Hello! I need some help with Virtue Ethics!

yaya_bon_yaya · Post by **yaya_bon_yaya** » November 30th, 2020, 9:29 am

I'm a first year in college and I need to make a presentation about the criticisms on virtue ethics. There's a paragraph in the module that was provided to me that has an example that I don't understand. I will emphasize the sentence that confuses me below:

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 · Post by **Jack D Ripper** » November 30th, 2020, 6:33 pm

I am wondering if there is a typographical error. Would the sentence make sense to you if it read thusly:

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.

Does that make sense?

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 · Post by **yaya_bon_yaya** » November 30th, 2020, 9:52 pm

What exactly does it mean to not proscribe something?

Thank you!

Jack D Ripper · Post by **Jack D Ripper** » December 1st, 2020, 2:11 am

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:

Oxford 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’