Jason Kawall Abstract

Title: Virtue Ethics and Revisionary Concepts of Rightness

Abstract: In response to certain recent criticisms and

counterexamples, several virtue ethicists have argued that virtue

ethics should be seen as defending a very different conception of

rightness than consequentialist or deontological moral theories; with

this different conception in place, they argue, the objections and

counterexamples fail. In this paper I argue that virtue ethicists are

ill-served by this proposal. The alternative conception of rightness

seems quite strange, and of limited value to moral theory.

Furthermore, even with this alternative conception of rightness,

standard virtue ethical accounts of rightness would be open to

important objections and counterexamples. Finally, I propose that an

alternative response on behalf of virtue ethics to the criticisms and

objections at stake.