The Cambridge Companion to Virtue Ethics

by Russell, Daniel C.

• ISBN13: 9781107001169
• ISBN10: 1107001161
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2013-03-29
• Publisher: Cambridge Univ Pr

Summary

Virtue ethics has emerged from a rich history, in which both Aristotle and Aquinas have played an important role, to become one of the fastest-growing fields in contemporary ethics. In this volume of newly commissioned essays, leading moral philosophers offer a comprehensive overview of virtue ethics. They examine the theoretical structure of virtue ethics and its place in contemporary moral theory and other topics discussed include the history of virtue-based approaches to ethics, what makes these approaches distinctive, what they can say about specific practical issues and where we can expect them to go in the future. This Companion will be useful to students of virtue ethics and the history of ethics and to others who want to understand how virtue ethics is changing the face of contemporary moral philosophy.

Table of Contents

The definition of virtue ethics

Ancient virtue ethics: an overview with an emphasis on practical wisdom

Virtue ethics and the Chinese Confucian tradition

Virtue ethics in the medieval period

Hume's anatomy of virtue

The historic decline of virtue ethics

Virtue ethics in the twentieth century

Virtue ethics and right action

Virtue ethics and bioethics

Environmental virtue ethics: what it is and what it needs to be

The virtue approach to business ethics

Virtue and politics

Happiness and the virtues

The situationist critique of virtue ethics

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