Virtue

Ethics Overview
What is Virtue Ethics?
• Virtue ethics is nether a deontological or teleological approach to
moral decision making. Rather, it is based on a holistic approach.
Virtue Ethics is concerned with the qualities or virtues we can develop
in order to be a better person. For virtue ethicists, morality is
dependent on the motives and thinking behind an action.

• Virtue Ethics is split into two different sections- Moral and Intellectual
Virtues
Moral Virtues
• Moral virtues are the qualities of characters we must develop in order
to become good people. There twelve (eg. courage, proper ambition,
modesty), and Aristotle believed they must balanced in our lives. He
suggests a middle state between the vices of excess and deficiency
which he calls the ‘golden mean’.

• The golden mean is concerned with finding the correct level of virtue
to live by. An example can be seen in the case of the virtue of
Courage, where one must not act with an excess of rashness, or with
a deficient of cowardice.
Intellectual Virtues
• Aristotle also concerned himself with Intellectual Virtues. Intellectual
Virtues are qualities of the mind which can be developed over a
lifetime through instruction from others.
• Aristotle believed there to be nine Intellectual Virtues, consisting of
five primary virtues and four secondary virtues.