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Rosalind Hursthouse's Model Of Virtue Ethics

Decent Essays

Virtue Ethics:
In Rosalind Hursthouse’s essay on Virtue Ethics, she aims to create a new type of ethics that is classified as Aristotelian in nature. Hursthouse’s model is more agent-based rather than action-based, which implies that it is based on the individual’s characteristics rather than the type of action implemented. Husrthouse believes that the agent’s thought process, beliefs, and personal view of moral values are ultimately what shapes virtue ethics. Although her discussion on virtue ethics is both intriguing and important, Hursthouse's model falls short of being a viable ethical theory for several reasons. Firstly, the idea of agent-based ethics is a nice one in theory, but is not easily employable because of the individual standard of ethics that would be required to take ethical action. It is important to present a model that can actually be applied in practice in order to achieve actual results. Virtue ethics cannot be considered as a real alternative to any other code of ethics because it is not employable in the real world, and is therefore not worthy of serious consideration. This underlying reason will be thoroughly discussed in order to refute the arguments that Rosalind Hursthouse provides on Virtue Ethics in her essay.
In Hursthouse’s model for virtue ethics, people would need to be self aware enough to know when they are not acting ethically so that they may ask someone who is ethical for guidance. Hursthouse’ model depicts that there are certain

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