Virtue ethics and situationism: Proposing a path forward with self-sustained virtues and a therapeutic aim

Abstract

Virtue ethics has faced a substantial challenge in recent years from philosophical situationism. In this essay, I argue that the challenge has remained intact due to a seeming difference between the sentiments of situationists and those of virtue ethicists regarding the scope and robustness of virtues, as well as a fixation on robust character traits. Although some defenders of virtue ethics have proposed empirically plausible accounts of character traits, these tend to deflate the concept of virtue such that it loses its usual scope and exemplary status. I propose my own theory of virtue as self-sustained proper deliberation in an attempt to meet the situationist challenge. I argue that we can provide a satisfactory answer to the situationist challenge if we reframe the aim of virtue ethics as therapeutic, clarify the plausible moral psychology, give an account of cultivating and sustaining virtue, and justify the morally exemplary and praiseworthy status of self-sustained virtues. To do this, I draw on the empirical and philosophical work of therapists and the later stoics such as Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius.