am happy then I am — it is not something I can be wrong about. Contrast my being healthy or flourishing. Here we have no difficulty in recognizing that I might think I was healthy, either physically or psychologically, or think that I was flourishing and just be plain wrong. In this respect, "flourishing" is a better translation than "happiness". It is all too easy for me to be mistaken about whether or not my life is eudaimon (the adjective from eudaimonia ) not simply because it is easy to deceive oneself, but because it is easy to have a mistaken conception of eudaimonia, or of what it is to live well as a human being, believing it to consist largely in physical pleasure or luxury for example.

The claim that this is, straightforwardly, a mistaken conception, reveals the point that eudaimonia is, avowedly, a moralised, or "value-laden" concept of happiness, something like "true" or "real" happiness or "the sort of happiness worth seeking or having." It is thereby the sort of concept about which there can be substantial disagreement between people with different views about human life that cannot be resolved by appeal to some external standard on which, despite their different views, the parties to the disagreement concur.

All standard versions of virtue ethics agree that living a life in accordance with virtue is necessary for eudaimonia. This supreme good is not conceived of as an independently defined state or life (made up of, say, a list of non-moral goods that does not include virtuous activity) which possession and exercise of the virtues might be thought to promote. It is, within virtue ethics, already conceived of as something of which virtue is at least partially constitutive. Thereby virtue ethicists claim that a human life devoted to physical pleasure or the acquisition of wealth is not eudaimon, but a wasted life, and also accept that they cannot produce a knock down argument for this claim proceeding from premises that the happy hedonist would acknowledge.

But although all standard versions of virtue ethics insist on that conceptual link between virtue and eudaimonia , further links are matters of dispute and generate different versions. For Aristotle, virtue is necessary but not sufficient — what is also needed are external goods which are a matter of luck. For Plato, and the Stoics, it is both (Annas 1993), and modern versions of virtue ethics disagree further about the link between eudaimonia and what gives a character trait the status of being a virtue. Given the shared virtue ethical premise that "the good life is the virtuous life" we have so far three distinguishable views about what makes a character trait a virtue.

According to eudaimonism, the good life is the eudaimon life, and the virtues are what enable a human being to be eudaimon because the virtues just are those character traits that benefit their possessor in that way, barring bad luck. So there is a link between eudaimonia and what confers virtue status on a character trait. But according to pluralism, there is no such tight link. The good life is the morally meritorious life, the morally meritorious life is one that is responsive to the demands of the world (on a suitably moralised understanding of "the demands of the world" and is thereby the virtuous life because the virtues just are those character traits in virtue of which their possessor is thus responsive. (Swanton 2003) And according to perfectionism or "naturalism", the good life is the life characteristically lived by someone who is good qua human being, and the virtues enable their possessor to live such a life because the virtues just are those character traits that make their possessor good qua human being (an excellent specimen of her kind.)

(i) The application problem. In the early days of virtue ethics' revival, the approach was associated with an "anti-codifiability" thesis about ethics, directed against the prevailing pretensions of normative theory. At the time, utilitarians and deontologists commonly (though not universally) held that the task of ethical theory was to come up with a code consisting of universal rules or principles (possibly only one, as in the case of act-utilitarianism) which would have two significant features:

(a) the rule(s) would amount to a decision procedure for determining what the right action was in any particular case; (b) the rule(s) would be stated in such terms that any non-virtuous person could understand and apply it (them) correctly.

Virtue ethicists maintained, contrary to these two claims, that it was quite unrealistic to imagine that there could be such a code (see, in particular, Pincoffs 1971 and McDowell:1979). The results of attempts to produce and employ such a code, in the heady days of the 1960s and 1970s, when medical and then bioethics boomed and bloomed, tended to support the virtue ethicists' claim. More and more utilitarians and deontologists found themselves agreed on their general rules but on opposite sides of the controversial moral issues in contemporary discussion. It came to be recognised that moral sensitivity, perception,imagination, and judgement informed by experience — phronesis in short — is needed to apply rules or principles correctly. Hence many (though by no means all) utilitarians and deontologists have explicitly abandoned (b) and much less emphasis is placed on (a).

However, the complaint that virtue ethics does not produce codifiable principles is still the most commonly voiced criticism of the approach, expressed as the objection that it is, in principle, unable to provide action-guidance.

Initially, the objection was based on a misunderstanding. Blinkered by slogans that described virtue ethics as "concerned with Being rather then Doing", as addressing "What sort of person should I be?" but not "What should I do?" as being "agent-centred rather than act-centred", its critics maintained that it was unable to provide action-guidance and hence, rather than being a normative rival to utilitarian and deontological ethics, could claim to be no more than a valuable supplement to them. The rather odd idea was that all virtue ethics could offer was "Identify a moral exemplar and do what he would do" as though the raped fifteen year old trying to decide whether or not to have an abortion was supposed to ask herself "Would Socrates have had an abortion if he were in my circumstances?"

But the objection failed to take note of Anscombe's hint that a great deal of specific action guidance could be found in rules employing the virtue and vice terms ("v-rules") such as "Do what is honest/charitable; do not do what is dishonest/uncharitable." (Hursthouse 1991). (It is a noteworthy feature of our virtue and vice vocabulary that, although our list of generally recognised virtue terms is comparatively short, our list of vice terms is remarkably, and usefully, long, far exceeding anything that anyone who thinks in terms of standard deontological rules has ever come up with. Much invaluable action guidance comes from avoiding courses of action that would be irresponsible, feckless, lazy, inconsiderate, uncooperative, harsh, intolerant, selfish, mercenary, indiscreet, tactless, arrogant, unsympathetic, cold, incautious, unenterprising, pusillanimous, feeble, presumptuous, rude, hypocritical, self-indulgent, materialistic, grasping, short-sighted, vindictive, calculating, ungrateful, grudging, brutal, profligate, disloyal, and on and on.)

This response to "the action guidance problem" generated other objections, for example (ii) the charge of cultural relativity. Is it not the case that different cultures embody different virtues, (MacIntyre 1985) and hence that the v-rules will pick out actions as right or wrong only relative to a particular culture? Different replies have been made to this charge. One — the tu quoque, or "partners in crime" response" — exhibits a quite familiar pattern in virtue ethicists' defensive strategy. (Solomon 1988) They admit that, for them, cultural relativism is a challenge, but point out that it is just as much a problem for the other two approaches. The (putative) cultural variation in character traits regarded as virtues is no greater — indeed markedly less — than the cultural variation in rules of conduct, and different cultures have different ideas about what constitutes happiness or welfare. That cultural relativity should be a problem common to all three approaches is hardly surprising. It is related, after all, to the "justification problem" (see below) the quite general metaethical problem of justifying one's moral beliefs to those who disagree, whether they be moral sceptics, pluralists or from another culture.

A bolder strategy involves claiming that virtue ethics has less difficulty with cultural relativity than the other two approaches. Much cultural disagreement arises, it may be claimed, from local understandings of the virtues, but the virtues themselves are not relative to culture. (Nussbaum 1988.)

Another objection to which the tu quoque response is partially appropriate is (iii) "the conflict problem." What does virtue ethics have to say about dilemmas — cases in which, apparently, the requirements of different virtues conflict because they point in opposed directions? Charity prompts me to kill the person who would be better off dead, but justice forbids it. Honesty points to telling the hurtful truth, kindness and compassion to remaining silent or even lying. What shall I do? Of course, the same sorts of dilemmas are generated by conflicts between deontological rules. Deontology and virtue ethics share the conflict problem (and are happy to take it on board rather than follow some of the utilitarians in their consequentialist resolutions of such dilemmas) and in fact their strategies for responding to it are parallel. Both aim to resolve a number of dilemmas by arguing that the conflict is merely apparent; a discriminating understanding of the virtues or rules in question, possessed only by those with practical wisdom, will perceive that, in this particular case, the virtues do not make opposing demands or that one rule outranks another, or has a certain exception clause built into it. Whether this is all there is to it depends on whether there are any irresolvable dilemmas. If there are, proponents of either normative approach may point out reasonably that it could only be a mistake to offer a resolution of what is, ex hypothesi , irresolvable.

Another problem for virtue ethics, which is shared by both utilitarianism and deontology, is (iv) "the justification problem." Abstractly conceived, this is the problem of how we justify or ground our ethical beliefs, an issue that is hotly debated at the level of metaethics. In its particular versions, for deontology there is the question of how to justify its claims that certain moral rules are the correct ones, and for utilitarianism of how to justify its claim that the only thing that really matters morally is consequences for happiness or well-being. For virtue ethics, the problem concerns the question of which character traits are the virtues.

In the metaethical debate, there is widespread disagreement about the possibility of providing an external foundation for ethics — "external" in the sense of being external to ethical beliefs — and the same disagreement is found amongst deontologists and utilitarians. Some believe that ethics can be placed on a secure basis, resistant to any form of scepticism, such as what anyone rational desires, or would accept or agree on, regardless of their ethical outlook; others that it cannot.

Virtue ethicists have eschewed any attempt to ground virtue ethics in an external foundation while continuing to maintain that their claims can be validated. Some follow a form of Rawls' coherentist approach (Slote 2001, Swanton 2003); neo-Aristotelians a form of ethical naturalism.

A misunderstanding of eudaimonia as an unmoralised concept leads some critics to suppose that the neo-Aristotelians are attempting to ground their claims in a scientific account of human nature and what counts, for a human being, as flourishing. Others assume that, if this is not what they are doing, they cannot be validating their claims that, for example, justice, charity, courage, and generosity are virtues. Either they are illegitimately helping themselves to Aristotle's discredited natural teleology (Williams 1985) or producing mere rationalisations of their own personal or culturally inculcated values. But McDowell, Foot, MacIntyre and Hursthouse have all recently been outlining versions of a third way between these two extremes. Eudaimonia in virtue ethics, is indeed a moralised concept, but it is not only that. Claims about what constitutes flourishing for human beings no more float free of scientific facts about what human beings are like than ethological claims about what constitutes flourishing for elephants. In both cases, the truth of the claims depends in part on what kind of animal they are and what capacities, desires and interests the humans or elephants have.

The best available science today (including evolutionary theory and psychology) supports rather than undermines the ancient Greek assumption that we are social animals, like elephants and wolves and unlike polar bears. No rationalising explanation in terms of anything like a social contract is needed to explain why we choose to live together, subjugating our egoistical desires in order to secure the advantages of co-operation. Like other social animals, our natural impulses are not solely directed towards our own pleasures and preservation, but include altruistic and cooperative ones.

This basic fact about us should make more comprehensible the claim that the virtues are at least partially constitutive of human flourishing and also undercut the objection that virtue ethics is, in some sense, egoistic.

(v) The egotism objection has a number of sources. One is a simple confusion. Once it is understood that the fully virtuous agent characteristically does what she should without inner conflict, it is triumphantly asserted that "she is only doing what she wants to do and is hence being selfish." So when the generous person gives gladly, as the generous are wont to do, it turns out she is not generous and unselfish after all, or at least not as generous as the one who greedily wants to hang on to everything she has but forces herself to give because she thinks she should! A related version ascribes bizarre reasons to the virtuous agent, unjustifiably assuming that she acts as she does because she believes that acting thus on this occasion will help her to achieve eudaimonia. But "the virtuous agent" is just "the agent with the virtues" and it is part of our ordinary understanding of the virtue terms that each carries with it its own typical range of reasons for acting. The virtuous agent acts as she does because she believes that someone's suffering will be averted, or someone benefited, or the truth established, or a debt repaid, or ... thereby.

It is the exercise of the virtues during one's life that is held to be at least partially constitutive of eudaimonia, and this is consistent with recognising that bad luck may land the virtuous agent in circumstances that require her to give up her life. Given the sorts of considerations that courageous, honest, loyal, charitable people wholeheartedly recognise as reasons for action, they may find themselves compelled to face danger for a worthwhile end, to speak out in someone's defence, or refuse to reveal the names of their comrades, even when they know that this will inevitably lead to their execution, to share their last crust and face starvation. On the view that the exercise of the virtues is necessary but not sufficient for eudaimonia , such cases are described as those in which the virtuous agent sees that, as things have unfortunately turned out, eudaimonia is not possible for them. (Foot 2001, 95) On the Stoical view that it is both necessary and sufficient, a eudaimon life is a life that has been successfully lived (where "success" of course is not to be understood in a materialistic way) and such people die knowing not only that they have made a success of their lives but that they have also brought their lives to a markedly successful completion. Either way, such heroic acts can hardly be regarded as egoistic.

A lingering suggestion of egoism may be found in the misconceived distinction between so-called "self-regarding" and "other-regarding" virtues. Those who have been insulated from the ancient tradition tend to regard justice and benevolence as real virtues, which benefit others but not their possessor, and prudence, fortitude and providence (the virtue whose opposite is "improvidence" or being a spendthrift) as not real virtues at all because they benefit only their possessor. This is a mistake on two counts. Firstly, justice and benevolence do, in general, benefit their possessors, since without them eudaimonia is not possible. Secondly, given that we live together, as social animals, the "self-regarding" virtues do benefit others — those who lack them are a great drain on, and sometimes grief to, those who are close to them (as parents with improvident or imprudent adult offspring know only too well.)

The most recent objection (vi) to virtue ethics claims that work in "situationist" social psychology shows that there are no such things as character traits and thereby no such things as virtues for virtue ethics to be about (Doris 1998, Harman 1999). But virtue ethicists claim in response that the social psychologists' studies are irrelevant to the multi-track disposition (see above) that a virtue is supposed to be (Sreenivasan 2002 ). Mindful of just how multi-track it is, they agree that it would be reckless in the extreme to ascribe a demanding virtue such as charity to people of whom they know no more than that they have exhibited conventional decency; this would indeed be 'a fundamental attribution error.'

As noted under "Preliminaries" above, a few non-Aristotelian forms of virtue ethics have developed. The most radical departure from the ancient Greek tradition is found in Michael Slote's 'agent-based' approach (Slote 2001) inspired by Hutcheson, Hume, Martineau and the feminist ethics of care. Slote's version of virtue ethics is agent-based (as opposed to more Aristotelian forms which are said to be agent-focused) in the sense that the moral rightness of acts is based on the virtuous motives or characters of the agent. However, the extent of the departure has been exaggerated. Although Slote discusses well-being rather than eudaimonia, and maintains that this consists in certain "objective" goods, he argues that virtuous motives are not only necessary but also sufficient for well-being. And although he usually discusses (virtuous) motives rather than virtues, it is clear that his motives are not transitory inner states but admirable states of character, such as compassion, benevolence and caring. Moreover, although he makes no mention of practical wisdom, such states of character are not admirable, not virtuous motives, unless they take the world into account and are 'balanced', in (we must suppose) a wise way. The growing interest in ancient Chinese ethics currently tends to emphasise its common ground with the ancient Greek tradition but, as it gains strength, it may well introduce a more radical departure.

Although virtue ethics has grown remarkably in the last twenty years,it is still very much in the minority, particularly in the area of applied ethics. Many editors of big textbook collections on "bioethics", or "moral problems" or "biomedical ethics" now try to include articles representative of each of the three normative approaches but are often unable to find any virtue ethics article addressing a particular issue. This is sometimes, no doubt, because "the" issue has been set up as a deontologicial/utilitarian debate, but it is often simply because no virtue ethicist has yet written on the topic. However, the last few years have seen the first collection on applied virtue ethics (Walker and Ivanhoe 2007)and increasing attention to the virtues in role ethics.This area can certainly be expected to grow in the future, and it looks as though applying virtue ethics in the field of environmental ethics may prove particularly fruitful (Sandler 2007).

Whether virtue ethics can be expected to grow into "virtue politics" — i.e. to extend from moral philosophy into political philosophy — is not so clear. Although Plato and Aristotle can be great inspirations as far as the former is concerned, neither, on the face of it, are attractive sources of insight where politics is concerned. However, Nussbaum's most recent work (Nussbaum 2006) suggests that Aristotelian ideas can, after all, generate a satisfyingly liberal political philosophy. Moreover, as noted above, virtue ethics does not have to be neo-Aristotelian. It may be that the virtue ethics of Hutcheson and Hume can be naturally extended into a modern political philosophy (Hursthouse 1990-91; Slote 1993.)

Following Plato and Aristotle, modern virtue ethics has always emphasised the importance of moral education, not as the inculcation of rules but as the training of character. In 1982, Carol Gilligan wrote an influential attack ( In a Different Voice) on the Kantian-inspired theory of educational psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg. Though primarily intended to criticize Kohlberg's approach as exclusively masculinist, Gilligan's book unwittingly raised many points and issues that are reflected in virtue ethics. Probably Gilligan has been more effective than the academic debates of moral philosophers, but one way or another, there is now a growing movement towards virtues education, amongst both academics (Carr 1999) and teachers in the classroom.

