This is philosophy bites with me David Edmonds and me Nigel Warburton.

Philosophy bites is available at www

philosophy bites.com.

In the past few decades there's been a resurgence of interest in so-called

virtue ethics the origins of which go back to Plato and Aristotle the

postage stamp version of moral philosophy the version you get in Philosophy 101, goes something like this.

Utilitarians claim that the morality of an action should be judged by its consequences.

Cantians say consequences take second place to our duties and obligations,

such as the duty not to lie.

While virtue ethicists claim that both theories pay insufficient attention to character.

According to the virtue theorist, the best action is not necessarily the one that produces

the best consequences, or indeed the one that meets an obligation but it's the one that

would be carried out by a virtuous person.

However, Oxford University's Roger Crisp argues that the differences between the various

moral theories

are not as clear-cut as most textbook authors suggest.

Roger Chris, welcome to Philosophy Bites.

Thank you.

The topic we're considering today is virtue.

Let's start with the question, what is virtue?

Well, that's a very good question to begin with because it's the question that Plato began with.

And as a whitehead said, all philosophy consists in footnotes to Plato.

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