Hello! I need some help with Virtue Ethics!
- yaya_bon_yaya
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Hello! I need some help with Virtue Ethics!
Another objection is that the theory is not "action-guiding", and does not focus on what sorts of actions are morally permitted and which ones are not, but rather on what sort of qualities someone ought to foster in order to become a good person. Thus, a virtue theorist may argue that someone who commits a murder is severely lacking in several important virtues (e.g. compassion and fairness, among others), but does proscribe murder as an inherently immoral or impermissible sort of action, and the theory is therefore useless as a universal norm of acceptable conduct suitable as a base for legislation.
It might not be as difficult as I think it is, but it's really not clicking in my brain. I would really appreciate if someone could dumb this down for me. Thank you!
- Jack D Ripper
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Re: Hello! I need some help with Virtue Ethics!
Does that make sense?Thus, a virtue theorist may argue that someone who commits a murder is severely lacking in several important virtues (e.g. compassion and fairness, among others), but does NOT proscribe murder as an inherently immoral or impermissible sort of action, and the theory is therefore useless as a universal norm of acceptable conduct suitable as a base for legislation.
My initial thought on this sort of thing as a criticism of the ethical theory is that it is supposed to be an ethical theory, not a political one, and was not intended to provide a basis for legislation.
One might as well complain that it does not tell one the shape of the earth or cure cancer. It wasn't intended to do those things either.
- yaya_bon_yaya
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Re: Hello! I need some help with Virtue Ethics!
Thank you!
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Re: Hello! I need some help with Virtue Ethics!
yaya_bon_yaya wrote: ↑November 30th, 2020, 9:52 pm What exactly does it mean to not proscribe something?
Thank you!
With such a question, the first thing to do is to figure out what it is to proscribe something:
https://www.lexico.com/definition/proscribeOxford wrote:proscribe
VERB
[WITH OBJECT]
1 Forbid, especially by law.
‘strikes remained proscribed in the armed forces’
1.1 Denounce or condemn.
‘certain customary practices which the Catholic Church proscribed, such as polygyny’
1.2 historical Outlaw (someone)
‘a plaque on which were the names of proscribed traitors’
So, to not proscribe something is to not forbid or denounce or condemn that something.
- yaya_bon_yaya
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Re: Hello! I need some help with Virtue Ethics!
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Re: Hello! I need some help with Virtue Ethics!
2024 Philosophy Books of the Month
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