Adams, Robert Merihew, 2006, A Theory of Virtue, New York: Oxford University Press.
Annas, Julia, 1993, The Morality of Happiness, New York: Oxford University Press.
Baron, Marcia W., Philip Pettit and Michael Slote, 1997, Three Methods of Ethics, New York: Oxford University Press.
Crittenden, Paul, 1990, Learning to be Moral, New Jersey: Humanities Press International.
Dent, N.J.H., 1984, The Moral Psychology of the Virtues, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Driver, Julia, 2001, Uneasy Virtue , New York: Cambridge University Press.
Foot, Philippa, 1978, Virtues and Vices , Oxford: Blackwell.
–––, 2001, Natural Goodness , Oxford, Clarendon Press
Galston, William, 1991, Liberal Purposes: Goods, Virtues and Diversity in the Liberal State , New York, Cambridge University Press
Geach, Peter, 1977, The Virtues, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Goldie, Peter, 2004, On Personality, London: Routledge.
Halwani, Raja, 2003, Virtuous Liaisons, Chicago: Open Court.
Hudson, Stephen, 1986, Human Character and Morality, Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Hooker, Brad, 2000, Ideal Code, Real World, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hurka, Thomas, 2001, Virtue, Vice, and Value, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hursthouse, Rosalind, 1999, On Virtue Ethics, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
MacIntyre, Alasdair, 1985, After Virtue, London, Duckworth, 2 nd Edition.
–––, 1999, Dependent Rational Animals, Chicago: Open Court.
Nussbaum, Martha Craven, 2006, Frontiers of Justice, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Slote, Michael, 2001, Morals from Motives, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Swanton, Christine, 2003, Virtue Ethics: A Pluralistic View, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Taylor, Gabriele, 2006, Deadly Vices, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tessman, Lisa, 2005, Burdened Virtues, New York: Oxford University Press.
Williams, Bernard, 1985, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

B. Anthologies

Carr, David and Jan Steutel (eds.), 1999, Virtue Ethics and Moral Education, New York: Routledge.
Chappell, T. (ed.), 2006, Values and Virtues, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Crisp, Roger (ed.), 1996, How Should One Live? Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Crisp, Roger and Michael Slote (eds.), 1997, Virtue Ethics, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Darwall, Stephen (ed.), 2003, Virtue Ethics, Oxford: Blackwell.
Flanagan, Owen and Amelie Oksenberg Rorty (eds.), 1990, Identity, Character and Morality, Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press.
French, Peter A., Theodore Uehling,Jr., and Howard Wettstein (eds.), 1988, Midwest Studies in Philosophy Vol. XIII Ethical Theory: Character and Virtue, Notre Dame, Indiana, University of Notre Dame Press.
Statman, D. (ed.), 1997a, Virtue Ethics, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Walker, Rebecca L. and Philip J. Ivanhoe (eds.), 2007, Working Virtue, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

C. Survey Articles

Annas, Julia, "Virtue Ethics", forthcoming in a collection of David Copp's
Oakley, J. "Varieties of Virtue Ethics", Ratio 9, (1996), pp.128-52
Statman, Daniel,1997b, "Introduction to Virtue Ethics", in Statman, 1997a: 1-41
Swanton, Christine, 2003, "75 Virtue Ethics", in International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences , Elsevier Science, www.e-products.elsevier.com
Trianosky, Gregory Velazco y., 1990, "What is Virtue ethics All About?", American Philosophical Quarterly , 27: 335-44, reprinted in Statman, 1997a

D. Articles

Athanassoulis, Nafsika, 2000, "A Response to Harman: Virtue Ethics and Character Traits," Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series, Vol C, pp. 215-221.
Anscombe, G.E.M., 1958, "Modern Moral Philosophy", Philosophy 33:1-19
Badhwar, N.K., 1996,"The Limited Unity of Virtue", Nous 30:306-29.
Doris, John M.(1998), "Persons, Situations and Virtue Ethics," Nous 32:4, 504-30.
Foot, Philippa, 1994, "Rationality and Virtue", in H. Pauer-Studer (ed.), Norms, Values , and Society , Amsterdam, Kluwer, 205-16
–––, 1995, "Does Moral Subjectivism Rest on a Mistake?", Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 15, 1-14
Galston, William, 1992, "Introduction", in J.W. Chapman and W. Galston (eds.) Virtue. Nomos 34: 1-14
Geach, P.T., 1956, "Good and Evil", Analysis 17: 33-42
Harman,G. (1999), "Moral Philosophy Meets Social Psychology: Virtue Ethics and the fundamental Attribution Error," Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society New Series Vol CXIX, 316-31.
Hursthouse, Rosalind, 1990-1, "After Hume's Justice", Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society , 91: 229-45
McDowell, John, 1979, "Virtue and Reason", Monist 62: 331-50
–––, 1980, "The Role of Eudaimonia in Aristotle's Ethics", reprinted in Essays on Aristotle's Ethics , ed. Amelie Oksenberg Rorty, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1980, 359-76
–––, 1995, "Two Sorts of Naturalism", in Virtues and Reasons , R. Hursthouse, G. Lawrence and W.Quinn (eds.), Oxford, Oxford University Press, 149-79
Nussbaum, Martha, 1988, Non-relative virtues: An Aristotelian Approach", in French et al. 1988, 32- 53.
–––, 1990, "Aristotelian Social Democracy", in R. Douglass, G. Mara, and H. Richardson (eds.), Liberalism and the Good , New York, Routledge, 203-52
Pincoffs, Edmund L., 1971, "Quandary Ethics", Mind 80: 552-71
Slote, Michael, 1993, "Virtue ethics and Democratic Values", Journal of Social Philosophy 14: 5-37
Solomon, David, 1988, "Internal Objections to Virtue Ethics", in French et al , 428-41, reprinted in Statman 1997a.
Sreenivasan, Gopal, 2002, "Errors about Errors: Virtue Theory and Trait Attribution," Mind 111 (January): 47-68.
Stocker, Michael, 1976, "The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories", Journal of Philosophy 14:453-66
Swanton, Christine, 1995, "Profiles of the Virtues", Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 76:47-72.
–––, 1998, "Outline of a Nietzschean Virtue Ethics", International Studies in Philosophy 30: 29-38.
Watson, Gary, 1990, "On the Primacy of Character", in Flanagan and Rorty, 449-83, reprinted in Statman, 1997a.
Literature on Aristotle and Virtue Ethics , Ethics Updates, Larry Hinman, U. San Diego
Bibliography on Virtue Ethics (in PDF, listed alphabetically), and Bibliography on Virtue Ethics (in PDF, listed chronologically), by Jörg Schroth.

Aristotle | character, moral | consequentialism | ethics: deontological | moral dilemmas

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

4 Chapter 4: Virtue Ethics—The Role of Character in Moral Philosophy

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” – Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics “To put the world in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right.” – Confucius, The Great Learning

In this chapter, you’ll embark on an exploration of virtue ethics, an approach that seeks to answer the fundamental questions, “What does it mean to be a good person? And how can I become one?” Virtue ethics diverges from other moral theories by focusing on the character of the moral agent rather than the act or the consequences. This approach views virtues – traits like wisdom, courage, kindness, and justice – as central to leading a morally good life.

Our exploration begins with a captivating tale called “Unaltered Virtue,” set in the intricate city of Eudaimon. Through the journey of Prudence, a young citizen facing a defining rite of passage, you’ll delve into a world where virtues can be genetically imprinted, shedding light on the nuances and complexities of virtue ethics in action. Alongside the story, discussion questions will prompt deeper thought and reflection on these concepts.

The chapter further delves into ‘Big Ideas’, starting with Aristotelian virtue ethics. Aristotle’s profound insights into moral virtue and the concept of eudaimonia – a flourishing life – serve as the cornerstone of our understanding of this approach.

We will also venture beyond Aristotle, exploring diverse interpretations and applications of virtue ethics from different cultures and perspectives, including Confucianism with its focus on “Ren” or benevolence, Dharma-based virtue ethics from Ancient India, the African philosophy of Ubuntu, and Care Ethics, which is a feminist approach that emphasizes relationships and caring as moral virtues.

A section on contemporary debates adds another layer to the discourse, focusing on issues related to genetic engineering and moral enhancement. This engages with provocative questions about the implications of technology on our understanding and practice of virtues.

Story: Unaltered Virtue

The day was growing dim, and a luminous orange haze painted the horizon, illuminating the imposing city of Eudaimon. Nestled within valleys of metal and rivets, the sprawling metropolis was a testament to the union of human ambition and machinery, a vast labyrinth of steam-driven technologies and elaborate bronze edificacies, punctuated by the rhythmic echoes of clanking gears and whirring pistons.

This was Prudence’s realm, a labyrinth of possibility and purpose. Born of this city, she was more than just its inhabitant. She was its daughter, its testament, and soon to be, its beacon of virtuous transformation.

Her hair was a tempest of burnished copper curls, mirroring the hues of the city that birthed her. Her eyes, twin orbs of rich mahogany, shimmered with the flame of inquisitiveness, always seeking, forever questioning. There was an energy about her, a restless vitality, as though she was a gear cog forever revolving in the clockwork of her existence.

On the eve of her 18th birthday, as was tradition, she was due to choose a virtue to be genetically imprinted upon her being, a defining attribute to guide her path in the machinations of her society. The virtues were many; wisdom, courage, humility, honesty, a veritable lexicon of human strength and kindness. The process, once an outlandish concept, had now become a rite

As her eighteenth year approached, Prudence wandered the city, watching its people, contemplating the virtues that shaped their existence. She observed the enigmatic artists, blessed with creativity, their fingers stained with ink and color, as they drew forth wondrous creations from the depths of their souls. She beheld the scholars, gifted with wisdom, their minds a labyrinth of knowledge, as they explored the mysteries of the universe and unwound the puzzles of time.

Prudence stumbled upon the more peculiar and unique citizens, those who had walked unexpected roads. She came across a woman who had chosen infinite patience, now sitting by a river, eternally tranquil, awaiting the day the waters would reveal their secrets. She met a man, graced with ceaseless curiosity, whose mind thirsted constantly for new discoveries, and who had become the keeper of the city’s complex library, forever entangled in its maze of words.

However, not all who wandered the city’s twisting streets had chosen their virtues wisely, however. In the shadows of the gleaming towers, a darker world thrived, a realm of lost souls who had succumbed to the alluring allure of virtues that twisted and corrupted them. As Prudence’s eighteenth year drew near, she sought them out – a quest driven by curiosity, fueled by her desire to learn from their mistakes.

She encountered a man who had chosen ambition – unyielding, insatiable – and had soared to greatness like a comet streaking across the night. But as ambition’s fire consumed him, his heart grew cold, and his once-vibrant eyes reflected only an abyss of emptiness. He had lost all he held dear, and still, he hungered for more. In another of the city’s forgotten corners, Prudence found a woman who had sought eternal beauty. Her skin, flawless porcelain; her hair, spun gold. Yet, her pursuit had led her to a prison of vanity, where her reflection was both her captor and her only companion. Her laughter, once like the tinkling of silver bells, had faded into a hollow echo. Finally, there was the boy who had chosen the gift of absolute honesty, believing it a righteous virtue. His words became a torrent of truth, unfiltered and merciless, and he watched as relationships crumbled around him. Friendless and alone, he wandered the city’s streets, haunted by the ghosts of his own words.

The Unmodified

Prudence wandered through the marketplace, her senses awash in the sights, sounds, and smells of the city. The air was thick with the scent of spices and flowers, and the sound of laughter and music filled the air. She paused to admire a stall of bioluminescent blooms, their petals glowing like stars in the night. As she turned away, she caught sight of a small, unassuming wooden booth tucked away in an alcove. Atop the booth hung a sign, its letters etched in an elegant script: “The Unmodified.”

Prudence’s curiosity piqued, she drew closer to the booth. Behind it stood an old man, his hair a shock of silver, cascading to his shoulders, and his beard a snowy tuft. His eyes were warm and wise, and his smile was gentle.

“Hello,” he said. “My name is Areté. What can I do for you?”

“I’m Prudence,” she replied. “I was drawn to your sign. What does it mean?”

“It means that I am an unmodified human,” Areté said. “I have not chosen to have my genes modified, as is the custom in this city.”

Prudence was surprised. “Why not?” she asked.

“Because I believe that true virtue cannot be achieved through genetic engineering,” Areté said. “It must be cultivated through deliberate practice and self-reflection. I believe that each of us has a unique purpose in life, and that the only way to truly live is to discover and fulfill that purpose.”

Prudence was intrigued by Areté’s words. She had never thought about it that way before.

“Can you tell me more?” she asked.

And so Areté began to speak. He spoke of eudaimonia, the ultimate goal for humans – a flourishing life, rich in happiness and fulfillment. He spoke of phronesis, practical wisdom – the ability to discern the best course of action in a given situation. He spoke of teleology, the notion that everything in the universe has a purpose, and that the essence of a virtuous life lay in fulfilling one’s unique purpose or function.

With a glimmer in his eyes, he described the doctrine of the mean – finding the balance between excess and deficiency in one’s actions and emotions. He explained that virtues such as courage, generosity, and patience were not fixed points, but rather, lay in the equilibrium of each individual’s character.

As Prudence listened to Areté, she noticed a gentle figure approaching from behind the booth. The woman, with her long silver hair braided in an elegant style, exuded a sense of calm and grace as she joined the conversation. Areté introduced her as his wife, Lian, a devoted Confucian who, like her husband, had refused the city’s tradition of genetic virtue implantation.

Lian began by highlighting the similarities between her own beliefs and those of her husband. Both Confucianism and Aristotelian virtue ethics placed emphasis on the cultivation of virtues through a lifetime of practice and self-reflection. She explained that, in Confucian thought, virtues such as ren, or benevolence, and li, or propriety, were essential in achieving harmony within oneself and society.

The key difference, Lian noted, lay in the focus of each philosophy. While Aristotle’s virtue ethics revolved around individual flourishing and eudaimonia, Confucianism placed greater importance on the interconnectedness of individuals within society. The ultimate goal of a Confucian was to bring about social harmony through the practice of virtues and the adherence to the proper rituals and relationships.

She spoke of the Five Constant Virtues – benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and integrity – that shaped the Confucian path. These virtues were not merely qualities to be possessed, but a way of life, woven into the fabric of one’s daily existence. Lian described the importance of filial piety, the respect and devotion to one’s parents and ancestors, as well as the significance of moral exemplars – individuals who embodied the virtues and served as guiding lights for others.

As Prudence listened to Lian’s words, she found herself drawn to the idea of harmony – the delicate balance between the self and the world, the pursuit of virtues in the service of both personal and collective well-being. The girl with the starlit eyes and laughter like a forgotten melody now had two distinct paths before her, both rooted in the wisdom of ancient traditions, both promising a life of meaning and purpose.

Areté and Lian exchanged a knowing glance, seeing in Prudence’s eyes the spark of curiosity and the desire to explore alternative paths. They offered to introduce her to their circle of friends, a group known as “The Unaltered” – individuals who had chosen to remain unmodified, embracing various philosophical traditions and the lifelong pursuit of virtue.

Together, they led Prudence to a secret courtyard hidden within the city’s heart, a sanctuary where The Unaltered gathered. The place was an oasis of tranquility, bathed in the gentle glow of lanterns, with lush greenery and the soothing sound of a burbling fountain. Here, Prudence met the others, each a unique embodiment of their chosen path.

She met Ravi, a follower of Indian philosophy, who spoke of dharma, the inherent nature and moral duty of an individual. He explained the concept of karma, the belief that one’s actions determine their future, and the importance of living a life in accordance with one’s dharma, to achieve harmony and balance.

Prudence was introduced to Amara, a devotee of African Ubuntu philosophy, who emphasized the interconnectedness of humanity. “I am because we are,” she said, explaining that one’s character and virtues could only be fully realized through relationships and interactions with others. Ubuntu highlighted the importance of compassion, empathy, and respect for the collective well-being.

There was also Sol, a student of Stoicism, who believed in the cultivation of inner strength and resilience in the face of life’s challenges. He shared the Stoic principles of living in accordance with reason, practicing self-discipline, and seeking inner peace by recognizing the difference between what one could control and what one could not.

As Prudence listened to their stories, she marveled at the rich tapestry of virtue ethics from around the world, each offering a unique perspective on the journey of self-cultivation and the pursuit of a meaningful life. She felt a sense of kinship with The Unaltered, a connection born of the shared belief in the power of human potential, unbound by genetic modification.

The Argument

Prudence sat in the dimly lit room, her heart racing as she glanced at her two older sisters. Their presence, both comforting and intimidating, stirred a whirlwind of memories within her. Amelia, the eldest, had always been the pragmatic one—Prudence recalled the countless times Amelia had mediated their childhood disputes, weighing the pros and cons of each side with careful consideration. Cassia, the middle sister, was the embodiment of steadfastness, her unwavering sense of duty and moral principles guiding her actions.

As the sisters sat together, the room seemed to shrink, as if the weight of their collective history was pressing in on them. Prudence knew that she was about to embark on a journey that defied her sisters’ beliefs, and the air crackled with unspoken tension.

Amelia was the first to speak, her voice steady but laden with concern. “Prudence, your decision to remain unaltered reminds me of when we were children, and you refused to accept help with your schoolwork. You were always determined to learn and grow on your own, but sometimes, accepting help can lead to greater understanding and success.”

“My dear sisters,” Amelia continued, “I respect your beliefs and your choices, but I must share my thoughts on why I believe genetic engineering, from a utilitarian perspective, can improve our world and maximize overall well-being.”

