On Virtue Ethics

A systematic defence of neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics against the charge that it cannot tell anyone what to do. Part I, on action, gives Hursthouse's well-known account of right action: an action is right if it is what a virtuous agent would characteristically do in the circumstances. She shows how the virtues and vices yield guidance, rules such as "do what is honest" or "do not do what is cruel", and treats moral dilemmas, distinguishing those that can be resolved from tragic ones where even a virtuous agent cannot come out with clean hands. Part II, on emotion and motivation, asks what it is to act from virtue, comparing Aristotle and Kant on the role of feeling. Part III sets out an ethical naturalism: the virtues are the character traits a human being needs to live well, judged by ends drawn from our nature as social and, above all, rational animals.

It is the standard modern statement of virtue ethics as a full rival to utilitarian and Kantian theories, and it answers the obvious objections clearly.