Card 3.2.3 · Root III — Ethics and Axiology
Character-Based Approaches
Should ethics ask what to do, or who to be?
Virtue ethics makes character central: it asks what kind of person to become, and many versions explain right action partly through what a virtuous agent would characteristically do.
Where it sits
Under 3.2 Normative ethics. Borders 3.4 Moral psychology, 3.5 Value theory, 6.3 Philosophy of education.
The rival answers
| Variant or neighbouring framework | Claim |
|---|---|
| Aristotelian | Virtue as the mean, aimed at eudaimonia |
| Stoic | Virtue is the only good; externals are indifferent |
| Neo-Aristotelian | Virtues grounded in facts about human flourishing |
| Exemplarist | Virtue defined by reference to admirable persons |
| Islamic adab and akhlaq | Character refinement drawing on Greek philosophical ethics within an Islamic intellectual and religious setting |
| Confucian role ethics ◈ | Rightness is what the relationship requires of one in your position |
| Ubuntu ◈ | Human flourishing and personhood are realized through relations with others; formulations differ over how strongly community constitutes the person |
Key figures
| Figure | Dates | Tradition | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Confucius | trad. 551–479 BCE | Chinese | Ren and the cultivated person |
| Aristotle | 384–322 BCE | Greek | The mean; virtue as trained disposition |
| Mencius | trad. c. 372–289 BCE | Chinese | Virtue as extension of natural sprouts |
| Xunzi | c. 310–after 238 BCE | Chinese | Virtue as deliberate construction against nature |
| Miskawayh | c. 932–1030 | Islamic | Tahdhib al-Akhlaq; systematic character refinement |
| Elizabeth Anscombe | 1919–2001 | Analytic | Revived virtue ethics; attacked duty-talk without a lawgiver |
| Alasdair MacIntyre | 1929–2025 | Analytic | Virtues internal to practices and traditions |
| Iris Murdoch | 1919–1999 | Analytic | Moral life is chiefly attention and vision; character is formed by what one learns to see |
Also on this question: Diogenes of Sinope Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī
Connections
→ 3.2 · ↔ 3.4, 3.5, 6.3, 6.7, 3.1.4 · ◇ virtue ethics, Stoicism, neo-Aristotelianism, Islamic akhlaq, Confucian role ethics, Ubuntu, exemplarism · ○ Axial Age; Islamic golden age; Modern; Tables 4 and 5
→ narrower questions · ↔ questions it borders · ◇ the positions, mapped in Part III of the book · ○ the eras and comparison tables (Parts IV and V)
The full card is in the book
In The Coordinates of Thought this card goes on to a worked example that sets the answers against one case, and to where the question touches daily life — page 147.
On Coordinates of Thought
Conversations about this question in Virtue & character:
- Reading group for complete beginners: Plato’s Apology, slowly, in three sittings 6 replies
- Nineteen years with one blade: Cook Ding and the discipline that wu wei is usually sold without 6 replies
- Can you be a good person in a role that sometimes requires you to do bad things? 6 replies
- Confucian ethics is a role ethics, and filing it under virtue ethics hides its best idea 6 replies
- Take away the rational cosmos and Stoic ethics becomes a coping technique 6 replies