Virtue Ethics Criticsm Essay
The biggest critique of Virtue Ethics is that it doesn’t give very clear guidance on how to act in specific situations. It cannot tell us what the law should be about child killingilligal baby killing, euthanasia, pre-implantation genetic prognosis etc . It provides no clear answer to questions such as ‘Is the environment intrinsically valuable? ‘. The lack of ethical rules or possibly a method of responding to dilemmas is the main conceren below, but there is uncertainty about how exactly you decide on the particular virtues are. Many authorities say Virtue Ethics simply doesn’t get the job done of an honest theory. There are plenty of responses for this.
There are not any absolute answers to these questions, MacIntyre takes this view that modern-day ethics features distanced on its own from real persons and actual issues by debating fine legalistic points which they will not ever agree on. Virtue Ethics requests a much more question – what type of person do i need to be? This question may well have different answers depending in which and when it can be asked, however it gives genuine direction and purpose in people.
Nussbaum says that there are absolutes. However , it really is virtues which have value, certainly not rules. We ought to strive for Rights, Wisdom, Temperance etc . rather than looking for absolute rules. The moment thinking about if to go to battle, there are simply no absolute guidelines (You should never kill a great innocent person, for example , is viewed as impractical because all battles lead to blameless people dying). However , we have elected a leader who we wish to act justly, to be temperate, to have knowledge etc . Issues such as Embryo Research rely a lot upon answers to questions such as ‘When really does an embryo/foetus become a person? ‘ These questions may not be answered simply by ethical theories.
MacIntyre will say that to maneuver forward during these issues, we have to better understand the context. For instance , we are a society in which thousands of embryos die for various phases of the IVF process. There is therefore a contradiction among our society’s comfortable response to IVF plus the often chaotic negative a reaction to embryonic stem-cell research.
Once approaching problems, we should try to respond with wisdom, correct ambition, temperance etc . Virtue Ethics responds confidently to several of these criticisms by attracting attention to the failings of deontological hypotheses and ‘consequentialist’ positions (GEM Anscombe coined the key phrase ‘consequentialism’ in her 1958 article “Modern Moral Philosophy” which bitten contemporary ethical theories to be out of touch together with the real world. This article may have been largely responsible for the resurrgence appealing in Advantage Ethics). You will find other criticisms, though. For example , Virtue Values rejects moral absolutes just like ‘Do not lie’, then again values the virtue of honesty.
Experts claim that the virtues are really another way of stating meaningful rules, and the virtues be based upon the existence of these rules. Honesty is precisely a virtue because it is wrong to rest. This sort of criticism can lead to a circular argument, but it is actually the biggest menace to the advantage theorist.
- Category: Ethics
- Words: 540
- Pages: 2
- Project Type: Essay