Term Paper

Submitted By idkkkaaayyyy
Words: 664
Pages: 3
Open Document
m virtue is to act from some particular motivation; thus to say that certain virtues are necessary for correct moral decisions is to say that correct moral decisions require correct motives.

Neither teleological nor deontological moral theories require motives to play a role in our evaluation of moral decisions — but encouraging correct motivations is very often a key component of the moral education of young people. We are taught that we should desire certain outcomes and that we should want to accomplish certain goals by our actions.

Another reason why virtue theories are so attractive is that the other moral theories share in common the difficulty in dealing with complicated moral calculations over what actions to take or which moral duties to emphasize. Virtue theories promise that once we are successful in creating the sort of person we want to be, arriving at the correct moral decisions will come naturally.

Key questions which virtue ethical systems ask include:

What sort of person do I want to be?
What virtues are characteristic of the person I want to be?
What actions will cultivate the virtues I want to possess?
What actions will be characteristic of the sort of person I want to be?

Problems With Virtue Ethics

The reality of virtue ethics isn’t as neat and simple as some might imagine. Although many common moral decisions may indeed come more easily to a person of the “right” moral character, the fact of the matter is that many moral dilemmas require a great deal of careful reasoning and thinking — simply having the right character cannot be enough to even make the right decision likely, much less assured. The fact that rule based and duty based ethical systems are complicated and difficult to employ does not make a person of good character more likely to make the right choices.

Another problem with virtue-based ethical systems is the question of what the “right” sort of character is which a person should have. Many, if not most, virtue theorists have treated the answer to this question as self-evident, but it is anything but. One person’s virtue may be another person’s vice and a vice in one set of circumstances may be a virtue in another.

Some advocates of virtue ethics suggest that we determine the right virtues by asking a virtuous person, but that is just an exercise in question begging. Others might suggest asking a happy person, but that assumes that happiness and virtue always coincide — by no means an obvious truth.

Perhaps a key to understanding virtue theories of ethics is to regard them as ways to approach moral psychology but not moral epistemology. What this means is that virtue theories should not be
Show More

Related Documents: Term Paper

Term Paper

Correctional Health Care Increasing Staff Motivation and Satisfaction MGMT 591: Leadership and Organizational Behavior Professor Brett Gordon December 17, 2012 The organization that will be the topic of discussion in my final project paper is Georgia Health Sciences Universities (GHSU), Georgia Correctional Healthcare (GCHC) division. GHSU is both a hospital and teaching institution based in Augusta, Georgia. GHSU was founded in 1828. Georgia Health Sciences University is home to…

Words 2285 - Pages 10

Term Paper

Learning activity Term Paper Test for Hidden Bias The Implicit Association Test, tests for unconscious biases. I chose this learning activity to see if I have any hidden biases. I have always believed that I was a straight shooter never putting on a facade or giving a false presentation of myself. To prepare for taking this activity, I made sure that I was in a quiet room, away from any distractions. I concentrated on each activity as they appeared on my computer screen. I chose six categories to…

Words 765 - Pages 4

Term Paper

companies use shady accounting practices to enflate revenue or hide losses, the public can’t get an accurate picture of what they are investing in. The public demanded that something be done, so in 2002 the U.S. govt passed the Sabex-Oxly act. For my term paper I will examine some the corporate scandals that led to the creation of the act. Deragulation was lobbied for hard on wall street during the Bush Presidency. The public was lead to believe that loosing the rules on corporate practices would lead…

Words 999 - Pages 4

Term Paper

Community Organization September 16 2013 Compare and Contrast Community Organizations The two community organizations that I choose to compare and contrast is Do-All,Inc and United Way. I have worked with both of these organizations in the past, and they are both really good organizations, and do a lot of improve the overall community. Do-All, Inc. evolved from a dream for a better life for people with disabilities. Do-All, Inc was formed in 1952 by the Bay County Association of Retarded Citizens…

Words 723 - Pages 3

term paper

Progressive Roots - In the beginning of the 1900s, America had 76 million people, mostly in good condition. Then before the first decade of the 20th century, the U.S. would be influenced by a “Progressive movement’ that fought against monopolies, corruption, inefficiency, and social injustice. 1. The purpose of the Progressives was to use the government as an agency of human welfare. - The Progressives had their roots in the Greenback Labor Party of the 1870s and 1880s and the Populist Party…

Words 2369 - Pages 10

Term Paper

Pediatric Oncology Nursing Did you know that one in one hundred new nurses will become a pediatric oncology nurse? Pediatric oncology nursing is a very demanding and heartwarming career. To be a pediatric oncology nurse means to be a primary care coordinator for the management of patients with cancer. A pediatric oncology nurse will assess patient needs, implementing a plan with appropriate tasks for the patient to gain progress. Not only will the pediatric oncology nurse help with the patient…

Words 1781 - Pages 8

Term Paper

Introduction Software as a Service (SaaS) has the potential to transform the way information-technology (IT) departments relate to and even think about their role as providers of computing services to the rest of the enterprise. The emergence of SaaS as an effective software-delivery mechanism creates an opportunity for IT departments to change their focus from deploying and supporting applications to managing the services that those applications provide. A successful service-centric IT, in turn…

Words 6880 - Pages 28

Term paper

issues that occur there are many that people may not be aware of, but the ones that will be discussed to explore ethical situations are Unauthorized Access related to software, hardware, network, internet web mining, IT freedom and hacking. This paper examines how each unauthorized access should be handled and provides examples of each related area of security. Security – Unauthorized Access Unauthorized access is known as the act of gaining access to a network, system,…

Words 3103 - Pages 13

Term Paper

The Emancipation Proclamation and the Death of an American Hero. Students Name Professor’s Name History 150 Online 10 March 2014 There were many different events that happened during the time of President Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. President Abraham Lincoln came up with the Emancipation Proclamation which was an effort to help end slavery, eventually leading to the thirteenth amendment to abolish slavery altogether. Sadly his life was cut short. John Wilkes Booth assassinated him…

Words 1950 - Pages 8

Term Paper

he Glass Menagerie is a very character oriented poem. Tom, Amanda, and Laura are all very well developed characters. They all have significant and unique characteristics that are shown well throughout the poem. Tom is the most interesting to me though because of his qualities and even his flaws. Tom has a few different and contradicting characteristics such as he is easily persuaded, his determination and his strong sense of guilt. Tom Wingfield seems to be easily entrapped and persuaded into…

Words 348 - Pages 2