| Two of the most long-standing and damaging objections to virtue approaches to morality is that virtue theory cannot guide conduct, and that virtue theory cannot justify the virtues as admirable traits of character without employing consequentialist and deontological concepts in such a justification. I argue that a properly-formulated virtue theory can avoid these objections, and thus is a viable alternative to traditional consequentialist and deontological theories of morality. Specifically, the virtue theory I propose is an extensional theory (i.e., designed only to be true in the actual world, not in all possible worlds, as essentialists would have it), and justifies the virtues as admirable traits of character through a concept of human good constituted by universal human desires.;Any moral theory should take as a starting-point the way humans actually are. I take human good to be constituted by universal human desires (i.e., desires that have been manifested historically in every human society; for example, the desire for sexual mating and to provide care for children). Human beings are also essentially social beings, and it is living in society with one another that makes the realization of human goods possible. I argue that there are better and worse ways to go about the attempt to achieve the universal human desires (i.e., to attempt to live the good life by achieving characteristically human goods), and the method by which we judge licit and illicit methods of achieving the universal human desires is linked to our social nature. That is, the quest to achieve human good is tempered by the needs of society. Thus, the virtues are admirable character traits because the presence of the virtues in society not only allows the continued existence of societies, but allows for the achievement of universal human desires, i.e., human good. Given the extensional nature of the theory, coupled with an empirical investigation (through sociology, ethnology, and history) of human good, we can thus define the virtues in such a way as to make moral claims empirically verifiable, and to make virtue theory independent of consequentialist and deontological concepts. |
