Hursthouse’s Theory Of Right Action

Since the 1950 s,virtue ethics has been revived gradually.After Anscombe and Philippa Foot,Rosalind Hursthouse,as one of the representatives of Neo-Aristotelianism,made a great contribution to the revival of virtue ethics.The most important thing is that she put forward normative virtue ethics,which included rule ability in virtue ethics,provided a criterion for the be action theory of virtue ethics,and specifically discussed the content and rationality of this rule.This paper mainly discusses the theory of right action of Hursthouse.Hursthouse’s action theory mainly includes these related aspects,namely virtue rules and their contents;Analysis of right action;The justifications of right action are analyzed in Chapter 2,Chapter 3and Chapter 4.While Anscombe and Slote,among others,reflect on the role of rules and try to find a solution to the problem of virtue versus rules,Hursthouse goes further in this direction.The virtue rule,V-rule,put forward by her is to make up for the lack of rule-able action theory in virtue ethics.The V-rule theory of Hursthouse includes the following contents: the reason for putting forward the V-rules;the meaning of the V-rules;how the V-rules evolve;To what extent the V-rules is reasonable and what problems it may have;And so on.Hursthouse’s analysis of right action is a detailed analysis of action theory based on the establishment of virtue rules.In her view,a completed action first includes the motivation that preceded the action.Motivation moves from potential to excitation to enable action to be carried out.In addition,the agent in the emotional experience is also important in action,its importance is that it can show whether the action of agent on a willingness basis,and it is also an important reference to determine whether the agent have some kind of virtue,a right action requires agent to experience emotions right during the operation,otherwise will not be able to call the action to right action.At the same time,Hursthouse also values the result of action,and tries to strengthen the importance of the result of action in virtue ethics,so as to reconcile virtue ethics and utilitarianism.The justification or reasonableness of right action constitutes another important part of the theory of right action.This justification consists of two key steps: one is to ascribe the justification of the action to the virtue of the agent,that is,virtue gives legitimacy to the action based on virtue;The second is to verify the legitimacy of virtue itself,She verifies the legitimacy of virtue itself through the justification of the nature of virtue.The second step is particularly important.Hursthouse’s justification of virtue is developed in a naturalistic evaluation structure,from the evaluation of plants to the evaluation of animals,and from the evaluation of animals to the evaluation of human beings as rational social animals.Basically,virtue is justified on the basis that virtue benefits its possess.