Ethical theory fundamentals and applications

Ethical Theory

Despite the fact that codes of conduct and belief systems permeate everyone's life on an everyday basis, developing a universally acceptable concept of ethics or moral philosophy remains a seemingly impossible task that has plagued philosophers and the world's great thinkers since the beginning of time. Over time a great number of different philosophical theories have arise. Each one has its strengths and weaknesses and each has enjoyed its own period of popularity but, strangely, due to the fact that some of the world's greatest minds have spent their lives formulating other theories, the theory that seemingly has the greatest degree of validity is one of that has enjoyed the longest history: virtue ethics.

Virtue ethics were developed as a theory by the ancient Greek philosophers. Aristotle and Plato in developing their views toward ethics placed little importance on the rules that people should obey or follow and, instead, they focused on the importance of basic character. At the center of virtue ethics is the concept of the golden mean. The golden mean is the proper balancing of two extremes which results in a condition known as virtue. Proponents of virtue ethics argue that persons with good character will ultimately make good decisions without any consideration for rules or moral obligations. For Aristotle and Plato and all followers of the philosophy of virtue ethics, life is a journey whose ultimate goal is to develop good character and, in the process, rid oneself of bad habits such as greed or anger. Such habits stand in the way of developing good character and must be moderated in order to demonstrate progress as a moral person. For Aristotle and other proponent of virtue ethics, habits such as greed and anger in moderation can be useful but when taken to extreme they become bad habits and interfere with the development of good character.

The starting point for virtue ethics is a determination of what traits of character make one a good person. Some of these traits such as courage and generosity are easily recognized as virtues but virtue can vary from society to society or individual to individual. What is important in the pursuit of good character is the self-examination that accompanies the process. A self-examination process that involves finding a balance between extremes.

The great advantage of virtue ethics and the thing that distinguishes it from all the other philosophical approaches is that it allows individuals to do things not because they ought to, like in Kant's theory, or because it is in their own best interest as in egoism, but because it is virtuous for them to do so. Decisions in virtue ethics are made as part of the process of developing good character not because there is any rightness or wrongness involved or because someone might benefit from deciding one way or another. Decisions are made because it leads one toward developing good character.

One clear advantage of virtue ethics is that it does not force one to ask what should I do, instead, the question becomes how should I live? The decision maker does not have to balance the relative interests. The proper course of action is what one's character tells him it is. Acting in accordance with one's character will render the proper decision. Followers of Kant are more concerned with moral imperatives while egotists with self-interest. Virtue ethics is concerned with the development of good character because as good character develops the correct choices are also made.

While other ethic systems require a complicated decision making process that requires either a complicated balancing of options or adherence to a system of moral imperatives, virtual ethics involves attempting to become the best person that one can become. All decisions are based on what will enable someone to develop the features in one's character that lead to goodness. Other theories, however, are more concerned with right or wrong, what is best one's self-interest, or the general good. Virtue ethics eschew these goals and concentrates on the development of the individual.

Unlike the other ethical approaches virtue ethics also takes into account that humans are emotional beings and that ethical decision making is not a static process. Nearly every ethical decision is accompanied by an emotional aspect or motive. In other ethical approaches the motivation is a complicated system of right and wrong; self-interest; or common good. Virtue ethics requires only that one possess correct motives. Therein, however, lies the greatest criticism of virtue ethics and, that is, who is to determine what the correct or proper motives might be. For proponents of virtue ethics this is not a problem as they will argue that such motives should be obvious either through prior experience of self-examination.