She continued, “By genetically implanting virtues, we can create a society in which individuals possess the necessary qualities to contribute to the greater good. A person who is genetically engineered to be empathetic, for example, will be more inclined to consider the well-being of others in their actions, thereby reducing suffering and increasing happiness.”

Addressing Prudence’s newfound interest in virtue ethics, Amelia delved into her critique. “While I appreciate the focus on personal growth and self-cultivation, virtue ethics is, in many ways, a subjective and inconsistent approach to morality. What might be considered virtuous in one situation could lead to negative outcomes in another. In contrast, utilitarianism provides a clear, objective standard by which we can assess the morality of our actions: the maximization of happiness and minimization of suffering.”

Amelia went on to express her concerns about the potential pitfalls of virtue ethics. “The emphasis on character traits and individual virtues can sometimes lead to a form of moral elitism, where those who have cultivated certain virtues may believe themselves to be morally superior to others. Genetic engineering, on the other hand, provides everyone with equal access to virtues, leveling the playing field and allowing each person to contribute positively to society.”

She concluded her speech with an earnest plea. “I understand that the path of The Unaltered offers a rich tradition of self-cultivation and exploration, but I urge you both to consider the potential of genetic engineering as a powerful tool for achieving the greater good. The goal of utilitarianism is to create a world in which happiness and well-being are maximized, and genetic engineering, when applied ethically and responsibly, could be an invaluable means to that end.”

Cassia chimed in, her voice gentle yet firm. “Prudence, I too, remember when you struggled to make decisions as a child, caught between your desire for personal growth and your fear of making the wrong choice. Your choice to remain unaltered echoes that same indecisiveness. Genetic engineering, when used responsibly, can be a tool for enhancing our capacity to contribute positively to the world.”

“I appreciate the passion with which you both approach the question of ethics. While Amelia’s utilitarian viewpoint has its merits, I believe that deontological ethics provides a more solid foundation for moral action.”

Cassia continued, “Deontology is based on the premise that certain moral duties and principles are inherently right or wrong, regardless of the consequences. By adhering to these duties and principles, we are able to create a just and harmonious society, one in which individuals are respected and treated with dignity.”

Turning her attention to Prudence’s interest in virtue ethics, Cassia shared her concerns. “While the focus on personal growth and self-cultivation is admirable, virtue ethics leaves much room for subjectivity and ambiguity. Different people may interpret the virtues in different ways, and what might be considered a virtuous action in one situation could be deemed inappropriate in another. Deontological ethics, however, provides a clear and objective framework for moral decision-making, grounded in the unwavering commitment to moral principles and duties.”

Cassia then addressed the potential shortcomings of virtue ethics. “By placing such emphasis on the cultivation of individual virtues, virtue ethics may inadvertently encourage a sense of moral complacency. One might believe that, by possessing certain virtues, they are inherently good, regardless of their actions. In contrast, deontological ethics calls for an ongoing commitment to moral principles and duties, fostering a sense of responsibility and accountability for one’s actions.”

She then presented a deontological argument for genetic engineering, focusing on duties to family. “From a deontological standpoint, we have a duty to care for and support our parents, grandparents, and (yes) our sisters. Genetic engineering, when used responsibly, can provide an opportunity to uphold this duty by enhancing our capacity to contribute positively to the well-being of our loved ones. By choosing to enhance traits that allow us to more fully meet our moral principles and duties, we can create a harmonious balance between our deontological commitments and the potential benefits of genetic engineering.”

Cassia concluded her speech with a heartfelt appeal. “Prudence, I understand the allure of The Unaltered and the wisdom of ancient traditions, but I encourage you to consider the importance of moral duties and principles in guiding our actions, as well as the potential benefits of responsible genetic engineering. By embracing the duties outlined in deontological ethics and carefully selecting virtues that enhance our ability to fulfill those duties, we can create a world that is just, compassionate, and grounded in unshakable moral principles.”

As her sisters’ words echoed in the room, Prudence felt a surge of gratitude for the love and respect they shared, despite their differing beliefs. With a heart full of emotion, she prepared to offer her own defense of virtue ethics and her choice to remain unaltered. “Amelia, Cassia,” Prudence began, her starlit eyes shining with conviction, “I am deeply grateful for your insights and the care with which you’ve presented your arguments. Your perspectives have broadened my understanding, and I feel honored to call you both my sisters.”

Prudence continued, “While utilitarianism and deontological ethics provide valuable frameworks for moral decision-making, I believe that virtue ethics offers a more holistic approach to ethical living. It focuses not only on our actions but also on the cultivation of our character, which ultimately shapes the decisions we make and the way we interact with the world.”

Addressing the concerns raised by her sisters, Prudence offered a nuanced perspective. “I understand that virtue ethics can be subjective and open to interpretation, but it is precisely this flexibility that allows for personal growth and self-reflection. Virtue ethics encourages us to continually evaluate our character and strive for moral excellence, fostering a deep sense of empathy and understanding towards others.”

She then defended her choice to remain unaltered. “I have chosen to join The Unaltered not because I dismiss the potential benefits of genetic engineering, but because I believe that the journey of self-cultivation, with its trials and triumphs, holds intrinsic value. Through the pursuit of virtue, we gain a deeper understanding of ourselves and our place in the world, fostering a sense of interconnectedness and shared responsibility.”

Prudence further elaborated, “By choosing to cultivate virtues within ourselves, rather than relying on genetic engineering, we embrace the challenge of personal growth and take ownership of our moral development. In doing so, we nurture our capacity for moral discernment, allowing us to navigate the complexities of life with wisdom and compassion.”

As she concluded her speech, Prudence’s voice carried the weight of her conviction. “My dear sisters, I respect and admire your dedication to your chosen ethical paths. It is my hope that, by embracing the wisdom of virtue ethics and the challenge of self-cultivation, I can contribute to the well-being of our family and society, while honoring the beauty and richness of human potential.”

Years had passed since that fateful night when Prudence and her sisters had engaged in their emotional debate, their words weaving a tapestry of love, conviction, and memory. The choices each sister made that day had reverberated through the tapestry of their lives, shaping not only their paths but also the lives of those around them. Prudence had remained steadfast in her decision to live a life of arete, embracing the challenge of self-cultivation and personal growth. The virtues she chose to pursue—wisdom, courage, empathy, and integrity—became the cornerstones of her character, guiding her actions and decisions with unwavering dedication.

As a mother, Prudence nurtured her children with love and understanding, teaching them the importance of moral discernment and the pursuit of excellence in all aspects of life. Her children grew up to be compassionate, wise, and resilient individuals, their own lives embodying the virtues their mother had instilled in them. Her influence extended beyond her family, touching the lives of her students, coworkers, and fellow citizens. As a teacher, she inspired her students to question, explore, and strive for moral excellence, guiding them on their journey toward self-discovery and growth. Her unwavering commitment to virtue ethics became a source of inspiration, fostering a sense of unity and shared responsibility within her community.

Discussion Questions: Unaltered Virtue

How do the ethical theories of utilitarianism, deontological ethics, and virtue ethics differ in their approach to moral decision-making? How are these differences reflected in the perspectives of Amelia, Cassia, and Prudence?
In what ways do the sisters’ childhood experiences and memories inform their ethical beliefs and choices as adults? How do their childhood weaknesses relate to the ethical frameworks they adopt?
How does Prudence’s choice to remain unaltered and embrace virtue ethics affect her relationships with her family, students, and fellow citizens? Can you think of any potential drawbacks to her decision?
What are some of the key virtues that Prudence pursues, and how do they manifest in her actions and decisions throughout the story? How do these virtues contribute to her sense of purpose and fulfillment?
How does the story depict the balance between the sisters’ love and respect for each other and their commitment to their respective ethical beliefs? What can we learn from their relationship about navigating disagreements on moral issues?
How does the concept of arete, or moral excellence, influence Prudence’s approach to self-cultivation and personal growth? Do you agree with her belief in the intrinsic value of this journey, or do you think genetic engineering can also play a role in moral development?
Based on the story, what role does empathy and understanding play in the sisters’ ethical journey? How does this contribute to their capacity for moral discernment and decision-making?
In your opinion, which ethical framework—utilitarianism, deontological ethics, or virtue ethics—resonates most with you and why? Can these theories coexist, or do they inherently conflict with one another?
How might the story have unfolded differently if Prudence had chosen to embrace genetic engineering and alter her virtues? What implications could this have had for her relationships and her impact on others?
What questions does the story raise about the role of personal choice, responsibility, and agency in ethical living? How does Prudence’s journey challenge or support your own beliefs about the nature of morality and personal growth?

Big Ideas: Aristotelian Virtue Ethics

Aristotle’s virtue ethics , an agent-centered theory, places individuals and their characters at the core of ethical deliberation. This approach prompts introspection, encouraging one to ask, “how should I be?” rather than simply “what should I do?” It’s a journey towards moral character rather than a singular focus on moral actions.

One of the central concepts in Aristotle’s virtue ethics is “ eudaimonia “, a Greek term often translated as “flourishing” or “the good life”. Aristotle believed that all actions ultimately aim at eudaimonia, making it the ultimate goal of human life. This idea shifts the perspective from individual actions to the broader context of a person’s life. For Aristotle, leading a good life isn’t about individual good deeds but about cultivating a character that consistently leads to these deeds.

The pursuit of eudaimonia leads us to another key concept in Aristotle’s virtue ethics: the doctrine of the mean . According to this doctrine, every virtue lies between two vices, one of excess and one of deficiency. For instance, courage, a virtue, stands between recklessness (excess) and cowardice (deficiency). A courageous person is neither too rash nor too timid but finds a balanced approach to dealing with danger.

Consider a situation where one must decide whether to confront a bully. The reckless response might be to initiate a violent conflict, while the deficient response might be to run away or ignore the situation entirely. The courageous response, according to Aristotle, would be to find a balanced approach, perhaps standing up to the bully in a non-violent way.

Like any skill, virtues such as courage, honesty, or generosity, must be practiced to be refined. Aristotle, following Socrates and Plato, viewed virtues as central to a well-lived life. He believed ethical virtues, like justice, courage, and temperance, are complex rational, emotional, and social skills that one develops over time. The goal is not merely to act virtuously but to become a virtuous person.

Aristotle and other virtue ethicists distinguish between full or perfect virtue and “ continence “, or strength of will. Fully virtuous individuals naturally act in line with their virtuous character, without struggling against contrary desires. Conversely, continent individuals must consciously control their desires or temptations to act otherwise.

For example, a fully virtuous person doesn’t struggle with the decision to give to charity; it is a natural extension of their generous character. A continent person, on the other hand, might feel an initial reluctance to part with their money but chooses to do so through strength of will. Over time, with repeated acts of generosity, this struggle may lessen as the virtue of generosity becomes more ingrained in their character.

Big ideas: Other Versions of Virtue Ethics

While Western ideas (including Judaism, Christianity, Islamic, and secular philosophies) have been strongly influenced by Aristotle, similar ideas can be found in most other traditions, including China (Confucianism), India (Dharma-based ethics), and Africa (Ubuntu). There are also a number of more recent ideas about how to “update” the general virtue ethics framework to empathize different virtues (such as that of “caring”).

Confucianism and the Virtue of “Ren”

Confucian Virtue Ethics: Confucianism, based on the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius, emphasizes the importance of moral virtues in achieving social harmony and personal fulfillment. Confucian ethics is centered around the cultivation of virtues and the development of moral character through reflection and practice.

Relationships, particularly familial relationships, play a central role in Confucian virtue ethics. Confucius believed that the foundation of a harmonious society lies in the cultivation of virtues within the context of social roles and responsibilities. By fulfilling one’s duties within the family and society, individuals contribute to social harmony and personal growth.

Key virtues in Confucianism include benevolence (ren), righteousness (yi), and wisdom (zhi). Benevolence (ren) is the virtue of compassion and empathy, which involves caring for others and treating them with respect. Righteousness (yi) refers to the sense of moral duty and the commitment to act ethically in all situations . Wisdom (zhi) i s the ability to discern right from wrong and make morally sound decisions based on knowledge and experience.

Confucian virtue ethics also emphasizes the concept of the “superior person” or “ junzi, ” an individual who embodies the virtues of benevolence, righteousness, and wisdom, and serves as a moral exemplar for others. The junzi is committed to personal growth, self-reflection, and the cultivation of virtues, ultimately contributing to the betterment of society as a whole.

Dharma-Based Virtue Ethics

Dharma-based virtue ethics is grounded in the religious and philosophical traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Central to this approach is the concept of dharma , which refers to the moral and ethical duties an individual must fulfill to maintain social harmony and personal growth. Dharma is often interpreted as the cosmic order or natural law governing the universe, and each person has a unique dharma based on their social position, stage of life, and individual circumstances.

In Hinduism, dharma is often associated with pursuing one of the Four Yogas that can shape human life:

Jnana Yoga (path of knowledge),
Bhakti Yoga (path of devotion),
Karma Yoga (path of selfless action), and
Raja Yoga (path of meditation).

By fulfilling their dharma, individuals contribute to the stability of society and their own personal development. Key virtues in Hinduism include nonviolence (ahimsa), truthfulness (satya), purity (shaucha), and self-control (brahmacharya).

In Buddhism, the concept of dharma is linked to the teachings of the Buddha, which provide a path to enlightenment and liberation from suffering. The Noble Eightfold Path , a central tenet of Buddhism, outlines the moral virtues and practices necessary for spiritual growth, such as right view, right intention, right speech, right action, and right mindfulness.

In Jainism, dharma refers to the ethical principles guiding one’s spiritual progress towards liberation. Central to Jain dharma are the principles of nonviolence (ahimsa), truthfulness (satya), non-stealing (asteya), chastity (brahmacharya), and non-attachment (aparigraha). Jainism emphasizes the importance of cultivating virtues and adhering to these ethical principles in order to purify the soul and achieve spiritual liberation.

Ubuntu Virtue Ethics

Ubuntu, a Bantu term that roughly translates to “humanity” or “humanness,” is a virtue ethics framework that originates from African philosophical traditions. Ubuntu emphasizes the interconnectedness of all people and the importance of community in fostering moral development.

According to Ubuntu, a person becomes a fully realized human being through their relationships with others. Moral virtues are developed through acts of compassion, empathy, and solidarity that contribute to the well-being of the community. The philosophy of Ubuntu suggests that a person’s moral worth is not determined solely by their individual actions but also by their contribution to the collective good.

Some of the key virtues in Ubuntu include compassion, empathy, respect, generosity, and reciprocity. These virtues are cultivated through interpersonal relationships and community engagement, emphasizing the importance of maintaining harmony within the community and between individuals.

Ubuntu challenges the notion of individualism, asserting that individuals are fundamentally interconnected and interdependent. It highlights the importance of collective well-being, shared responsibility, and the recognition of the humanity in others. Ubuntu virtue ethics provides a framework for understanding morality as a communal endeavor that shapes and is shaped by the relationships between individuals and their communities.

Care Ethics

Care ethics, sometimes referred to as the ethics of care, is a variety of virtue ethics that emphasizes the moral importance of relationships and the role of care in ethical decision-making. Developed primarily by feminist philosophers such as Carol Gilligan and Nel Noddings, care ethics seeks to address the limitations of traditional moral theories, which have often neglected the significance of emotions and interpersonal connections in shaping moral character.

At its core, care ethics focuses on the importance of caring relationships and the virtues that arise from these relationships, such as empathy, compassion, and responsiveness to the needs of others. Care ethicists argue that moral development is grounded in the context of human relationships and the cultivation of virtues that foster care and concern for others.

Key aspects of care ethics include:

Emphasis on relationships: Care ethics asserts that moral considerations should be grounded in the context of human relationships, both personal and societal. This approach challenges the individualistic focus of many traditional moral theories and underscores the importance of social interconnectedness in moral development.
The moral significance of emotions: Care ethics recognizes the essential role of emotions, such as empathy and compassion, in guiding ethical decision-making. By valuing emotional responsiveness, care ethics highlights the importance of understanding the experiences and perspectives of others in order to make morally sound decisions.
The importance of care: Care ethicists argue that care is a fundamental moral value, central to human flourishing. Acts of care, both in personal relationships and in social and political contexts, are essential for promoting the well-being of individuals and communities.
Attentiveness to particularity: Care ethics emphasizes the importance of attending to the unique needs and circumstances of individuals in ethical decision-making, rather than relying on abstract principles or rules. This focus on particularity encourages a more nuanced understanding of ethical situations and a greater sensitivity to the diverse experiences and perspectives of others.

Some key virtues associated with care ethics include empathy, compassion, attentiveness, responsiveness, and responsibility. These virtues are cultivated through caring relationships and the practice of attending to the needs and well-being of others.

Care ethics provides a distinctive approach to virtue ethics that foregrounds the importance of relationships, emotions, and care in the development of moral character and ethical decision-making. By highlighting the interconnectedness of individuals and the role of care in fostering human flourishing, care ethics offers a valuable perspective on morality and the cultivation of virtues.

