Non-Relative Virtue Ethics Analysis

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In her paper “Non-Relative Virtues: An Aristotelian Approach”, Nussbaum points that remoteness from “concrete human experience” is a key feature of the major approaches to ethics. This explains why many have been dissatisfied with the ethical theories. Utilitarianism requires one to perform acts only that maximize the general happiness or welfare. In Mill’s words, one is required to act as “strictly impartial as a disinterested and benevolent spectator” (Cite). However, one is deeply partial where his/her family and friends are concerned. As for duty ethics, Kant formulates universal laws and principles that one is bound to act according to disregarding the actual circumstances of human life. Virtue ethics, on the other hand, is distinguished from the former two ethical theories in the sense that it focuses on the character…show more content…
Foucault concludes that the Greeks made no distinction between the drive for thirst and hunger and the drive for sex. They were mainly interested in “mastering” or taming these drives. Moreover, for Greeks, the gender of the sexual partner is of little importance when evaluating the morality of an action in comparison to the partner’s social status. The ongoing controversy whether homosexuality is permissible would then be of no relevance to the Greeks, but will definitely have a bearing on twentieth-century westerners due to the substantial emphasis placed on the gender of the partner in a sexual intercourse. What is morally relevant to us is of no moral concern to the Greeks. Relativist believe that the role that one’s social education plays in influencing his interpretation of experiences is sometimes left unnoticed due to the fact that this education is “non-linguistic” and takes place at an early stage of one’s

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