Re: Virtue Ethics, Deontological Ethics, and Biotechnology

On 5/12/06, D. F. Siemens, Jr. <dfsiemensjr@juno.com> wrote:
>
>
> David,
> I've studied ethics. I've taught ethics. I've checked the /Encyclopedia of
> Philosophy/ and a couple dictionaries of philosophy. I've not found any
> reference to virtue ethics. The standard pair among philosophers is
> deontological ethics (duty centered) and teleological or axiological ethics
> (value centered). There are also such irrational variants as emotive ethics,
> which taught that the intensity of feeling is the sole determinant of the
> ethical status of an action or attitude.

Jonathan Edwards' Nature of True Virtue is I believe an example of
such an approach. I beg to differ that it is irrational, though.
According to Edwards true virtue is to depart from our natural
inclinations to do what God desires because it is truly beautiful.
That beauty was of a higher order than the beauty of the laws of
nature. Edwards was attacking the notion at the time that true virtue
consisted of disinterested benevolence. Much of this derives from his
views of the beatific vision. So, it would be safe to say his was an
eschatological ethic. Given the role of eschatological intrusion in
20th Century Reformed thought I would not be surprised if there was
some parallels to Edwards here. Terry Gray might be of help here as he
is the list expert on Vos et al.
Received on Mon May 15 08:56:43 2006