Contemporary Debates: Genetic Engineering and Moral Enhancement

The prospect of genetic engineering and moral enhancement has sparked significant debate in contemporary philosophy, raising questions about the ethical implications of modifying human beings at the genetic level to promote specific moral qualities or virtues. (This idea is sometimes called the debate over moral enhancement. ) Our original story, which explores the idea of genetically implanting virtues, serves as a springboard to examine various philosophical arguments and ideas surrounding this controversial issue.

Virtue Ethics and Genetic Engineering: Virtue ethicists, who prioritize the cultivation of moral character and virtues, may argue that genetic engineering could potentially undermine the importance of personal growth and moral development. They might contend that the process of cultivating virtues requires effort, reflection, and experience, which cannot be bypassed through genetic modification. Some virtue ethicists, such as Michael Sandel, have expressed concerns that genetic engineering could lead to a loss of human dignity, authenticity, and the value of individual achievements.
Utilitarianism and Genetic Engineering: Utilitarians, who focus on maximizing overall happiness or utility, might view genetic engineering as a tool to enhance well-being and reduce suffering. They could argue that if moral enhancement leads to individuals making more morally sound decisions, it would result in greater happiness for the greatest number of people. However, utilitarians would also consider potential negative consequences, such as the possibility of creating new inequalities or undermining personal autonomy.
Deontology and Genetic Engineering: Deontologists, who emphasize adherence to moral rules or duties, might be concerned with the potential violation of individual autonomy and human dignity through genetic engineering. They could argue that manipulating an individual’s genetic makeup without their consent infringes upon their rights, even if it results in morally beneficial outcomes. However, some deontologists might also consider the potential benefits of genetic engineering, such as the reduction of suffering or the promotion of moral duties, as long as it is done within the boundaries of respecting individual autonomy and dignity.
Moral Enhancement and the Role of Emotions: Philosophers like Martha Nussbaum have emphasized the role of emotions in moral decision-making and the importance of cultivating emotional intelligence. In the context of genetic engineering, proponents of moral enhancement might argue that enhancing emotional capacities, such as empathy and compassion, could lead to more morally responsive individuals. Critics, however, might argue that emotions are complex and context-dependent, and artificially enhancing them could result in unforeseen consequences or even an oversimplification of moral judgments.
The Limits of Genetic Engineering: Some philosophers, like Julian Savulescu, have argued that genetic engineering and moral enhancement should be pursued with caution, acknowledging that there may be limits to our understanding of the human genome and the long-term implications of genetic manipulation. They emphasize the importance of continued philosophical and scientific inquiry to better understand the ethical implications of these advancements and to ensure that they are employed in ways that promote human flourishing and well-being.

The debate surrounding genetic engineering and moral enhancement touches upon various philosophical arguments and ideas, from virtue ethics to utilitarianism and deontology. Our original story serves as a starting point for exploring these complex issues and engaging with the works of contemporary philosophers who grapple with the ethical implications of genetic engineering and its potential impact on human morality and well-being.

Discussion Questions

How does the concept of eudaimonia, or human flourishing, differ among various virtue ethics traditions, such as Aristotelian, Confucian, and Ubuntu? Which understanding of human flourishing resonates with you the most, and why?
What role does moral education play in the development of virtues, according to virtue ethicists? How might this perspective inform contemporary debates about education policy and practices?
In the context of virtue ethics, do you think the process of cultivating virtues can be genuinely achieved through genetic engineering? Why or why not?
Considering the role of emotions in moral decision-making, should genetic engineering target emotional capacities such as empathy and compassion? What potential consequences or challenges might arise from such an approach?
How do utilitarian and deontological perspectives on genetic engineering differ? Do you find one approach more compelling than the other? Explain your reasoning.
How might the idea of moral enhancement through genetic engineering impact our understanding of personal autonomy, dignity, and authenticity? Do the potential benefits outweigh the risks?
Compare and contrast the focus on relationships in Confucian virtue ethics with the individualistic focus of Aristotelian virtue ethics. How might these different emphases shape ethical decision-making and personal development in each tradition?
Discuss the role of context in virtue ethics and how it affects moral decision-making. How does this compare to the approaches taken by utilitarianism and deontology?
What are some practical implications of adopting a virtue ethics approach in contemporary society, such as in public policy, healthcare, or environmental issues?
How might virtue ethics contribute to ongoing debates about genetic engineering and moral enhancement? Do you think virtue ethics offers valuable insights that could help guide the development and regulation of such technologies?

Ethical Explorations: Moral Dilemmas in a Universe of Possibilities Copyright © 2023 by Brendan Shea is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book

4 Virtue Ethics Examples in Real Life

Virtue ethics is a moral theory primarily formulated by the Greek philosopher Aristotle, he explained virtue ethics in his book Nicomachean Ethics. This theory is often contrasted with the other two major moral theories, i.e., Dentology and Consequentialism; Dentology emphasizes following the moral rules and duties, and consequentialism focuses on judging anything as right or wrong on the basis of the outcomes. On contrary, to both these theories, virtue ethics does not provide any strict rules or laws that how a person should behave or act in a given situation, in fact, it focuses on the character of a person. It involves practising various virtuous qualities like courage, honesty, generosity, self-control, and compassion and developing into a virtuous person and living a moral life. Virtue ethics does not focus on What should I do? but rather it focuses on What sort of person should I be? According to Aristotle, if our answer to this question is that ‘I should be a virtuous person,’ we tend to behave in a virtuous manner, and eventually take the virtuous decisions and lead a moral life. The virtue ethics theory is majorly based on the idea that

If you are a good person, you will do good things, and to be good, you must do good things” (Pallock, 2007)

This basically means that one does not do good things by analysing the outcome of that thing, rather one does good things due to his/her character in his/her everyday life. The one who has demonstrated good character or behaviour throughout his life will automatically do the good act. This theory also emphasises that

An action is right if and only if a virtuous agent would perform in the circumstances.” (Oakley, 1996, p.129)

This means that the right thing to do in a given situation would be the one that a virtuous agent would do. Now, what is a virtuous agent? The virtuous agent is referred to the person who has the ‘virtues character traits’ and not ‘vices.’ Virtues character traits are the traits like kindness, compassion, honesty, and generosity, i.e., the positive traits, on the other hand, vices are the traits that are negatively valued in a person such as cruelty, dishonesty, and selfishness.

According to Simon Keller (2004),

We should not, according to virtue ethics, seek merely to act as the virtuous agents… we should seek to be virtuous agents”

According to Aristotle, a virtuous person tends to make the right decisions when he/she faces moral dilemma situations or ethical challenges. He proposed that virtue is not something that people both with like other qualities say good eyesight, hearing power; instead, it is obtained over time. The more the people attempt to practice the virtuous agents, the more virtuous they will become in life, i.e., people acquire virtue by practising virtuous qualities and they develop moral character. The following famous aphorism fits here,

Fake it until you make it”

Understanding Dentology, Consequentialism, and Virtue Ethics

The ethicists, William Irwin, Mark D, White and Robert Arp explained the three major moral philosophies, i.e., deontology, consequentialism, and virtue ethics through the example of the film ‘The Dark Knight,’ where the Batman had the chance to kill the Joker. In accordance with consequentialism (utilitarians), Batman should kill the Joker to save the lives of thousands of people, while in accordance with the deontology theory the batman should not kill the joker as it is morally wrong to kill. On contrary to both these theories, virtue ethics does not focus on what Batman should do. Instead, it focuses on the person’s character who kills the Joker. For example, in this case, this theory would highlight that Batman was not the kind of person who kill his enemies. Hence, the virtue ethics theory does not give a certain set of rules that one should follow to resolve the ethical dilemmas, rather it helps people understand the meaning of being virtuous.

Real-Life Examples of Virtue-Ethics

1. virtue ethics in healthcare.

The results of the various studies have shown the influence of virtue ethics in medical practice. Studies reveal that the improvement in the health of the patient is not only dependent on the medicines or drugs but it also largely depends upon the virtues of the person who gives the medical treatment. The moral virtues possessed by the medical professionals reveal a lot about their personality and their work ethics in the hospital. Nowadays, much more emphasis is given to inculcating the virtues in the medical professionals for the better and effective treatment of the patients. The patient finds it easy to build a sense of trust and faith in the caretaker or doctor, who possesses the virtues such as kindness, empathy, and fairness.

Let us discuss two cases to understand the role of virtue ethics in the medical profession. The following cases will make us understand that one can deal with the ethical problems that occur in the medical profession with the help of virtue ethics.

Case 1. The “standard” Jehovah’s Witness case

In this case, a competent patient refuses the doctor for the blood transfusion procedure, which is urgently needed to compensate for his massive amount of blood loss due to the blood vessel bleeding. The patent asks the doctors to do any treatment or surgery without any blood transfusion as this procedure is against the patient’s religious beliefs. The patient accepts the risk of death he has in the surgery without the blood transfusion technique, but he is not ready to change his decision.

Understanding Background

Medical professionals are always taught to improve the condition of the patients. In addition to applying their own medical knowledge, they should also seek the preference of the patient, providing they are not breaking any medical moral ethics or codes. The doctors need to analyse the patient’s perspective of choosing any specific preference of operation. Medical professionals are bound by certain codes of medical practice and the oaths that emphasise saving the lives of people, these codes of conduct and oaths generally encouraged the medical professional to follow virtuous behaviour. Doctors are encouraged to understand the patient’s perspectives, and properly inform, and guide the patients to make the most appropriate decisions to deal with their injury or illness. The doctors may face challenges with patients that are not ready to listen to their advice, for example, refusing to take medication or treatment. This may adversely impact the health of the patient. The doctors have to deal with the patients by properly analysing the situation, and if their decisions may get wrong it may also lead to the death of the patient, which may cause a moral burden on the doctor.

The Patient’s Perspective

As mentioned above, the patient is considered competitive in making his life’s decisions, therefore he may also be competent in making the decisions of his spiritual beliefs. One should respect and understand the individual’s decisions that he/she has followed with his/her own free will without under any constraints. As in this case, the patient has to choose between his religious belief and his life, and he chooses to prioritize his religious beliefs. The patient is ready to take the risk of his life due to his religious beliefs, and he rejects the blood transfusion procedure.

The Doctor’s Perspective

The doctor needs to carefully analyse the situation and choose between his primary purpose of saving the patient’s life or understanding and respecting the patient’s religious belief. The doctor may feel that the patient has rejected her professional judgement, which may lead to frustration or anxiety that the patient may lose his life, and the patient’s family will have to experience the pain of a beloved relative’s death. The doctor needs to carefully assess the situation by utilizing virtuous ethics and asking the following questions.

Is the doctor is motivated to use the blood transfusion procedure or is she really want to help the patient by using the blood transfusion to save the patient’s life?
Is the patient himself beliefs in the particular religion and refusing the blood transfusion from his own free will or he is under the constraints from his family or religious groups of taking that decision?

After considering both these questions the doctor can then look at the following virtues that can help her make the best possible decision in the given situation.

Trustworthiness

In the medical profession, it is generally seen that the patients put their trust and faith in the person who is treating them, in fact, trust is something that builds the doctor-patient relationship. The patient tells his/her problems to the doctor in the hope of getting the best treatment and immediate recovery from their sufferings. The patient believes that the doctor will understand his/her views and treat them in an effective manner. As in this case, the patient disclosed his religious beliefs, he showed that his religious beliefs are so strong that he is ready to prioritize his beliefs even when his life is at the risk. It is usually advised to the medical professional to be trustworthy to the patients. In this case, it is very less likely that the patient will get ready to change his belief and agrees to the blood transfusion. If the doctor rejects to understand the patient’s belief and impose her medical treatment (blood transfusion) on the patient, this may break the trust that the patient has in the doctor, and chances are that the patient will never be able to trust any doctor in the future.

Compassion refers to the active concern for others by deeply understanding and feeling the pain and sufferings of others. This virtuous trait motivates the person to go even out of their way to guide or help the one that is suffering. If the doctor (in this case) possesses the compassion virtuous trait, she will look at the situation by placing herself in the patient’s place. She will understand that the patient is ready to put his life at risk due to his beliefs in his religion, this shows his courage. This may develop a sense of admiration in her towards the patient’s courage.

Discernment

Discernment refers to the ability to judge right in any situation by considering the sensitivity of the situation. If the doctor possesses the discernment trait, she will look at the emotional aspect of the case, which enables her to understand that patient is emotionally connected with his religious belief as it is more important to the patient than his own life. Hence, a discerning doctor may conclude that even it might cost the patient’s life, she should respect what the patient wants, and should not impose the blood transfusion on the patient.

After considering all the virtuous traits such as compassion, trust, and discerning, the virtuous ethicist may conclude that the doctor should respect the patient’s decision in this case. However, as discussed earlier in this article, this is not a rule that must need to be followed because virtue ethics offers flexibility and encourage people to analyse each situation separately by considering every fact and ethical sensitivities involved in that situation, and then they should examine that what a virtuous person will do in the given situation. Virtue ethics allows people to find solutions to the complex ethical problems that might be difficult to find if the strict rule or regulations would have been followed. For example, if in this case it is found that the patient is rejecting the blood transfusion not because he strongly believes in his religion, rather under the influence of his family who is imposing those religious beliefs on him, then, the decisions as per the virtues ethics have been entirely different. The virtuous doctor may conclude that she should save the patient’s life through the blood transfusion procedure.

Case 2. Sale of Kidneys for Transplantation

People who are suffering from serious renal failure can be saved by kidney transplantation. Most of the kidneys are donated by relatives of the people who died, but their body organs can be used for transplantation. In some cases, kidneys are also donated by the living individuals generally the family or close relatives of the patient. The supply of the kidneys is very less, and most of the patients who are suffering from renal failure eventually die after waiting for the kidney donor for a long time. Due to this serious shortage of kidneys for transplantation, some people argue to permit the volunteer selling of the kidneys to meet the demand of kidney shortage, but these arguments raise the question that is it really ethical to permit the selling of kidneys? Let us try to understand this through the following points.

Spreading Awareness of Donating Kidneys

Most people are not aware of the fact that there is such a shortage of kidneys and they may not have considered the sufferings of the patient-facing renal failure. Hence, the people can be made aware of the need for cadaver donation by educating them through various awareness programmes. People will be willing to donate their kidneys after their death if they understand the suffering of the people suffering from the renal disorder. This is surely a better way of meeting the demand for kidneys for transplantation instead of enticing people to sell their kidneys for making a profit. It is a morally unethical way to meet the shortage of kidneys if people sell their kidneys to make a profit.

Individual’s Right

Some people argue that an individual has the right to choose that whether he wants to sell his/her kidneys or not, provided there would not be any bad consequences of that decision on the others. If we look at the situation from the perspective of virtue ethics by keeping side the rules, laws, and outcomes, it can be deduced that if the person is ready to sell the kidney on his/her own free will, then there is nothing wrong with it.

Understanding the Various Facts

One should look at the following question to analyse this case,

What is the situation of the person who wishes to sell his/her kidney?

To whom the person wants to sell the kidney?

Are proper tests are conducted to check the health of both the donor and the recipient before and after the transplantation?

How much the person is charging for selling the Kidney?

Why the donor is willing to sell the kidney?

Is the donor is psychologically stable and medically fit?

Is the donor is under any constraints for selling his/her kidney?

Comprehensive Assessment

One must think that why would people risk their life by selling the irreplaceable part of their bodies. Life is precious for us and we all desire to live a long, healthy and happy life, hence one should take care of his/her body. However, there is a number of people available who choose an unhealthy lifestyle. They may wrongfully judge the situation and choose the short term benefit over the risk of poor health in long run. As in this case, the kidney donor, or we should say the kidney vendors, may think that the amount of money he/she is getting by selling his/her kidney is worth the risk of poor health in the longer run. Well, of course, it requires a lot of courage to make a decision like that, after all, health is important to every individual.

Why Do People Support Selling Kidneys?

There is a substantial risk on the life of the person after donating one of his/her kidneys. Let us try to understand the possible motivation of the individual behind selling his/her kidney.

The person may have compassion for the recipient, but this is very less likely as there are very few chances that the donor and the recipient would ever meet each other if the selling process may be handled by a commercial enterprise, and it seems unrealistic that a person will be ready to sell his/her kidney just by helping a stranger facing the renal failure, and the financial benefits of the donor seem to be the more acceptable reason behind selling the kidney.
The potential donor may be a compassionate person for his/her family, which forced him/her to risk his/her life for the benefit of his/her dependents through the money he/she earned by selling the kidney.
The ones who get deeply affected by the pain of the people suffering from renal failure, or maybe have seen the death of a closed relative due to the unavailability of the body organ at the right time, may set up a commercial business that supplies the organs to help the people. Well, we should not assume that making a profit is the only motive here, as compassion or the helpful virtuous could also be the reason.

Virtues that may guide to deal with this dilemma.

If a person is so poor that he can not afford the basic needs, and he has to sell his/her body part for money, this highly raises the concerns for justice. It is the right of every individual to achieve a minimal standard of living, this can only happen if society ensures that each individual is protected from injustice and exploitation.

A compassionate person would be deeply influenced by the pain of the patients suffering from the renal disorder, which makes him/her improve their condition. This makes the person approve the decision of selling the kidneys to meet the demand of shortage of kidneys for transplantation.

