This is

This is Philosophy Bites with me Nigel Warburton and me David Edmonds

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Philosophers often divide mole theories into three categories.

The consequentialist says an action is to be judged purely by its consequences,

whether it maximises happiness, for example. The deontologist disagrees. The justification

or otherwise of torture cannot merely be assessed by whether or not it produces the best state of affairs.

Aside from consequentialism and deontology there's a third category of

moral theory, virtue theory. Virtue theory emphasizes character. Its origins go back to Aristotle and it finds an advocate in

University of Arizona professor Julia Anas. Julia Anas, welcome to Philosophy

Bites. Thank you for inviting me.

The topic we're going to discuss is, what is virtue ethics for?

Just before we get onto the point of virtue ethics,

maybe you could just give a little sketch of what virtue ethics is.

Virtue ethics is an ethical theory where the central concepts are those of virtue and of very generally happiness or you

diameter, not happiness in a sense of feeling good or having a great time,

but in the sense of living a good life with which you feel satisfied.

And a virtue is a disposition that you acquire, a disposition to learn from experience and deal

intelligently with experience so that you learn to act and act for reasons of a certain sort,

...