THE SPECTER OF RELATIVISM: A CRITIQUE OF ROSALIND HURSTHOUSE'S ON VIRTUE ETHICS
Date
2016-11-04
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
ORCID
0000-0002-7309-316X
Type
Thesis
Degree Level
Masters
Abstract
Virtue ethics has been a major ethical theory from Antiquity to the present. Despite its
persistence on the philosophical scene, in recent years (especially after the publication of After
Virtue in 1981) it has been severely criticized for being open to the charge of relativism. In this
thesis, I focus on Rosalind Hursthouse’s reconstruction of Aristotle’s enterprise. In the first
chapter I examine her aspiration to explain right action solely in terms of the virtuousness of
moral agents. Unless Hursthouse concedes, at least to some extent to the moral relativist, I
conclude that it is not possible to articulate the rightness of action on a virtue-based account.
Hursthouse also rejects the very existence of second order rules and principles which guide
moral agents when moral virtues and their corresponding v-rules have an adverse claim upon us.
I will demonstrate that Hursthouse’s rejection of the codifiability thesis, again, forces her to
concede even more to moral relativism.
The inability to fill the gap between the virtuousness of a moral agent and the rightness of
her action is not the only aspect of Hursthouse’s version of virtue ethics that is open to
relativism. She also fails to provide a viable procedure for validating moral virtues. In the second
chapter, I concentrate on Hursthouse’s reconstruction of Aristotelian ethical naturalism which is
one of the most significant attempts to ground moral virtues independently of any moral rules
and principles. I demonstrate that the naturalistic validation of moral virtues is susceptible to the
cultural context in which virtues are supposed to be validated. In the framework of ethical
naturalism, we are social animals. When normative virtues are presumed to be based on our
being, it is inevitable that our sociality, and thus our cultural background, permeates the
naturalistic moral virtues.
Description
Keywords
Hursthouse, Relativism, On Virtue Ethics
Citation
Degree
Master of Arts (M.A.)
Department
Philosophy
Program
Philosophy