If we practice the discernment, it will make us understand the emotional aspects of both the groups, i.e., those who are suffering from renal disorder, and those who have to sell their kidneys to fulfil their basic needs.

After considering all the facts and the concerned motivations of the people that favour the sale of kidney, the virtue ethicist balances his/her compassion for both the groups and look for an alternative of selling the kidneys that serves justice to both the groups. It may be concluded that poor people should have basic living rights so that they should not have to sell their body organs, and the demand of the kidneys should be fulfilled by the rising awareness among the people about cadaverous donation rather than through the sale of kidneys.

2. Virtue Ethics at the Workplace

The way one deals with the various situations at the workplace tells a lot about the ethics of that person. The type of behaviour and ethics at the workplace can both make or break any company as moral values are very crucial for maintaining order and operating everything smoothly at the workplace. Different employees at the workplace consist of different types and levels of virtues. If a certain individual possesses a certain virtue, he/she will not only use it in his/her personal life but also at the workplace. Let us suppose a person named Jay is a philanthropist and he devotes most of his time and money to the one in need. This shows that Jay has the virtue character of compassion. When Jay is working at his workplace, he still has his virtue character of compassion. Due to this character, he helps his colleagues, and even never hesitate to go out of his way to make sure that particular project of the company gets done on time. This is what we called as virtue ethics. The one who holds certain traits of virtues will use them everywhere, whether it is personal life or professional life. Hence, the people who possess virtues that are needed at the workplace are always more reliable than those who don’t. Hiring managers should hire people who possess a high level of virtues as the employees are highly likely to display these virtues at the workplace. The person who possesses these traits can make them achieve much more at the workplace than those who don’t. Here, are some of the virtues that are important at the workplace.

If the employee possesses the virtuous traits of trustworthiness, the higher authorities and the co-workers can count on that person in case of any urgent tasks. The authorities can be assured that the person will give his/her best in accomplishing the given target. Possessing this trait makes one a highly valuable employee at the workplace.

The person who possesses this trait will always be ready to help his/her coworkers, and he/she respects and understands the opinions proposed by others without just opposing their point of view and gossiping all the time. These people who bear this virtuous trait makes the working environment a better place.

Taking Responsibility

If you possess this trait, you consider yourself responsible for the mistake you made and don’t blame others for that. This assures your superiors that you can work efficiently as a team leader and can work impartially with the employees without falling for any biases. You will be provided with most of the responsible tasks of the company because of the responsible character that you have displayed at your workplace.

The virtue ethics at the workplace does not consider the work behaviour of an individual, in fact, it focuses on the character (virtues) of the individual. It emphasises the fact that a good person (the one who possess virtues) can be a good employee and a bad person (one who possess vices) can be a bad employee. But, this approach is not always favourable at the workplace. For example, virtues traits like compassion, honesty, trustworthiness possessed by the employees make the workplace a better place but like these virtues traits, some employees may also possess other virtue traits like ‘ambition.’ The employee with the high level of ambition virtue trait may tend to always look at the self benefits rather than helping the colleagues and looking at the betterment of the company. Moreover, employees with similar virtues may develop cliques that may create tension at the workplace.

3. Virtue Ethics in Dealing with the Social Dilemmas

The theory of virtue ethics can be used to deal with the moral dilemma questions. Suppose your best friend asked you to review a project she has been working on with full enthusiasm for the past few weeks. You find that the project has many shortcomings and is not well planned. Now, what would you do? Would you break your best friend’s heart by telling her that this project is bad and not gonna be successful, or Would make her happy by lying that this project is very good? Well, according to the ‘Golden Mean’ principle of virtue ethics, both these responses are extreme, i.e., vices. The first response is bitter and the second response is unfair and dishonest. You should follow the virtue, which lies in the middle of the vices (according to the golden mean principle). In this case, you can gently tell your best friend that the project is good but it has certain shortcomings that are needed to be removed before the execution.

4. Virtue Ethics in Business

The American philosophy professor, Rober C. Solomon, in his book named ‘A Better Way to Think about Business’ discussed the ways to handle the business and various conflicts that arise in the corporate sector by applying the approach and perspective of virtue ethics. He mentioned the various business virtues such as honesty, trust, fairness, toughness, and loyalty in his book.

According to Rober C. Solomon,

Honesty is the first virtue of business life”

Teamwork is one of the most important qualities that make the business accomplishes the targets or projects on time, hence effective (virtuous) team members are required in every business. According to LaFastro and Larson, the virtuous traits that an excellent team member should possess are supportive, open-minded, problem solver, and positive attitude. Business schools teach the learners to practice these traits to become effective or virtuous team members.

The goal of almost every business is to provide quality products and services to the customers that add value to their life. However, one should consider that the business idea should be ethical. Let us understand this with an example of an online dating app named ‘Ashley Madison’ this app promotes romantic affairs for married people or the people in a relationship. This app may be providing happiness to their clients, but it is unethical according to virtue ethics as the client is cheating his/her partner as he/she possesses the vices such as lust and dishonesty.

10 Real Life Examples Of Gestalt Principles

Altruism in Psychology: Explained with Examples

8 Bystander Effect Examples in Real Life

Thurstone’s Multiple Factor Theory (P.M.A.) Explained

Incrementalism in Policy Making

3 Psychodynamic Theory Examples

Add comment cancel reply.

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Publications
Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

Advanced Search
Journal List

Virtue in Medical Practice: An Exploratory Study

1 School of Education, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT UK

Agnieszka Ignatowicz

2 Division of Health Sciences, Warwick Medical School, The University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL UK

Hywel Thomas

Virtue ethics has long provided fruitful resources for the study of issues in medical ethics. In particular, study of the moral virtues of the good doctor—like kindness, fairness and good judgement—have provided insights into the nature of medical professionalism and the ethical demands on the medical practitioner as a moral person. Today, a substantial literature exists exploring the virtues in medical practice and many commentators advocate an emphasis on the inculcation of the virtues of good medical practice in medical education and throughout the medical career. However, until very recently, no empirical studies have attempted to investigate which virtues, in particular, medical doctors and medical students tend to have or not to have, nor how these virtues influence how they think about or practise medicine. The question of what virtuous medical practice is, is vast and, as we have written elsewhere, the question of how to study doctors’ moral character is fraught with difficulty. In this paper, we report the results of a first-of-a-kind study that attempted to explore these issues at three medical schools (and associated practice regions) in the United Kingdom. We identify which character traits are important in the good doctor in the opinion of medical students and doctors and identify which virtues they say of themselves they possess and do not possess. Moreover, we identify how thinking about the virtues contributes to doctors’ and medical students’ thinking about common moral dilemmas in medicine. In ending, we remark on the implications for medical education.

Introduction

One of the central questions in medical ethics is how best to understand what characterises good medical practice or the right medical decisions. Consequentialism in medical ethics sees good practice as consisting in securing good outcomes for patients and society and deontologism sees it as practicing in accordance with ethical rules or principles. By contrast, virtue ethics sees good practice as practice that results from the virtuous moral character of the doctor. As a distinctive approach to medical ethics, virtue ethics investigates how the doctor’s good moral character enables them to promote the good for the patient.

Today, a substantial literature explores medical ethics from a virtue perspective (see, for instance, Drane 1995 ; Pellegrino and Thomasma 1993 ; Oakley and Cocking 2001 ; Toon 2014 ) and, more recently, virtue has received increasing attention in fields like medical education (Eckles et al. 2005 ; Coulehan 2005 ; Bryan and Babelay 2009 ; Strachan 2015 ), medical management (Dawson 2009 ) and medical leadership (Conroy 2010 ). Within this literature, a signal debate concerns whether virtue ethical approaches are better equipped than (in particular) deontological or rule-based approaches to provide doctors with practical ethical guidance. Advocates of rule-based approaches emphasise the advantages of summarising the main principles of ethics in a compact system (like the famous four principles of medical ethics of Beauchamp and Childress ( 1979 )—beneficence, non-maleficence, justice and autonomy). By contrast, virtue ethicists hold that these principles are too abstract to be of use in the context of the practice of medicine.

Medical virtue ethicists commonly advance three reasons as to why virtue ethics provides a more realistic, practice-focussed way to understand good medical practice than rule-based approaches. A first reason is that rules or principles by themselves are too abstract and general to guide moral action (Pellegrino and Thomasma 1993 , p. 19). Rules or principles need to be interpreted in context and, to do that, virtue ethicists stress that the good doctor must acquire virtues such as perceptiveness and good moral judgement. A second reason is that rules or principles typically set a minimum standard for what is to count as good practice and risks encouraging an attitude of mere compliance with such standards. By contrast, virtue based accounts of medical ethics are ‘excellence-oriented’ (Barilan and Brusa 2012 , p. 5). They are concerned with how the personal virtues demonstrated by the doctor in their work may promote the patient’s good to the fullest extent possible (the Greek word for virtue— arête —means excellence). Thirdly, many authors note the similarities between wise ethical judgement in medicine and the real practice of ‘clinical judgement’. Authors such as Kaldjian ( 2010 ) and others hold that virtue theory is better equipped than principles-based thinking to make sense of the complex weighing up of goals, goods and options that characterise real clinical judgement, because of a focus on wisdom and good judgement (phronesis). For its advocates, virtue-based thinking ties medical ethics more closely to the ideal of medical practice compared to deontological or consequentialist thinking.

While it is no doubt influential in theory, empirical study of virtue in medicine is in its infancy, with only a small body of empirical work in existence (e.g., Schulz et al. 2013 ; Carey et al. 2015 ). In fact, a recent review (Kotzee and Ignatowicz 2016 ), found that empirical study of medical ethical decision-making is still completely dominated by rule-based approaches. In particular, no previous study has considered systematically:

what virtuous character amounts to in medicine;
how a doctor’s character influences their practice; and
how character develops through medical education.

This paper reports results from a first-of-a-kind empirical study on virtue in medical education and practice that explored answers to these questions.

During 2013–15, we conducted an exploratory, mixed-methods, cross-sectional study of the role of character in ethical medical practice. 1 By conducting a cross-sectional study, we aimed to compare the views of respondents at three different career stages: students at the beginning of their medical degree (‘undergraduates’), students about to graduate and begin hospital practice (‘graduates’) and experienced doctors (doctors with at least 5 years of experience).

We designed an electronic survey to answer three questions:

Which character traits are important in the practice of medicine according to medical students and doctors?
How do the virtues influence medical students’ and doctors’ thinking about common moral dilemmas in medicine?
How are medical students’ and doctors’ views about character influenced by institutional and social contexts? (Reported separately.)

Because of the acknowledged difficulty in studying virtue psychologically (see Curren and Kotzee 2014 ; Kotzee and Ignatowicz 2016 ) we also conducted semi - structured interviews with a sample of survey participants.

The electronic survey 2 comprised five sections 3 :

Views on respondents’ own character: Respondents were presented with a list of 24 character strengths taken from the Values in Action Inventory of Strengths (VIA-IS) (Peterson and Seligman 2004 ) and were instructed to select the six which ‘best describe the sort of person you are’.
Responses to a set of moral dilemmas in medicine: Respondents were presented with six situational judgement tests derived from common dilemmas in the literature designed by a panel of experts (n = 15) in medical education. Participants were presented with a dilemma and instructed to choose one of two alternative courses of action. Once a course of action was chosen, participants were presented with six possible justifications for their chosen action and instructed to rank the best three (with no clicking back allowed). The reasons for action always included four written from the perspective of virtue ethics, one written from a consequentialist perspective and one written from a deontological perspective. (The full set of dilemmas are presented below.)
Views on the character of the ‘ideal’ professional in their profession: Respondents were presented with the list of the 24 VIA-IS character strengths again, and instructed to ‘choose the six which you think best describe a good doctor’.
Respondents’ views regarding their work or study environment: this section adapted questions from a Europe-wide workplace survey (The Eurofund Working Conditions Survey, 2012) with additional questions on ethical issues in the workplace. (Reported separately.)
A set of demographic questions.

Participants

Participants were recruited at four sites. These sites clustered around one medical school in each of the South of England, the English Midlands, the North of England and Scotland. First year students were surveyed on starting their medical degree and final year students were surveyed shortly before graduation. Practising doctors in the four regions were recruited by email contact through the local organisations of a number of Medical Royal Colleges.

Table 1 summarises the number of survey respondents by career stage and Table 2 summarises the gender distribution of survey respondents.

Table 1

Total number of respondents by career stage

Table 2

Total number of survey respondents by career stage and gender

Amongst experienced doctors, 65.7 % were general practitioners and 19.7 % were hospital doctors in the physicianly specialities.

Data Analysis

Survey data were collected using the e-survey and interview data were collected during face-to-face interviews and audio recorded.

Survey data were transferred to SPSS version 21, checked, cleaned and readied for analyses. Analyses included descriptive analysis, cross-tabulation, correlation and factor analysis. New analyses were also developed to deal specifically with the results of sections 1 and 3 (respondents’ views on character) and section 2 (moral dilemmas).

Interview data were analysed in NVivo 10. Thematic analysis was conducted using the constant comparative method.

Limitations of the Study

Some limitations exist that need to be kept in mind when interpreting the results.

The study was cross-sectional, not longitudinal. Respondent membership was not constant across the three career-stages studied and, therefore, questions may be raised about whether the three cohorts are exactly comparable.

There is a high likelihood that response bias influenced at least some of the results. Because participation in the study was voluntary, one could say that only those participants who were disposed favourably enough to the topic of virtue in medicine responded. Consequently, the survey and interviews may represent only the views of a self-selected group of people and not a perfectly unbiased sample. Approximately 1400 medical students were invited by email to complete the e-survey and 274 completed the survey, an approximate response rate of 19.5 %.

A last limitation concerns the make-up of the cohort of experienced professionals in the sample. Many more General Practitioners participated than members of any other specialty. Amongst hospital-based doctors far more members of the physicianly than surgical specialties participated in the survey. Because the invitation to participate in the survey was distributed mostly through electronic newsletters it is hard to calculate a participation rate.

Ethical Considerations

The study received ethical approval from the University of Birmingham Ethics Committee. An information leaflet was given to potential participants including full information about the study. Participation was on an ‘opt in’ basis and confidentiality was protected by anonymising survey responses and interview transcripts. Participants had the right to withdraw from the study up to six months after data collection.

Personal and Professional Virtues

In section 1 of the survey, participants were presented with a list of the 24 character strengths included in the Values in Action Inventory of Strengths (VIA-IS) (Peterson and Seligman 2004 ). The VIA-IS is the most frequently used psychometric instrument to profile a person’s character and participants in the e-survey were asked to identify and rank the six character strengths that they think best represent their personal character. There was strong agreement between doctors and medical students as to what character strengths they possess and five strengths out of the 24 featured in the most frequently picked strengths list for all three of the cohorts. These were the character strengths of: fairness, honesty, kindness, perseverance and teamwork. Differences emerged with experienced doctors and graduating students reporting that they possess the strength of humour more frequently than first-year undergraduates (p < 0.05). Women were more likely to report kindness as a personal strength, while men were more likely to report humour as a personal strength (p < 0.05).

There was even greater agreement between the three groups regarding the character strengths they expect in the good doctor. Section 3 of the survey presented participants with the same list of 24 character strengths and asked them to rank the six that they think best characterise a good doctor. Across all three cohorts, participants in the e-survey mentioned the following strengths most frequently as the character strengths that are required in a good doctor: fairness, honesty, judgement, kindness, leadership and teamwork. Some gender differences emerged as to what respondents reported about the character of the good doctor with women more likely to report judgement, kindness and leadership as strengths needed by the good doctor than men (p < 0.05).

Placing these results side-by-side, we can conclude that, as a group, the medical students and doctors who responded to the survey held that the good doctor is a person that is:

a good team player, and
a person with good judgement.

As a group, the respondents were likely to hold of themselves that they possess four of these same strengths, presenting themselves as:

good team players.

Yet, respondents to the survey were more likely to report that

leadership and

are strengths that the good doctor should possess than they were to report those as strengths they possess themselves (p < 0.05).

We found it interesting that participants seemed to recognise the importance of judgement and leadership to the good doctor, but were hesitant to describe themselves as having leadership and/or judgement and followed this matter up qualitatively. A number of interviewees commented specifically on how difficult it is to have good judgement. An experienced doctor described it thus:

Well, judgement you need all the time. You’ve got your problem-solving, you’ve got to balance risk and benefits, you’ve got to balance how you communicate with patients, you’ve got to balance your time and effort, you’ve got to balance resources. Your whole day is about making judgements in all those different areas.

Of the complexity involved, one undergraduate student reported:

‘I think judgement may be actually – may be making a concise decision in a certain amount of time – it’s difficult isn’t it. I think I’d need a bit of practice with that.’

The main reason respondents may have been hesitant to report that they have good judgement is a realisation regarding how difficult it is for any person to have good judgement. Indeed, this confirms in miniature a central idea in the virtue ethics literature, that, next to the individual moral virtues a further virtue, phronesis (mostly translated as practical wisdom) is needed to coordinate moral feelings and impulses into action. Moreover, phronesis is particularly hard to acquire (see Pellegrino and Thomasma 1993 , pp. 85–89; Kaldjian 2010 , pp. 558–562; Kristjansson 2015 , pp. 313–315). What our respondents understood regarding ‘judgement’ applies quite well to what virtue ethicists mean by phronesis .

