An ongoing question for virtue ethics is whether it stands as a truly distinctive approach to ethics. In particular, there has been much discussion of whether virtue ethics can provide a viable understanding of right action, one that is a genuine rival to familiar consequentialist and deontological accounts.

In this chapter I will examine two prominent approaches to virtue ethics, (a) qualified agent and (b) agent-based virtue ethics, and consider whether either can provide an adequate account of right action. I will begin with a presentation of their accounts of right action, including consideration of what is meant by the term “right action”. With this groundwork in place, I will turn to a series of important objections that have been raised against these accounts, and consider some of the more prominent and promising responses that these objections have inspired.

TWO ACCOUNTS OF RIGHT ACTION

According to qualified agent (QA) accounts of virtue ethics, right action is to be understood with reference to the actions or attitudes of virtuous agents. Such agents, given their good character, can be understood as moral experts and their judgements (as reflected in their actions) will correctly capture moral rightness and wrongness. The most influential such account is that of Rosalind Hursthouse.