Modern virtue ethics and the challenge of ethical relativism

Overview

Anscombe's revival of the tradition, Foot and MacIntyre, and whether virtue can be defined across cultures.

What you need to know

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Questions from this subtopic

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1. 1

   Which philosopher reopened virtue ethics in the twentieth century, and in which essay?

   Model answer

   Elizabeth Anscombe reopened virtue ethics in her 1958 essay Modern Moral Philosophy.

2. 2

   What was Anscombe's objection to the moral philosophy of her day?

   Model answer

   Anscombe argued that concepts of moral obligation and moral duty are survivals from a framework of divine law, and that using them once that framework is abandoned leaves them without foundation.

3. 3

   What contribution did Philippa Foot make to virtue ethics?

   Model answer

   Philippa Foot argued that the virtues are correctives that benefit their possessor and the community, and that moral goodness can be understood as a form of natural goodness in a living thing.

4. 4

   What does MacIntyre argue in After Virtue about modern moral debate?

   Model answer

   Alasdair MacIntyre argues that modern moral debate is interminable because it uses fragments of older traditions with no shared framework to settle disagreement between them.

5. 5

   How does MacIntyre define a virtue?

   Model answer

   MacIntyre defines a virtue as an acquired human quality that enables a person to achieve the goods internal to a practice, and that is sustained by a tradition and a narrative account of a whole life.

6. 6

   Distinguish goods internal to a practice from goods external to it.

   Model answer

   Internal goods are the excellences realised only by engaging in the practice itself, such as the skill of the craft; external goods such as money and status can be got in other ways.

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