Turning to leadership, the follow-up interviews revealed something similar. One experienced doctor in the sample explained well what a weighty matter leadership is:

‘I mean, yes, there are other colleagues you can ask but basically, you know, your patients are your patients, really, and you have to be prepared to – the buck stops with you.’

Other experienced doctors stressed how leadership in medicine is a developing quality and one that needs ongoing attention:

‘I think that is the thing, being a doctor you are never a finished product and I think obviously your life experiences influence you. So yeah, I view myself as an evolving beast really… Particularly leadership skills and things like that.’

Another held:

‘I suppose developing leadership, that’s something that comes with experience and confidence probably, that’s probably something that’s still ongoing.’

Amongst the medical students interviewed, many held that they had not really had the chance to develop or demonstrate leadership qualities (at least in the medical setting).

‘There are certain things that I will need to maybe improve more on, project leadership skills, but mainly because I haven’t actually been in a position where I’ve had to lead…’

‘I’m not very good at leadership at the moment so I’m working on that one…’

Together, the character trait of being a good leader was, for our respondents, both something that is difficult, but also needs constant development over time.

Virtues and Moral Dilemmas in Medicine

We have seen that the virtues identified by respondents as most important to good medical practice are: fairness, honesty, judgement, kindness, leadership and teamwork. How do these virtues influence doctors and medical students’ moral decision-making in practice?

To examine this issue, we designed ‘six situational judgement’ tests 4 to study the role of character in moral dilemma situations in medicine. The situational judgement tests, we hoped, would give us an insight into: (a) which character strengths are important in dilemma situations in medicine, and (b) how they interact with each other and with other factors, such as explicit rules for medical practice and the consequences of certain decisions. The dilemmas used and summary results are presented in Table 3 (below).

Table 3

Moral dilemmas and results

How Did Our Participants Solve the Dilemmas?

Some dilemmas were solved similarly by the great majority of respondents. The best example is dilemma 4. In this dilemma, 84 % of respondents indicated they would not pursue a personal relationship with a patient and amongst those who selected this course of action, the most frequently cited justifications for why they would not pursue such a relationship were that (i) it is important to preserve a professional doctor-patient relationship and (ii) that this is what is suggested by the General Medical Council’s ethical guidelines Good Medical Practice (General Medical Council 2013 ). In designing this dilemma, the expert design panel were of the view that providing justifications like these would indicate a concern with the virtue of prudence and with a rule-based consideration in how respondents solved the dilemma. A far smaller proportion of respondents (16 %) indicated that they would pursue a relationship with a patient in these circumstances. The two most frequently cited reasons as to why respondents would pursue such a relationship were that, (i) in this particular setting, everyone one meets would be a patient and (ii) that the doctor had known the patient personally before the consultation. The expert panel were of the view that solving the dilemma in this way would indicate a concern with perspective and judgement.

Other dilemmas seemed to polarise opinions much more. In dilemma 3, for instance, 60 % of respondents reported that they would disclose the HIV status of the wife to the husband and 40 % reported that they would not disclose this information. Respondents who indicated that they would disclose the information cited as reasons (i) the need to protect the health of the husband, (ii) that this was the accepted protocol in situations like this and (iii) that it would be unfair not to inform the husband. The expert panel were of the view that solving the dilemma like this would indicate a concern with kindness, with what the rules demand, and fairness. Respondents who indicated that they would not disclose the information cited as reasons (i) the need to protect the wife’s confidentiality, (ii) the need to respect her wishes, and (iii) the need to retain her trust. The expert panel were of the view that solving the dilemma like this would indicate a concern with what the rules demand and with kindness and perspective.

While dilemma 3 seemed to polarise opinion the most, it is important to note that there was no very great difference between how the three cohorts solved the dilemma in that roughly similar proportions of each cohort reported that they would either disclose or not disclose the wife’s HIV status. In this respect, dilemmas 3 and 4 (already mentioned) and dilemma 6 are similar. In each of these dilemmas, there was broad agreement between the three career stages over how to solve the dilemmas, with similar proportions in each group preferring the same decision. This creates an impression of homogeneity across the three cohorts and leads one to think that there is a high degree of shared perspectives between the three cohorts.

Dilemmas 1, 2 and 5 are different, however. In these dilemmas it is easy to spot one cohort that disagreed quite markedly from the other two cohorts as to the best decision. In dilemma 1, many more of the starting undergraduate students (37 %) responded that they would admit the patient to hospital than graduating students (17 %) or experienced doctors (10 %); and in dilemma 2, many more of the starting undergraduate students (48 %) reported that they would not perform the transfusion when compared to graduating students (32 %) and experienced doctors (31 %). In dilemma 1 and 2 it seems as if the graduating students’ views have aligned quite decisively with those of the experienced doctors—while many of the starting undergraduates still have a different view. In short, the 4–5 years of medical education that the graduate group have experienced seems to have had an impact on their moral thinking. In dilemma 5, in contrast, the views of the undergraduate students aligned most closely with the experienced doctors, with 58 % of undergraduate students and 52 % of experienced doctors saying that they would report their colleague to the supervising consultant, but 85 % of graduating doctors saying they would deal with the matter privately. This result was followed up qualitatively and it was found that the largest group of graduating students in our sample (representing the class at one university) had only recently received teaching in ethics and profession conduct in which a case like this was discussed and in which advice was given to try to deal with a matter like this collegially first.

While dilemma 3, 4 and 6, then, showed no great differences of views between the cohorts, such differences were strongly in evidence in dilemmas 1, 2 and 5. From analysis of these dilemmas, one can conclude that the process of medical education does shift participants’ views on how to handle some frequently encountered ethical dilemmas in medicine. How this process works is a matter that deserves further study.

Which Character Traits are Important?

In designing the moral dilemmas, the research team had hoped to be able to answer questions like: (a) which character strengths are important in dilemma situations in medicine; (b) why or how they are important; and (c) how considerations to do with character interact with explicit rules for medical practice and the consequences of certain decisions.

In all of the six dilemmas, participants were asked to say what they would do in the dilemma situation and then to rank the three best reasons that they saw for acting in that way. The expert panel helped the researchers analyse the results by providing a judgement that, if a respondent were to give a certain reason for acting in a certain way, this would indicate a certain concern on their part. For instance, in dilemma 1, the following reasons were given as to why one may choose not to admit the patient, Mr G. to hospital:

Table 4

Mapping reasons for action

The expert panel identified reason 1 as indicating a concern with the consequences of one’s actions, reason 5 as indicating a concern with the virtue of kindness and reason 6 as indicating a concern with what the rules or explicit guidance have to say regarding some matter.

In completing this ‘mapping’ of reasons to virtues, consequences and rules, the expert panel were instructed to use Peterson and Seligman’s 24 character strength terms to describe the virtues that they thought operated in the dilemmas and, importantly, the panel saw some of this list of 24 at work in the possible reasons provided for action far more than others . The expert panel saw the following virtues at work in the reasons that we had provided for action disproportionally often: ‘judgement’, ‘kindness’, ‘fairness’, ‘prudence’, ‘leadership’ and ‘perspective’. On the one hand, this may indicate that, in their thinking about the moral dilemmas, the expert panel of 15 medical educators thought that a relatively small number of virtues capture the kinds of considerations that a doctor must weigh up in solving some common dilemmas in the profession. On the other hand, conclusions about which virtues were particularly important in thinking about the dilemmas were strongly mediated by the mapping process (the process of associating certain virtues with certain reasons for action on the survey) conducted by the expert panel.

That said, eight virtues in particular focus time and again in how respondents dealt with the dilemmas (see the right hand column of Table 3 ):

perspective
social intelligence

This shows quite some overlap with the virtues that our respondents said the good doctor should have as well as the virtues that they reported they possess themselves. To the question ‘Which virtues are important in our participants’ thinking about the moral dilemmas?’ the— cautious —answer is therefore: that it is the same virtues that respondents identified as important in the good doctor and in themselves, with the addition of the virtues of prudence, bravery, perspective and social intelligence.

How Do the Virtues Interact with Each Other (and with Rules and Consequences) in Determining Decisions?

It is interesting that in many of the dilemmas some very similar considerations were cited by respondents as reasons for acting in two opposite ways. Take the case of dilemma 3 again. In this case, what is the kind thing to do and what the rules demand were cited both by respondents who chose to disclose the wife’s HIV status and those who said that they would not disclose this information as the reason for why they acted as they did. In effect, some participants held that the kind thing to do would be to inform the husband while others held that the kind thing to do would be not to inform the husband. Moreover, the same was true of what participants thought the accepted rules or protocols of medical ethics demands—both sides of the argument thought that their view was the accepted one. This indicates that fundamental differences of opinion are possible over what is the virtuous thing to do in a certain situation and further study in this area can fruitfully focus on the matter of which respondents, for instance, tended to hold that the kind thing to do was to disclose to the husband and which thought the kind thing to do was not to disclose this information to the husband. As it is, we found no significant differences of this kind between how, for instance, the different cohorts in the sample approached this issue or to how men and women, say, approached the issue.

A second important point that emerges is that in all of the six dilemmas, what participants think the rules demand featured strongly in participants’ thinking. This indicates that it is too simplistic to hold that doctors are more motivated by the demands of virtue than they are by what they perceive to be the explicit rules that pertain to some matter. Clearly, what the rules say do matter, because respondents cite them as important in why they would act one way rather than another.

Thirdly, when comparing the lists of virtues that respondents used to describe themselves and to describe the good doctor with the virtues that seemed to operate in the dilemmas, it is striking that the virtues of prudence, bravery, perspective and social intelligence play the important role that they do in the dilemmas. Indeed, looking closely at these four virtues, the virtue of ‘perspective’ seems to align quite well with a virtue that we have already seen is important—the virtue of ‘judgement’. Indeed, having ‘perspective’ and having ‘good judgement’ both involve being able to see a situation in the round and to be able to select the most important things to focus on in that situation. To a lesser extent, the same can be said of what it means to be ‘prudent’—in that ‘judgement’ (or ‘wisdom’) is a possible synonym for ‘prudence’. What emerges from the dilemmas in this regard is how important it is for the doctor to be able to understand the whole situation, to focus on the most important matters and to be able to come to a sensible conclusion about it.

In coming to understand how our respondents thought about the moral dilemmas in the survey, we asked participants in the follow-up interviews about the moral dilemmas that they had encountered in medical school or in practice and how they went about solving them. Moreover, we asked participants their views of the quality of the guidance they thought was provided by ethical guidance for the profession (with a particular focus on the General Medical Council’s guidelines as contained in Good Medical Practice ).

From the interviews, it seemed that there is an interesting developmental journey at play in doctors’ attitudes towards ethical guidelines for the profession across their career. Many of the first year students interviewed seemed to have a quite simplistic attitude towards these guidelines. Speaking about Good Medical Practice , one first year student held:

‘I’m guessing they make it clear what is expected of a doctor, providing the parameters around what is acceptable about both professional conduct and also, perhaps, conduct outside of work.’

Another said:

‘They’re obviously like really important because in a way they’re sort of like the law of medicine – so if you kind of break those then it’s not going to be very good for you.’

When speaking to the graduating students, however, a marked scepticism had set into their attitudes about Good Medical Practice . One said:

‘We had to do this silly thing at graduation where we have to read out the lists of the duties of a doctor from Tomorrow’s Doctors , which is complete guff ‘cos just having recited it doesn’t mean you are going to do it.’

Graduating students were clearly already well aware of the limitations of written guidance. One held:

‘I think there are quite a lot of situations where there can’t really be a set guidance and there’s sort of two ways to go that are appropriate and so it’s – I suppose being comfortable with saying, “This is what I think’s better”.’

Many experienced doctors also spoke at quite some length about this in the interviews. Two participants summed up the prevailing attitude very well:

‘I think the GMC’s guidance is there as a kind of bottom line I think rather than - I mean, if you just went to medical school and spent 5 years just reading GMC guidelines it’s not going to teach you how to be a good doctor. I think it’s there to tell you what the boundaries are rather than as being a guide as to how to practice. And as I say, the guidance on how to practice doesn’t exist, because it’s age old, it’s watching previous generations of doctors, working alongside them and learning it by experience really.’

‘Does it influence my practice on a day-to-day level? I don’t think I consciously think, on a day-to-day level, “Oh, I’d better not do that because it’s not in the GMC guidance.” I think that I think… It’s a step before that, isn’t it? It’s about what I think is a reasonable person or a reasonable doctor going to do in this situation.’

The importance of the virtue of judgement is the most important finding from the dilemma part of the study.

Carey et al. ( 2015 ) investigated US medical students’ opinions on the character education they receive and find that medical students are generally receptive to character education 5 . However, what should such character education look like? Our study was the first to explore the influence of virtue in medical practice in the round and focussed on understanding: which virtues are important in medical practice, how these virtues influence medical students’ and doctors’ thinking about moral dilemmas and what contextual factors may influence doctors’ ability to live out these virtues.

What Do the Self-Report Sections Tell Us?

We found that medical students and doctors at three career stages were in substantial agreement on the virtues that good doctors should exhibit. These were: fairness, honesty, judgement, kindness, leadership and teamwork. Medical students and doctors also reported four of these character strengths as personal strengths—fairness, honesty, kindness and teamwork; however, they were less likely to rank their own qualities of judgement and leadership highly. We found only small differences between how different cohorts in the study described their own character and between how men and women described their own character. Whether this homogeneity in how respondents describe their own character is due to the fact that entrants to medicine are selected from a common (some would say elite ) social background or whether medical education and training itself has a homogenising effect is an interesting matter to consider. Moreover, it deserves to be considered whether the commonality in how medical students and doctors describe their own character is an indication of a positive trend—towards consensus and standardisation in the medical workforce—or a negative trend—towards group-think and conformism.

What Do the Dilemmas Tell Us?

As we have seen, the moral dilemmas were designed to understand how considerations of virtue interact with thinking about rules and consequences in explaining how medical students and doctors think about morally problematic situations. From the findings above, it should be clear that it is possible to adopt the well-known moral dilemma approach to investigate not only moral reasoning, but to explore additional considerations concerning virtue. The most fruitful way to think of moral dilemmas from a virtue-perspective is to conceive of such dilemmas as situations in which different virtues—and, sometimes, virtues and rules—come into conflict. As we saw, analysis of the moral dilemmas on the e-survey highlighted a number of conflicts regarding exactly what virtue demands in a particular situation (for instance between what is kind, what is fair and what the rules demand in dilemma 3 or what perspective and judgement demands versus what prudence and the rules demand in dilemma 4). Balancing these demands requires good judgement and both the findings from the dilemma section on the survey and the qualitative study reinforce the view that the virtue of judgement is important in medicine. This confirms the great deal of theoretical work that has already gone into studying virtues like ‘ phronesis ’, ‘judgement’ and ‘prudence’ in medicine (see, e.g., Pellegrino and Thomasma 1993 ; Marcum 2012 ; Kaldjian 2014 ; Toon 2014 ).

Implications for Medical Education

Today, the teaching of medical ethics at UK medical schools is informed by the Institute of Medical Ethics’s model core curriculum (Stirrat et al. 2010 ). According to the IME, this curriculum has two purposes:

Creating ‘virtuous doctors’
Providing them with a skill set for analyzing and resolving ethical problems (IME, undated).

However, despite the curriculum making the creation of virtuous doctors an avowed purpose, most of the content of the core curriculum deals with an understanding that students should demonstrate of matters such as:

Professionalism
Patients’ rights
Confidentiality
The rights of children
Mental health
The beginning of life
The end of life
Medical research

The development of particular virtues in students is not given any attention at all. Our results can inform the development of medical ethics curricula and assessments in two ways:

Results from our study regarding views of the ‘ideal’ doctor illustrate which virtues medical students and practising doctors find important. The virtues of fairness, honesty, judgment, kindness, teamwork and leadership can form the focus of character education interventions in medical education. By the same token, these virtues deserve to be studied more closely in a medical context.
With our situational judgement tests, we attempted for the first time to design moral dilemma tests from a virtue perspective. These designs can be further developed to chart character development in medical students (rather than simply development in moral reasoning ability).

The importance of virtue ethics to medical ethics has been well-studied for a period stretching back some decades. However, few have attempted to study the development of doctors’ moral character empirically. In this first-of-a-kind exploratory study, we attempted to answer the question of which virtues are particularly important in the good doctor and how a sample of doctors and medical students see their own character. We have also attempted to show how considerations of virtue influence the way that medical students and doctors think about common moral dilemmas in medicine. It is hoped that the study will spur further work on moral character development in the medical curriculum.

Acknowledgments

This publication was made possible through the support of a grant from the John Templeton Foundation. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation.

1 See Arthur et al. ( 2015 ) for full report.

2 A copy of the online survey can be found at http://www.jubileecentre.ac.uk/1555/projects/gratitude-britain/virtuous-medical-practice .

3 Undergraduates completed only sections 1–4.

4 See Patterson and Ashworth ( 2011 ) and Lievens and Patterson ( 2011 ).

5 Also see Leffel et al. ( 2014 ).

Contributor Information

Ben Kotzee, Phone: 0121 414 4823, Email: [email protected] .

