A Study Of Slote’s Moral Sentimentalism From The Perspective Of Virtue Ethics

Michael Slote is one of the famous representatives of Contemporary Virtue Ethics.Under the background of advocating the revival of virtue ethics,combining the 18 th century British sentimentalism and contemporary moral psychology,as well as the theoretical research results of care ethics,Michael Slote puts forward his moral sentimentalism theory.This paper explores the origin of Slote’s moral emotionalism,analyzes and explains the three core thoughts of empathy,care and receptivity,and then explores the profound impact of his thoughts on the development of contemporary ethics.Empathy,as the innate moral emotion of human beings,has its own operation mechanism and internal characteristics,which is in line with the internal characteristics of care.Based on the human empathy ability,it provides psychological basis for the external care behavior.As a key link in the construction of sentimentalism,Slote transformed caring into a virtue theory,and demonstrated that caring,as an external moral relationship,actually originates from the internal quality of human beings.Caring has the characteristics of "impartial charity" and "biased charity",which corresponds to the characteristics of empathy,focusing on relatives and estrangement.As an internal psychological fact,caring provides a kind of empathy Principles of ethics.At the same time,according to the external evaluation mechanism empathy,he constructed a moral system of caring based on it;From empathy to the realization of care,it is necessary to receptivity.As the further promotion and refinement of care,receptivity plays a key role in both moral thought and moral practice.Receptivity includes not only the tolerance of others,the altruistic quality without utility,but also the active absorption of identity.It is of great significance for the exchange of Chinese and western philosophy that the idea of receptivity is interlinked with the concept of complementary Yin and Yang in Chinese philosophy.From empathy to care and then to receptivity,Slote’s ethics system based on empathy is established.His theory shows us the rationality and importance of his theory in the process of continuous enrichment and improvement.At the end of the paper,through the carding of the whole construction of Slote’s ethics of nature,the rationality of his caring ethics system based on empathy is discussed,and the possibility of his ethics thinking connecting with Chinese Confucian ethics is eplored.