“The weaknesses of virtue ethics outweigh their strengths” Discuss.

Virtue ethics was created by Aristotle and is character based rather than deontological or normative. It relies upon the individual to be ‘virtuous’ and by doing this, they will know what to do in any given ethical situation. It is agent centred morality rather than act centred. Plato believed that being virtuous is the achievement of man’s highest good. When a person has their cardinal virtues in balance, they are a good person. This is problematic as virtue ethics don’t give us a concrete answer of what to do in certain situations. Robert Louden rightly stated that as virtue ethics is focused on the individual, it neither resolved nor attempts to resolve moral dilemmas. It may help to make the moral agent virtuous, but it does not give any answers relating to a moral crisis. It can be assumed that you act in a virtuous way, but one will never know if they are being truly virtuous and if this is enough to solve an ethical problem.Further, issues of what is meant by ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ will outweigh any strengths presented. These definitions are subjective, so the outcome of ethical decision making will differ depending on the individual and the situation that is at play. Thus, virtue ethics is not generalisable to every individual in every situation as morality is seemingly dependent on the individual at the scene. This is problematic for any ethical theory as it makes it subjective and therefore provides no set guidelines. It can be argued that a strength of virtue ethics is that is makes the individual focus on their character, which can be done by following ‘The Golden Mean’, which is considered the most important aspect of virtue ethics. The Golden mean is the middle ground between two extremes, for example, between cowardice and recklessness this would be bravery. Aristotle believes that we should always aim for the Golden Mean, as this is the most virtuous trait.However, there any many weaknesses of the Golden Mean that outweigh any strengths that might be at play. Again, it cannot be applied to all people in all situations. For example, it may be courageous for a soldier to fight an equally matched opponent but foolhardy to fight a far greater one. In this, virtue ethics again makes it unclear of what to do in any given situation. The Golden Mean almost encourages the agent to ‘pick and choose’ when it is right or wrong to behave in a certain way. This outweighs any strengths that it may present as it becomes universalizable and therefore an unclear theory.Another weakness that outweighs any strengths of virtue ethics is that the morals of virtue ethics are based on the happiness of the individual rather than the happiness of society. For example, an act that may appear virtuous such as helping your parent with housework is only truly done for selfish reasons; you do it for recognition or payment rather than for ‘virtuous’ reasons. This therefore outweighs any strengths of virtue ethics as it is ultimately not a theory of virtue but rather self interest. Finally, virtue ethics ignores the relativist dilemma. It may appear to be culturally biased, as what is virtuous in one country differs from what is virtuous in another. For example, in some cultures it is virtuous to physically scar men or women in order to mark milestones in their lives such as marriage, whereas in a western culture it would be seen as incredibly lacking in virtue to do such a thing. Therefore, virtue ethics seems to praise some virtues which may be seen as negative in other cultures or vice versa. Therefore, it fails to bring unity amongst people and cannot be suitable for all people of all cultures. To conclude, the weaknesses of virtue ethics largely outweigh any strength. Each strength to the theory also has a weakness, whereas there are not many opposing strengths to the weaknesses. Virtue ethics is thus too subjective, set guidelines need to be put in place to make it universal and for definitions of right and wrong to be clear. Universalizability is one of the most important traits for an ethical theory to have and this is what virtue ethics is lacking.