Agnieszka Ignatowicz, Phone: 0247 657 4270, Email: [email protected] .

Hywel Thomas, Email: [email protected] .

Arthur, J., Kristjansson, K., Thomas, H., Kotzee, B., Ignatowicz, A., & Qiu, T. (2015) Virtuous medical practice: Research report . Birmingham: University of Birmingham. Accessed June 28, 2016 from http://www.jubileecentre.ac.uk/1555/projects/gratitude-britain/virtuous-medical-practice .
Barilan, Y., & Brusa, M. (2012) ‘Deliberation at the hub of medical education: Beyond virtue ethics and codes of practice’. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, [Online]. Accessed Nov 13, 2014 from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22740074 . [ PubMed ]
Beauchamp T, Childress J. Principles of biomedical ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 1979. [ Google Scholar ]
Bryan C, Babelay A. Building character: A model for reflective practice. Academic Medicine. 2009; 84 (9):1283–1288. doi: 10.1097/ACM.0b013e3181b6a79c. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
Carey G, Curlin F, Yoon J. Medical student opinions on character development in medical education: A national survey. BMC Research Notes. 2015 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
Conroy M. An ethical approach to leading change: An alternative and sustainable application. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan; 2010. [ Google Scholar ]
Coulehan J. Today’s professionalism: Engaging the mind but not the heart. Academic Medicine. 2005; 80 (10):892–898. doi: 10.1097/00001888-200510000-00004. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
Curren R, Kotzee B. Can virtue be measured? Theory and Research in Education. 2014; 12 (3):266–282. doi: 10.1177/1477878514545205. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
Dawson D. Conflicting stories of virtue in UK healthcare: Bringing together organisational studies and ethics. Business Ethics: A European Review. 2009; 18 (2):95–109. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8608.2009.01551.x. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
Drane JF. Becoming a good doctor: The place of virtues and character in medical ethics. 2. Kansas: Sheed and Ward; 1995. [ Google Scholar ]
Eckles R, Meslin E, Gaffney M, Helft P. Medical ethics education: Where are we? Where should we be going? A review. Academic Medicine. 2005; 80 (12):1143–1152. doi: 10.1097/00001888-200512000-00020. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
General Medical Council . Good medical practice. Manchester: General Medical Council; 2013. [ Google Scholar ]
Institute of Medical Ethics (undated). ‘About the core content’. Retrieved April 28, 2016 from http://www.instituteofmedicalethics.org/website/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=8&layout=blog&Itemid=21 .
Kaldjian LC. Teaching practical wisdom in medicine through clinical judgement, goals of care, and ethical reasoning. Journal of Medical Ethics. 2010; 36 (9):558–562. doi: 10.1136/jme.2009.035295. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
Kaldjian L. Practicing medicine and ethics: Integrating wisdom, conscience and goals of care. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2014. [ Google Scholar ]
Kotzee B, Ignatowicz A. Measuring “virtue” in medicine. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy. 2016; 19 :149–161. doi: 10.1007/s11019-015-9653-6. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
Kristjansson K. Phronesis as an ideal in professional medical ethics: Some preliminary positionings and problematics. Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics. 2015; 36 :299–320. doi: 10.1007/s11017-015-9338-4. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
Leffel, G., Oakes Mueller, R., Curlin, F., & Yoon, J. (2014) ‘Relevance of the rationalist-intuitionist debate for ethics and professionalism in medical education’ Advances in Health Sciences Education. [ PubMed ]
Lievens F, Patterson F. The validity and incremental validity of knowledge tests, low-fidelity simulations and high-fidelity simulations for predicting job performance in advanced-level high-stakes selection. Journal of Applied Psychology. 2011; 96 (5):927–940. doi: 10.1037/a0023496. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
Marcum J. The virtuous physician: The role of virtue in medicine. London: Springer; 2012. [ Google Scholar ]
Oakley J, Cocking D. Virtue ethics and professional roles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2001. [ Google Scholar ]
Patterson, F., & Ashworth, V. (2011) ‘Situational judgement tests: The future of medical selection?’. BMJ Careers [online]. Accessed Oct 24, 2014 from http://careers.bmj.com/careers/advice/Situational_judgment_tests%3A_the_future_of_medical_selection%3F_ .
Pellegrino E, Thomasma D. The virtues in clinical practice. New York: Oxford University Press; 1993. [ Google Scholar ]
Peterson C, Seligman M. Character strengths and virtues: A handbook and classification. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2004. [ Google Scholar ]
Schulz, K., Puscas, L., Tucci, D., Woodard, C., Witsell, D., Esclamado, R., & Lee, W. (2013). Surgical training and education in promoting professionalism: A comparative assessment of virtue-based leadership development in otolaryngology-head and neck surgery residents. Medical Education Online (vol. 18) [Online]. Accessed Nov 13, 2014 from http://med-ed-online.net/index.php/meo/article/view/22440 . [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ]
Stirrat G, Johnston C, Gillon R, Boyd K. Medical ethics and law for doctors of tomorrow: The 1998 consensus statement updated. Journal of Medical Ethics. 2010; 36 (1):55–60. doi: 10.1136/jme.2009.034660. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
Strachan K. The virtues of medical ethics education. Res Medica. 2015; 23 (1):86–91. doi: 10.2218/resmedica.v23i1.1329. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
Toon P. A flourishing practice? London: Royal College of General Practitioners; 2014. [ Google Scholar ]

Professional Virtue and Professional Self-Awareness: A Case Study in Engineering Ethics

Original paper
Published: 14 November 2009
Volume 17 , pages 109–132, ( 2011 )

Cite this article

Preston Stovall 1

2282 Accesses

22 Citations

Explore all metrics

This paper articulates an Aristotelian theory of professional virtue and provides an application of that theory to the subject of engineering ethics. The leading idea is that Aristotle’s analysis of the definitive function of human beings, and of the virtues humans require to fulfill that function, can serve as a model for an analysis of the definitive function or social role of a profession and thus of the virtues professionals must exhibit to fulfill that role. Special attention is given to a virtue of professional self-awareness , an analogue to Aristotle’s phronesis or practical wisdom . In the course of laying out my account I argue that the virtuous professional is the successful professional, just as the virtuous life is the happy life for Aristotle. I close by suggesting that a virtue ethics approach toward professional ethics can enrich the pedagogy of professional ethics courses and help foster a sense of pride and responsibility in young professionals.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price includes VAT (Russian Federation)

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Rent this article via DeepDyve

Institutional subscriptions

Aiming Professional Ethics Courses Toward Identity Development

Professional Ethics: An Upaniṣadic Perspective

Engineering and Business Ethics: Revisiting the Higher Aims of Professionalism

On page 154 Harris writes “…80% of the code of the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) consists of provisions which are negative and prohibitive in character.”

While my approach here looks at examples of virtue ethics in a specifically engineering ethics context, the method pursued offers a way of characterizing a notion of Aristotelian virtue that generalizes over other professional disciplines.

Cf., for instance, Foot ( 1978 , pp. 2–4). Foot discusses there the trouble of preserving an Aristotelian conception of virtue ethics given the way the word ‘virtue’ has taken on a meaning rather different than the original ancient Greek arête .

For the purposes of this paper a discussion of whether Aristotle’s conception of the ergon of human beings is correct is not important. Rather, the aim here is to present Aristotle’s view so as to exhibit the way the general method—specification of a thing’s function as the means for delineating its virtues—can be applied to the field of professional ethics. For even if human beings were not created with any functional role to fulfill, the case of the professions that structure our society is another matter. While the issue of Aristotle’s treatment of human beings as the rational animal is an interesting one, we need not here take up in earnest a discussion of its authority in order to use it as a model on which to build an analysis of the functions peculiar to the professions that structure our society.

Aristotle counsels us that virtue most often lies in tending slightly toward the opposite extreme of that which we are naturally inclined toward, so that good counsel would be for the athlete to err slightly on the side of self-denial while the ascetic should perhaps aim for the opposite, depending on their peculiar dispositions.

I am indebted to an anonymous reviewer for suggesting that this point be emphasized.

Talk of excellence rather than virtue is sometimes taken up; see Harris ( 2008 ). But in this paper I will follow the tradition and continue to use the term “virtue.”

“We said, then, that happiness [ eudaimonia ] is not a state. For if it were, someone might have it and yet be asleep for his whole life, living the life of a plant, or suffer the greatest misfortunes. If we do not approve of this, we count happiness as an activity rather than a state…” (Aristotle 1985 , Book X, Chap. 6, 1176a33–1176b2).

Insofar as our earlier decision to continue using “virtue” was influenced by trends in the philosophical debate on morality, we might remark that there is a similar disciplinary reason impelling us to jettison the use of “happiness” here. For this term has largely been appropriated by utilitarian theories, and it would do us well to select a different word to characterize the form of life associated with the practice of virtue. Of course one could simply legislate that we understand the term “happiness” in discussion of Aristotelian virtue to be such as his theory requires, but there are better terms for translating eudaimonia , terms more consistent with our pre-theoretical understanding of them.

In Hutchinson ( 2007 ) the “ eudaimon ” life is translated as the “successful” life. We will here reserve “successful” as the characterization of the virtuous professional life.

In part a holdover from Plato’s influence on Aristotle, no doubt. But again, we need not be concerned with defending the methodological motivations of Aristotle’s conception so long as we see the cognitive value in the distinctions he cuts.

This does not mean that such an action never can cease, only that it doesn’t need to cease to be successful at the end for which it aims—for its end is the activity itself. So, for instance, if contemplation of the divine is conceived as the highest good, then it is something that never needs to reach a result—otherwise the result would be the end and the action would not be intrinsically worthwhile—while for many reasons such contemplation can cease.

Aristotle also views the reliance on external goods as a dividing line between the intellectual and ethical virtues. At 1178a8–14 (Book X, Chap. 8) of the Nichomachean Ethics Aristotle distinguishes those virtues concerned with contemplation, which are divine, and those concerned with action, which are human. “The life expressing the other kind of virtue [i.e. the kind concerned with action] is [happiest] in a secondary way because the activities expressing this virtue are human. For we do just and brave actions, and the others expressing the virtues, in relation to other people, by abiding by what fits each person in contracts, services, all types of actions, and also in feelings; and all these appear to be human conditions.” (Bracketed remarks preserved from Irwin’s translation). At 1178a24–35 (Book X, Chap. 8) Aristotle says that the human virtues require a greater reliance on external factors (power for bravery, money for generosity), and so insofar as a human being can exercise the human virtues he or she must have the sorts of external goods necessary for these virtues. But these sorts of external goods are to some extent a hindrance to the pursuit of the divine virtues—contemplative study (though at 1178b33–6 Aristotle offers a caveat to the effect that human well-being requires at least a moderate amount of external goods, including health and food, even for the practice of contemplation).

Much of this reading depends on how we gloss eudaimonia in the context of the pursuit for a “highest good,” and of an act being an end in itself. If self-sufficiency is the criterion of the summum bonum then the ethical virtues as what are needed to get along well in society and so fully flourish are means to an end—the self-sufficient contemplation of the divine. On this understanding of the good life it appears we have a two-level notion of virtue in Aristotle—the practice of the ethical virtues as the means to practice the intellectual virtues, and the practice of the intellectual virtues as an end in itself. But if we understand eudaimonia as an active principle of human flourishing, then it would appear that even the practice of the ethical virtues, as a practice representative of our function as rational creatures, is an end in itself regardless of whether that practice is self-sufficient. Aristotle’s remarks at 1177a13–18 would support the two-level rendering of Aristotle’s view of virtue, but much of what he says elsewhere (and much of the secondary literature) would seem to support the latter rendering. As Kraut in Sect. 2 of the Stanford Encyclopedia article “Aristotle’s Ethics” puts it “[Aristotle] says, not that happiness is virtue, but that it is virtuous activity . Living well consists in doing something, not just being in a certain state or condition. It consists in those lifelong activities that actualize the virtues of the rational part of the soul.” Furthermore, Rosalind Hursthouse argues that eudaimonia is not the highest good, but rather that acting virtuously is (Hursthouse 2007 , pp. 169–170). Her concern seems to be that the good life is too dependent upon external contingencies to constitute a realizable aim of human activity. Her argument turns on the utter contingency of realizing eudaimonia , the extent to which it depends on factors wholly outside our control, which implies that we cannot hold it as the supreme good. Instead, “[i]f anything counts as the ‘top value’ in virtue ethics, it is acting virtuously…” (ibid, p. 169). Presumably this is because we can achieve virtuous activity even in the face of adversity, though we cannot achieve the good life without external goods if the good life depends on those goods.

Articulating the relationship between the ethical and intellectual virtues is a complex affair and I do not suppose to have given the definitive account. Enough will have been done if this is an internally consistent account, one that does not do disservice to what Aristotle wrote, and one that bears value in its extension to professional virtue ethics. In this regard I believe I have been successful, though the reader is encouraged to judge its merits on their own, in particular by gauging the worth of the account of professional virtue it underpins beginning in the next section and developed in Part 2 .

A word of clarification is perhaps in order here. Some of the virtues put forward for engineering ethics might seem like intellectual rather than ethical virtues. In his discussion of virtue in “The Good Engineer,” Harris distinguishes technical from non-technical engineering virtues, and suggests that these virtues might be analogues to the ethical and intellectual virtues in Aristotle [Harris, p. 158]. In that work Harris proposes and discusses three non-technical virtues: techno-social sensitivity, respect for nature, and commitment to the public good. If the analysis given in the current paper of Aristotle’s virtue theory is sound, then the crucial difference between intellectual and ethical virtues is that the intellectual virtues are pursued as ends in themselves, whereas the ethical virtues are means to some other end. In this regard virtues such as techno-social sensitivity are instrumental in the sense required to classify them with the ethical virtues. The virtue-motivated professional engineer is concerned with the social impact of technology precisely because this impact affects the welfare of human beings through the activities of the profession. The same can be said of the practice of respect for nature and a commitment to human welfare. The engineer who pursues these interests in an exercise of specifically professional virtue must make her pursuit sensitive to the well-being of the profession, to its capacity to satisfy its role in society. No matter how intrinsic one may find the value of respecting nature, for instance, the practice of this virtue as a professional virtue requires that any motivation to respect nature must be undertaken in the service of the profession’s social role. There is, of course, an important issue regarding whether and in what way a profession’s currently perceived role in society is correct . This question of the normative judgments that go into specifying what a profession’s role should be in society will be discussed later in the paper, in “ Toward the Characterization of a New Virtue: Professional Self-Awareness ” and “ The Virtuous Professional as the Successful Professional .” For now, note that for all I have said about professional virtue being a subset of ethical virtue, this view is consistent with their being an important difference between technical and non-technical virtues. It is just to say that the difference is drawn within the ethical virtues, even if that difference takes the intellectual virtues to be a model for the non-technical virtues. This issue may well be one at which contemporary professional virtue theory must diverge from a strictly Aristotelian framework. My thanks to an anonymous referee for bringing this matter to my attention.

I take this approach, here applied specifically to engineering ethics but with professional ethics more generally in mind, to be in agreement with Edmund D. Pellegrino’s treatment of medical ethics in Pellegrino ( 2007 ). On page 64 Pellegrino writes “The professions are distinct human activities in which virtues and ends can be linked. Professions have identifiable and defining ends, that is, each serves certain universal human needs…To attain that end, certain virtues are required…These virtues are neither optional nor merely admirable. They are entailed, on the physicians part, by the nature of the ends of medicine.”

As mentioned in Part 1 , I will remain neutral in this paper with regard to whether there is a particular ergon for human beings, and instead leave it as a place holder for building a model of the functions peculiar to social professions, which professions surely are explicitly end-directed.

This definition should be understood to include electrical and informational structures present, for instance, in electrical circuits and computational systems.

The question of what sorts of physical structures should underpin a given society, and thus what specific normative injunctions this functional definition brings with it, is an important one. A more detailed treatment of professional engineering virtue would include explicit discussion of the normative question, perhaps by linking professional virtues to an Aristotelian conception of the ergon of human life more generally. That sort of more detailed normative treatment of professional engineering will largely remain untouched in this paper. My purpose in this paper is not to look at specific practices that count as professionally virtuous, but rather to investigate the conditions under which we can understand any action, within whatever normative framework, to be an instance of professional virtue (though I will have a few remarks to make about the importance of a normative component in any actual practice involving professional self-awareness in “ Toward the Characterization of a New Virtue: Professional Self-Awareness ,” and about the relation between professional virtues, professional success, and a well-ordered society in “ The Virtuous Professional as the Successful Professional ”).

In “ The Virtuous Professional as the Successful Professional ” I will argue that the virtuous professional’s personal ends, pursued in their capacity as a professional, can coincide with the ends of the profession. But for now we are examining personal ends sought without regard for the ends of the profession.

Though it is outside the discussion of this paper, the adoption of this perspective could be fleshed out with the notion of a ‘moral exemplar’; patterning one’s activity on how one imagines a moral exemplar would behave—something like Aristotle’s magnanimous agent, R. M. Hare’s Archangel, or Harris’ discussion of virtue portraits (Harris 2008 , pp. 157–158, 162).

