Virtue ethics has emerged from a rich history, in which both Aristotle and Aquinas have played an important role, to become one of the fastest-growing fields in contemporary ethics. In this volume of newly commissioned essays, leading moral philosophers offer a comprehensive overview of virtue ethics. They examine the theoretical structure of virtue ethics and its place in contemporary moral theory and other topics discussed include the history of virtue-based approaches to ethics, what makes these approaches distinctive, what they can say about specific practical issues and where we can expect them to go in the future. This Companion will be useful to students of virtue ethics and the history of ethics and to others who want to understand how virtue ethics is changing the face of contemporary moral philosophy.
1. The definition of virtue ethics Christine Swanton; 2. Ancient virtue ethics: an overview with an emphasis on practical wisdom Rachana Kamtekar; 3. Virtue ethics and the Chinese Confucian tradition Philip J. Ivanhoe; 4. Virtue ethics in the medieval period Jean Porter; 5. Hume's anatomy of virtue Paul Russell; 6. The historic decline of virtue ethics Dorothea Frede; 7. Virtue ethics in the twentieth century Timothy Chappell; 8. Virtue ethics and right action Liezl van Zyl; 9. Virtue ethics and bioethics Justin Oakley; 10. Environmental virtue ethics: what it is and what it needs to be Matt Zwolinski and David Schmidtz; 11. The virtue approach to business ethics Edwin Hartman; 12. Virtue and politics Mark LeBar; 13. Happiness and the virtues Daniel C. Russell; 14. The situationist critique of virtue ethics Gopal Sreenivasan.
