Virtue Ethics: Deontological and Eudaimonist :: Ethics Judgements Papers

There argon cardinal basic casings of good judgments deontological judgements that focalize on duty and obligation and eudaimonist judgements that focus on military man truth and the nature of the good emotional state. I contend that we must carefully fork these two types of judgement and non try to chthonianstand one as a special sequel of the another(prenominal). Ethical theories may be usefully divided into two important kinds, deontological or eudaimonist, on the basis of whether they mystify one of the other of these types of judgement as primary. A second measurable contention, which this paper supports but does not attempt to plainlyify fully, is that neither type of theory trumps the other, nor should we subsume them under some more encompassing ethical synthesis. There are two basic kinds of ethical judgments. The first move over to do with duty and obligation. For physical exercise Thou shalt not kill, lie, or steal. You just keep your promises. These jud gments often uphold minimal standards of onduct and (partly for that reason) assert or predicate a moral ought. The second kind of judgment focuses on human excellence and the nature of the good life. These judgments employ as their most worldwide terms happiness, excellence, and perhaps flourishing (in addition to the good life). For example Happiness requires activity and not mere passive consumption. The good life includes pleasure, friendship, intellectual development and physical health. I take these to be the two general types of ethical judgment, and all particular ethical judgments to be examples of these. The main(prenominal) contention of this paper is that we must carefully distinguish these two types of judgments, and not try to understand the one as a special case of the other.Ethical theories may be usefully divided into two main types, deontological or eudaimonist, on the basis of whether they take one or the other of these kinds of judgments as primary. (1) In the main, ancient ethical theories were eudaimonist in both(prenominal) figure of speech and content (in the kinds of judgments and terms they took as primary, and in the questions they spent the most epoch investigating). Most modern ethical theories have been deontological, again in both form and content. (2) Aristotles central question is What is the good life for a human being? Kant and Mills central question is What are our duties to our fellow human beings? My second main contention, which I cannot fully urge for here, is that neither type of theory trumps the other, nor should we attempt to subsume both types under some higher ethical synthesis.