Notice that the role of professional self-awareness was not derived from the functional characterization of the engineering profession. The capacity for self-reflection is a virtue in general, insofar as human flourishing is impossible without rationally assessing those conditions that must be satisfied for our flourishing to manifest itself in specific situations. Professional self-awareness is therefore a virtue for professionals in general, exhibited by the fact that its derivation proceeded from consideration of the functional role of a profession in general, rather than on the specific role of an individual profession like engineering.

These characterizations of virtue in medicine, business, and law should not be read as definitive statements of the peculiar functions of these professions, though they are hopefully not obviously false.

This is not to say that professional practice is sufficient to constitute a society, of course. A number of structural elements must be in place for professions to have any impact on a society in the first place, from political organization to the availability of natural resources to the replenishment of the labor force. It is just to say that when the appropriate background conditions are met, a society’s professions are constitutive of whatever determinate form the society takes.

And so the notion of “well” in “well-ordered society” is a teleological notion, not a normative one. That is, in judging that a society is well-ordered on this account, we are judging that it is efficiently ordered so as to foster the satisfaction of the functions of its professions, not that these functions are morally appropriate.

Hegel’s formulation of the role of education is a little stronger, and bears some relevance to the positions of classical and contemporary virtue ethicists, both in terms of the need to habituate a person to ethical activity and to do so in terms of inculcating a type of character through what Aristotle called our ‘second nature,’ a sort of social maturation. The addition to §151 in Hegel’s Philosophy of Right reads in part: “Education is the art of making men ethical. It begins with pupils whose life is at the instinctive level and shows them the way to a second birth, the way to change their instinctive nature into a second, intellectual, nature, and makes this intellectual level habitual to them” (Hegel 1967 , p. 260). It is the goal of the professional virtue ethicist to encourage his or her students to make explicit the hidden motivations impelling their behavior in certain ways, to rationally reflect on these motivations and their relation to our place in society, with the purpose of fostering that second birth.

Frankena, on the other hand, views “the morality of duty and principles and the morality of virtues or traits of character not as rival kinds of morality between which we must choose, but as two complementary aspects of the same morality. Then, for every principle there will be a morally good trait, often going by the same name, consisting of a disposition or tendency to act according to it; and for every morally good trait there will be a principle defining the kind of action in which it is to express itself. To parody a famous dictum of Kant’s, I am inclined to think that principles without traits are impotent and traits without principles are blind” (Frankena 1988 , p. 266).

Aristotle (1985). Nichomachean ethics (trans: Irwin, T.). Indianapolis, IN: Hacket Publishing Company.

Aurelius, M. (1986). Meditations (trans: Staniforth, M.). New York, NY: Dorset Press.

Dewey, J. (1981). Interest in relation to training of the will. In J. J. McDermott (Ed.), The philosophy of John Dewey: Two volumes in one . Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

Google Scholar

Foot, P. (1978). Virtues and vices . New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Frankena, W. (1988). A critique of virtue-based ethics. In L. Pojman (Ed.), Moral philosophy: A reader (pp. 264–270). Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing.

Harris, C. E., Jr. (2008). The good engineer: Giving virtue its due in engineering ethics. Science and Engineering Ethics, 14 , 153–164.

Article Google Scholar

Harris, C. E., Pritchard, M. S., & Rabins, M. J. (2009). Engineering ethics: Concepts and cases . Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Hegel, G. W. F. (1967). Hegel’s philosophy of right (trans: Knox, T. M.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Hursthouse, R. (1995). Applying virtue ethics. In R. Hursthouse, G. Lawrence, & W. Quinn (Eds.), Virtues and reasons: Philippa Foot and moral theory, essays in honour of Philippa Foot (pp. 57–75). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Hursthouse, R. (2007). Environmental virtue ethics. In R. Walker & P. Ivanhoe (Eds.), Working virtue: Virtue ethics and contemporary moral problems (pp. 155–171). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Hutchinson, D. S. (2007). Ethics. In J. Barnes (Ed.), The Cambridge companion to Aristotle (pp. 195–232). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Kraut, R. (2007). Aristotle’s ethics. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-ethics . Accessed 5 Jul 2009.

Pellegrino, E. D. (2007). Professing medicine, virtue based ethics, and the retrieval of professionalism. In R. Walker & P. Ivanhoe (Eds.), Working virtue: Virtue ethics and contemporary moral problems (pp. 61–85). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Download references

Acknowledgement

My thanks to C.E. Harris, Jr., William Glod, and two anonymous reviewers for comments on earlier versions of this paper.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Preston Stovall

You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Preston Stovall .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Stovall, P. Professional Virtue and Professional Self-Awareness: A Case Study in Engineering Ethics. Sci Eng Ethics 17 , 109–132 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-009-9182-x

Download citation

Received : 29 August 2009

Accepted : 21 October 2009

Published : 14 November 2009

Issue Date : March 2011

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-009-9182-x

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

Virtue ethics
Professional ethics
Engineering ethics
Find a journal
Publish with us
Track your research

McCombs School of Business

Español ( Spanish )

Videos Concepts Unwrapped View All 36 short illustrated videos explain behavioral ethics concepts and basic ethics principles. Concepts Unwrapped: Sports Edition View All 10 short videos introduce athletes to behavioral ethics concepts. Ethics Defined (Glossary) View All 58 animated videos - 1 to 2 minutes each - define key ethics terms and concepts. Ethics in Focus View All One-of-a-kind videos highlight the ethical aspects of current and historical subjects. Giving Voice To Values View All Eight short videos present the 7 principles of values-driven leadership from Gentile's Giving Voice to Values. In It To Win View All A documentary and six short videos reveal the behavioral ethics biases in super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff's story. Scandals Illustrated View All 30 videos - one minute each - introduce newsworthy scandals with ethical insights and case studies. Video Series

Ethics Defined UT Star Icon

Virtue Ethics

Virtue Ethics is a normative philosophical approach that urges people to live a moral life by cultivating virtuous habits.

Virtue ethics is a philosophy developed by Aristotle and other ancient Greeks. It is the quest to understand and live a life of moral character.

This character-based approach to morality assumes that we acquire virtue through practice. By practicing being honest, brave, just, generous, and so on, a person develops an honorable and moral character. According to Aristotle, by honing virtuous habits, people will likely make the right choice when faced with ethical challenges.

To illustrate the difference among three key moral philosophies, ethicists Mark White and Robert Arp refer to the film The Dark Knight where Batman has the opportunity to kill the Joker. Utilitarians, White and Arp suggest, would endorse killing the Joker. By taking this one life, Batman could save multitudes. Deontologists, on the other hand, would reject killing the Joker simply because it’s wrong to kill. But a virtue ethicist “would highlight the character of the person who kills the Joker. Does Batman want to be the kind of person who takes his enemies’ lives?” No, in fact, he doesn’t.

So, virtue ethics helps us understand what it means to be a virtuous human being. And, it gives us a guide for living life without giving us specific rules for resolving ethical dilemmas.

Related Terms

Integrity is an indispensable moral virtue that includes acting with honesty, fairness, and decency.

Moral Philosophy

Moral Philosophy studies what is right and wrong, and related philosophical issues.

Stay Informed

Support our work.

IMAGES

15 Virtue Ethics Examples (2024)
Business case 2
Virtue Ethics: A Case Study Analysis
The importance of virtue ethics in the IRB
VIRTUE THEORY: Part 1/4
Virtue Ethics and Virtue Theory: Strengths and Weaknesses

VIDEO

Ethics & Technology Revision in 1 Hour I Theory & All ICAI Qstns I Std Answer Presentation Format
EHTICS CONTENT
Ethics Problems for Virtue Theory
The Philosophy of Virtue Ethics
Virtue Ethics Leadership: Making Ethical Decisions Beyond the Rulebook
HIDDEN Dilemmas Affecting Your Life, Pt 37

COMMENTS

Applying Virtue Ethics: The Rajat Gupta Case
The virtue ethics approach focuses on the " integrity" of the moral actor. The goal with this approach is to be a good person. In virtue ethics, one's character emerges from a " relevant moral community". Therefore, it is important to account for the moral agent's community or communities within which she operates.
Evaluation as a moral practice: The case of virtue ethics
Consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics are often considered together as three general theories of moral philosophy (Baron et al., 1997) and so we have decided to use these three as our case study. We highlight virtue ethics because in both academic moral philosophy and in evaluation practice it generally receives less attention than ...
Virtue Ethics
Virtue ethics is currently one of three major approaches in normative ethics. It may, initially, be identified as the one that emphasizes the virtues, or moral character, in contrast to the approach that emphasizes duties or rules (deontology) or that emphasizes the consequences of actions (consequentialism). Suppose it is obvious that someone ...
A virtue ethics approach to moral dilemmas in medicine
Virtue ethics is a framework that focuses on the character of the moral agent rather than the rightness of an action. In considering the relationships, emotional sensitivities, and motivations that are unique to human society it provides a fuller ethical analysis and encourages more flexible and creative solutions than principlism or ...
Case Studies
More than 70 cases pair ethics concepts with real world situations. From journalism, performing arts, and scientific research to sports, law, and business, these case studies explore current and historic ethical dilemmas, their motivating biases, and their consequences. Each case includes discussion questions, related videos, and a bibliography.
Virtue Ethics and Integration in Evidence-Based Practice in Psychology
Virtue Ethics and Psychotherapy. Virtue theory originated in Ancient Greek with the works of Plato (2012) and Aristotle (2009). The very definition of virtues indicate why they are relevant for our understanding of clinical expertise. In virtue theory, goodness is defined according to the action's source.
Logos II
First, the principles of virtue ethics are explored, and a process for moral-decision making is extrapolated. The scenario presented as the basis for this case study is then analysed and a decision is reached through the decision-making process. The approach is scrutinised according to the literature of Louden, Tassone, Macintyre, and ...
The Case for Considering Virtue Ethics in Organizational Ethics and
Many of the conceptual foundations of virtue theory were originally established by Aristotle in his discussion of the positive character traits that influence individual ethics (found in The Nichomachean Ethics), and interest in this area of ethics was further enhanced by the work of Alasdair Macintyre (After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory) (Arjoon 2000; Dawson and Bartholomew 2003; Bragues ...
Virtue Ethics
The concept of eudaimonia, a key term in ancient Greek moral philosophy, is central to any modern neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics and usually employed even by virtue ethicists who deliberately divorce themselves from Aristotle. It is standardly translated as "happiness" or "flourishing" and occasionally as "well-being."
Virtue Ethics
Virtue Ethics. Virtue ethics is a broad term for theories that emphasize the role of character and virtue in moral philosophy rather than either doing one's duty or acting in order to bring about good consequences. A virtue ethicist is likely to give you this kind of moral advice: "Act as a virtuous person would act in your situation.".
PDF Virtue Ethics and the Practice-Institution Schema: An Ethical Case of
Through the theoretical lens of virtue ethics, specifically, this paper uses Moore's (2002, 2005, 2008) study of MacIntyre's (1985) practice-institution schema in conceptualizing the intricate process whereby individuals' pursuit of moral excellence becomes the driving force behind business sustainable practice.
Chapter 4: Virtue Ethics—The Role of Character in Moral Philosophy
Care ethics, sometimes referred to as the ethics of care, is a variety of virtue ethics that emphasizes the moral importance of relationships and the role of care in ethical decision-making. Developed primarily by feminist philosophers such as Carol Gilligan and Nel Noddings, care ethics seeks to address the limitations of traditional moral ...
Virtue ethics in health care teams; its time has come: Review of the
There is a dearth of research on virtue ethics and nursing. One study empirically uncovered and validated a framework for virtue ethics in health care teams. Implications for Nursing Management. To rebuild strong health care teams, nurse leaders can model virtue ethics using an empirically derived framework while coaching their teams to do the ...
PDF Applying Moral Philosophy: A Case Study By Catherine Strong
I will summarize an essay regarding a medical case study and use ethical theory, especially Aristotle's virtue ethics, to illustrate what philosophical ethics might add when making complex ethical healthcare decisions. The medical case (Mukherjee, 2017) was presented with no formal reference to ethics, as follows.
Evaluation as a moral practice: The case of virtue ethics
Consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics are often considered together as three general theories of moral philosophy (Baron et al., 1997) and so we have decided to use these three as our case study. We highlight virtue ethics because in both academic moral philosophy and in evaluation practice it generally receives less attention than ...
Utilitarianism, Deontology and Virtue Ethics: Teaching Ethical
The concepts behind three of the principal normative ethical theories (utilitarianism, deontology, virtue ethics) are evident in a real-life scenario. This case study involves videotapes recorded from inside Grootvlei Prison, Bloemfontein, South Africa in 2002. Prisoners captured sensational footage of warders selling alcohol, drugs, loaded firearms and juveniles for sex to inmates. It was ...
4 Virtue Ethics Examples in Real Life
Hence, the virtue ethics theory does not give a certain set of rules that one should follow to resolve the ethical dilemmas, rather it helps people understand the meaning of being virtuous. Real-Life Examples of Virtue-Ethics 1. Virtue Ethics in Healthcare. The results of the various studies have shown the influence of virtue ethics in medical ...
Virtue in Medical Practice: An Exploratory Study
Abstract. Virtue ethics has long provided fruitful resources for the study of issues in medical ethics. In particular, study of the moral virtues of the good doctor—like kindness, fairness and good judgement—have provided insights into the nature of medical professionalism and the ethical demands on the medical practitioner as a moral person.
Virtue Ethics and the Practice-Institution Schema: An Ethical Case of
The theory of virtue ethics has received increasing atten. lished cooperative human activity through which tion from business and other applied ethicists in under. goods internal to that form of activity are realized in. standing as well as guiding ethical business conduct.
Professional Virtue and Professional Self-Awareness: A Case Study in
This paper articulates an Aristotelian theory of professional virtue and provides an application of that theory to the subject of engineering ethics. The leading idea is that Aristotle's analysis of the definitive function of human beings, and of the virtues humans require to fulfill that function, can serve as a model for an analysis of the definitive function or social role of a profession ...
Virtue Ethics
Virtue ethics is a philosophy developed by Aristotle and other ancient Greeks. It is the quest to understand and live a life of moral character. This character-based approach to morality assumes that we acquire virtue through practice. By practicing being honest, brave, just, generous, and so on, a person develops an honorable and moral ...
Aristotle's virtue ethics as a conceptual framework for the study and
Historically, virtue ethics was a dominant ethical theory in western moral philosophy until Enlight- enment, but was overshadowed by the emergence of the rule-based approaches to ethics during the

Applying Virtue Ethics: The Rajat Gupta Case

Moral Virtue is a Habit

Virtue Ethics Theory Applied:

The Transactions

Ethical Analysis

Works Cited

Log in using your username and password

You are here

Statistics from Altmetric.com

VIRTUE ETHICS

The virtues

The meaning of life!

The place of reason

The role of emotion

The role of motivation

Case 1: The “standard” Jehovah’s Witness case

The patient

Case 2: Selling kidneys for transplantation: should people be allowed to sell kidneys for transplantation? 13

The need for donor organs

The rights of the individual

What are the facts of the situation?

What emotions does such a proposal arouse?

What are the likely motivations of the people involved?

Which virtues might guide our behaviour in such a difficult dilemma?

THE PLACE OF VIRTUE ETHICS

Read the full text or download the PDF:

Virtue Ethics

1. Preliminaries

B. Anthologies

C. Survey Articles

D. Articles

4 Chapter 4: Virtue Ethics—The Role of Character in Moral Philosophy

Story: Unaltered Virtue

Discussion Questions: Unaltered Virtue

Big Ideas: Aristotelian Virtue Ethics

Big ideas: Other Versions of Virtue Ethics

Confucianism and the Virtue of “Ren”

Dharma-Based Virtue Ethics

Ubuntu Virtue Ethics

Care Ethics

Contemporary Debates: Genetic Engineering and Moral Enhancement

Discussion Questions

Share This Book

4 Virtue Ethics Examples in Real Life

Understanding Dentology, Consequentialism, and Virtue Ethics

Real-Life Examples of Virtue-Ethics

Case 1. The “standard” Jehovah’s Witness case

Understanding Background

The Patient’s Perspective

The Doctor’s Perspective

Trustworthiness

Discernment

Case 2. Sale of Kidneys for Transplantation

Spreading Awareness of Donating Kidneys

Individual’s Right

Understanding the Various Facts

Comprehensive Assessment

Why Do People Support Selling Kidneys?

Virtues that may guide to deal with this dilemma.

2. Virtue Ethics at the Workplace

Taking Responsibility

3. Virtue Ethics in Dealing with the Social Dilemmas

4. Virtue Ethics in Business

Related Posts

10 Real Life Examples Of Gestalt Principles

Altruism in Psychology: Explained with Examples

8 Bystander Effect Examples in Real Life

Thurstone’s Multiple Factor Theory (P.M.A.) Explained

Incrementalism in Policy Making

3 Psychodynamic Theory Examples

Virtue in Medical Practice: An Exploratory Study

Agnieszka Ignatowicz

Hywel Thomas

Introduction

Participants

Table 1

Table 2

Data Analysis

Limitations of the Study

Ethical Considerations