08 Aug The approach is so fascinating and it’s really cool how the old work of Aristotle gets combined with the rigors of modern philosophy.
Discussion 6: Virtue Ethics – Discussion 3
I’ll be honest—I loooove virtue ethics! The approach is so fascinating and it’s really cool how the old work of Aristotle gets combined with the rigors of modern philosophy. (It also doesn’t hurt that I’m a virtue epistemologist, which is its own thing.)
In this module, though, we’ve looked at two dramatically different approaches to a potentially big problem: the normativity argument. We saw how Hursthouse attempts to show that virtue ethics can be action-guiding with her paper. And we saw Annas’ argument that revolves around her developmental model of ethics that’s similar to a learned skill. Just take a minute to appreciate how different these two responses are. One says, “Yeah, this is a problem but here’s how to fix it” while the other is just like, “Nah, this isn’t a problem at all and, in fact, is a feature of how ethics really works.”
Here’s the question:
Between these two approaches, which do you think is the wrong one, and why?
Yeah, I thought I’d mix things up a little and have you argue against a view. After all, if you know what’s wrong, that’s at least a step in the direction of knowing what’s right.
In your response, see if you can put yourself in the shoes of either Hursthouse or Annas and figure out what they might say in defense of their view. This, by the way, is one of the most challenging things to do—to take a view and think about how defenders of that view might respond to criticism. It’s also an incredibly valuable skill to develop, though it does take time and practice. But let’s see what you can do! Please do not plagirize I will check for this and you will recieve a zero.
