Virtue ethics is a moral ideology developed as early as ancient Greece by the famous philosopher and thinker Aristotle. He believed that our purpose is to pursue our true human goal, eudaimonia, which is best understood as human prosperity or a life of abundance. It is a fundamental concept in ethics as a science and an individual’s ethical way of life. This critical letter examines the themes of creating one’s idea of virtue ethics, the strengths of this philosophy, its relationship to the Bible, and the author’s attitude toward this topic.
It is not difficult to formulate if one defines one’s own concept of virtue ethics. Generally, a person desires to live a moral life by following ethical principles. To develop a strong moral character, one must do right and good deeds and help others. A simple example of a comparison of virtue ethics from pop culture is the movie The Dark Knight, where the main Batman, has the opportunity to kill the Joker (Ethics Unwrapped, 2022). Utilitarians would approve of this killing since the hero would save many innocent people. Dentists would reject the very idea of murder because of its immorality. A person who is a follower of virtue ethics would rightly point out that since Batman himself is a moral and honest man, he would not commit murder even against the worst enemy of humanity.
It is important to consider the strengths of virtue ethics. One of these is gaining the skill to give virtue to the world. These actions allow one to move through life and continually improve it confidently. The totality of ethically and morally correct moral deeds eventually makes it possible to live a good, happy, and fulfilling life (Matthews & Hicks, 2020). It should be noted that in virtue ethics, a person always has a choice of how to act and can be guided by the rules and do something right. The virtuous act is between the extremes of lack and excess concerning some situations in life. And these rules are unique to everyone, so no one should be influenced by anyone else’s actions, which gives people personal freedom of moral choice.
Many overlapping lines connect virtue ethics with the Bible, the world’s major religious book. But Christianity changes the view of virtue ethics by shifting it differently. Whereas in secular teaching, one becomes virtuous by practicing virtues, from the Christian perspective, one becomes better and more moral through Christ (Wellman, 2019). From this thesis is born the conclusion that in the Bible, God’s nature is the manifestation of true virtue, and the followers of that religion must reflect his character to make good moral choices. God can save a man if he asks for it through prayers and guide him to the right path by convincing him of the rightness of Christ.
Virtue ethics can be treated ambiguously. On the one hand, virtue ethics is a rather vague philosophy that often does not allow for a concrete answer regarding what should be done in any given situation. Many people want to have that answer to make the right choices. On the other hand, virtue ethics provides the tools to make decisions and allows one to be more flexible, as this ideology is based on using even negative character traits if that is the best way out of a situation. Humans should consider whether or not to be guided by these principles in their life.
References
Ethics Unwrapped. (2022). Virtue Ethics. Web.
Matthews, G., & Hicks, C. (Eds.). (2020). Introduction to philosophy: Ethics.
Wellman, J. (2019). Top 13 Bible verses about virtue. Patheos. Web.