Self Quiz Chapter 12: Virtue Ethics

. _______ refers to the idea that one's becoming moral is more basic and more important than keeping a set of rules.

Several right choices

Character motivation

Primacy of character

Eudaimonia

. Given virtue theory, if you want to know how you should act, you should

find a moral principle that applies and obey that.

act like a virtuous person typically acts.

do whatever most people typically do.

take an Ethics course.

. The several right choices aspect of virtue theory says that

anything at all can be morally acceptable.

a limited range of acts may be morally acceptable.

only two possible acts can ever be morally acceptable.

while several choices may be "right," only one is virtuous.

. According to Aristotle, every activity humans engage in is aimed towards just one overall and ultimate good:

pleasure.

reason.

happiness.

fame.

. The mean or "golden mean" for virtue

always falls exactly halfway between deficiency and excess.

always falls slightly towards the excess, since people are initially not virtuous enough.

can fall in different places relative to excess and deficiency depending on the virtue.

measures the morality of one's character based on an average of their virtuous and vicious acts.

. Slote points out that the moral beliefs of people in other societies and times have been less than entirely accurate. He goes on to argue that

we may be the only people who will ever count as being genuinely virtuous.

it may not be possible to ever determine if an ethical theory is fully correct.

it may not be possible for people from any group or time to attain virtue.

the most virtuous people will likely live one thousand years from now.

. If I act kindly in some situation, then that proves that I have the virtue of kindness.

True

False

. Aristotle claims that there are differences between people regarding the virtues. For example, to develop the virtue of courage, one person might have to practice taking greater risks, while another person might have to learn to hold back a bit.

True

False

. The motivation problem for principle-based theories refers to the fact that their determinations of what one ought to do are largely imposed from outside rather than arising from within.

True

False

. Virtue-based ethics suggests that it is probably impossible to provide universal moral principles that can tell us what we should do in every situation; morality is just too complicated for such a cookie-cutter approach.

True

False

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