A Study Of Contemporary Virtue Ethics:The Justification And Defense Of Ethical Diversity

Since 1950's, there appears a current of research on virtue ethics in western academe of ethics. By now, virtue ethics has been one of three basic ethics that also include kantianism and utilitarianism, which are the two major types of rule ethics. The classic version of virtue ethics is from Aristotle whose doctrine is the main resource for a lot of contemporary researchers. Based on contemporary Aristotelian virtue ethics, my dissertation analyses its diversity which is implied in its core conception, model of practical reasoning and views of ethical knowledge and ethical life. One aspest, I take the difference and interaction between contemporary Aristotelian virtue ethics and rule ethics into account, the other aspect, I pay attention to the close relation and tension between contemporary virtue ethics and its classic ones. That is, I try to understand contemporary Aristotelian virtue ethics in such two dimensions.In my opinion, the core conception in contemporary Aristotelian virtue ethics,"virtue", should not be simply considered as good characters, but a kind of special model of practical reasoning which deals with political and ethical affairs excellently. We call it phronēsis.With such model of practical reasoning, a moral agent will make himeself based on his own life in community, and take practical reasoning according to his own ideas of well-being as the highest telos and his perception about concrete situations at present. Compared with the model of practical reasoning and the views of ethical knowledge that are provided by rule ethics, contemporary Aristotelian virtue ethics take more emphases on the diversity of ethical lives and knowledge. So, the legalism, the simple but no-ended model of practical reasoning, and the universality of ethical knowledge in rule ethics become the objects of criticism from virtue ethics.However, it is also because such characters that contemporary Aristotelian virtue ethics is easily understood as moral relativism. As for this blame, our defense is: contemporary Aristotelian virtue ethics have never given up making an effort to achieve the authenticity of ehical knowledge. Despite virtue ethics affirm the ethical diversity, it will not, like relativism, agrue that those different moral views are uncomparable or they are rational equally, if only it sticks to a kind of local position.The aims of contemporary Aristotelian virtue ethics are to reveal the trueness of ethical practice and provide possible approaches towards a good life, while not to design a kind of universal theoretical statement. Certainly, considering the characters of modern life, contemporary Aristotelian virtue ethics, based on a total local position, still support people's prudent efforts to make an ethical agreement in a limited scope.