Agent-based Virtue Ethics and the Problem of Action Guidance

Abstract Agent-based accounts of virtue ethics, such as the one provided by Michael Slote, base the rightness of action in the motive from which it proceeds. A frequent objection to agent-basing is that it does not allow us to draw the commonsense distinction between doing the right thing and doing...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Zyl, Liezl van (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: 2009
In: Journal of moral philosophy
Year: 2009, Volume: 6, Issue: 1, Pages: 50-69
Further subjects:B AGENT-BASED VIRTUE ETHICS
B RIGHT ACTION
B HYPOTHETICAL AGENT-BASED VIRTUE ETHICS
B VIRTUOUS MOTIVE
B ACTION GUIDANCE
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Summary:Abstract Agent-based accounts of virtue ethics, such as the one provided by Michael Slote, base the rightness of action in the motive from which it proceeds. A frequent objection to agent-basing is that it does not allow us to draw the commonsense distinction between doing the right thing and doing it for the right reasons, that is, between act-evaluation and agent-appraisal. I defend agent-basing against this objection, but argue that a more fundamental problem for this account is its apparent failure to provide adequate argue action guidance. I then show that this problem can be solved by supplementing an agent-based criterion of right action with a hypothetical-agent criterion of action guidance.
ISSN:1745-5243
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of moral philosophy
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1163/174552409X365928