Confucian Virtue Ethics
Finally I argue that the evidence produced and discussed at length within the thesis provides abundant evidence for strong similarities in Aristotle and Confucius’s outlooks concerning ethics. Emerging from the point that both of their works can be classified as examples of virtue ethics and building upon the numerous areas of convergence between them too it is clear that both Aristotelian and Confucian virtue ethics can be discussed in terms with each other and are not exclusionary of the ideas or concepts, nor the internal workings, of the other. With this, then, two very different cultural and historical contexts are shown to be able to give rise to ethical systems which are in no way mutually unintelligible despite not having all the same
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For the purpose of this thesis that sphere can be defined as the similarities between the Aristotelian and Confucian virtue ethics systems. From this, then, it becomes necessary to understand what a virtue ethics system is and what the exercise of comparative philosophy …show more content…
It does not, as somewhat touched upon above, refer to set or consistent single system of ethics, hence why we can have two or more different versions of it, but the broad category of virtue ethics does exist as a coherent normative approach to the philosophical question of ethics. (“Virtue Ethics” Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy). It is distinct from other approaches such as deontology and consequentialism by its focus upon the concept of moral characteristics, virtues, and their role in ethics. The other primary distinguishing aspect of virtue ethics from other ethical systems is the focus it places upon the entirety of a human being’s ethical character as opposed to treating actions in isolation from each other (Jiyuan, 5-10). Thus virtue ethics is an ethical system in which moral characteristics, different virtue ethics identify different moral characteristics, are argued to be the key component in the process of a human being becoming, or achieving, ‘good’ or the desired moral and ethical outcome in their lives (“Virtue Ethics” Stanford Encyclopaedia of
For the purpose of this thesis that sphere can be defined as the similarities between the Aristotelian and Confucian virtue ethics systems. From this, then, it becomes necessary to understand what a virtue ethics system is and what the exercise of comparative philosophy …show more content…
It does not, as somewhat touched upon above, refer to set or consistent single system of ethics, hence why we can have two or more different versions of it, but the broad category of virtue ethics does exist as a coherent normative approach to the philosophical question of ethics. (“Virtue Ethics” Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy). It is distinct from other approaches such as deontology and consequentialism by its focus upon the concept of moral characteristics, virtues, and their role in ethics. The other primary distinguishing aspect of virtue ethics from other ethical systems is the focus it places upon the entirety of a human being’s ethical character as opposed to treating actions in isolation from each other (Jiyuan, 5-10). Thus virtue ethics is an ethical system in which moral characteristics, different virtue ethics identify different moral characteristics, are argued to be the key component in the process of a human being becoming, or achieving, ‘good’ or the desired moral and ethical outcome in their lives (“Virtue Ethics” Stanford Encyclopaedia of