Abstract

I consider and answer a deflationary challenge brought against virtue ethics, an ancient tradition in moral philosophy now enjoying an influential revival. The challenge comes from critics who are impressed by recent psychological evidence suggesting that much of what we take to be virtuous conduct is in fact elicited by narrowly specific social settings, as opposed to being the manifestation of robust individual character. In answer to the challenge, I put forward a new conception of ethical character that openly acknowledges the likelihood of its deep, ongoing dependence upon particular social relations and settings. I argue that holding this conception will indeed cause problems for some important strands of thought in virtue ethics, most notably in the tradition of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. But it will leave intact, and perhaps even strengthen, other powerful uses of virtue-related thought and talk, as exemplified by David Hume's treatment of virtue and character in A Treatise of Human Nature. I conclude that for this reason a Humean orientation indicates a promising direction for contemporary virtue ethics to take. ;In the Humean orientation to virtue ethics, the chief value of virtue-related discourse is that, when stable under reflection and sufficiently widespread, it can serve our shared interests in successful social cooperation . What is important for these purposes is that various socially and personally beneficial dispositions can come to be constant over time somehow or other---usually with the help of an encouraging climate of social expectation---and not that they must be constant over time through taking a highly self-sufficient form, such as the form that Aristotle privileges uniquely with the name of virtue