Virtues and Value: How Virtue Theory Plugs a Gap in Practice-Consequentialism

Author

Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Cardiff University, Christ Church, Stellenbosch University, University of Oxford, UK

Abstract

What confers their value on genuine virtues, it is argued, consists in the intrinsic value that instantiating them in thought and action standardly brings about. This granted, virtue theory is argued to be capable of plugging a gap in consequentialist theories of the kind that make actions right which either exemplify optimific practices or are directly optimific. Compliance with optimific practices like truth-telling makes the relevant actions right, subject to certain exceptions. But even if such compliance is combined with the optimificity of beneficent actions, considered singly, that do not exemplify these practices, the resulting theory of rightness remains gap-ridden. The gap can be filled if it is granted that virtuous actions are generally optimific, and this knowledge is incorporated into consequentialist theories of rightness. Thus where no optimific practices are relevant, and no actions are manifestly directly optimific, dispositions of a generally optimific character (virtues) can rightly be adopted.

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References

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Journal of Philosophical Investigations
Volume 16, Issue 41 - Serial Number 41
Special Issue
English Special Issue: Philosophy of Education
2023
Pages 471-478

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