Volume 5, Number 2
October 2011
DISCUSSION

What About Ought? Response to Practical Intelligence and the Virtues

Volume 5, Number 2, October 2011, Pages 1–6
https://doi.org/10.26556/jesp.v5i2.143
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Abstract

Aristotelian virtue ethicists like Rosalind Hursthouse claim that an action is right if it is what a virtuous agent would characteristically do in the circumstances. This view faces an objection: it gives the wrong result when a non-virtuous agent faces a dilemma due to previous wrongdoing. Daniel Russell defends Hursthouse by emphasizing her distinction between action guidance (what ought to be done) and action assessment (whether the action is right). He argues that a non-virtuous person could make the right decision in a dilemma while failing to perform a right (virtuous) action. While I accept this response, it leaves a crucial issue unresolved: Can virtue ethics provide useful advice to a non-virtuous person who faces a dilemma due to previous wrongdoing, where acting virtuously is not possible? I propose a solution: the non-virtuous person should focus on avoiding actions that are characteristic of the vicious.
Copyright © 2011 Liezl van Zyl
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license.
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