5. Challenges to Virtue Ethics

About this Lecture

Lecture

In this module, we outline challenges to virtue ethics, focusing in particular on (i) whether virtue ethics can provide an account of moral action and possible responses (ii) whether virtue ethics gives a conflicting account of the moral life and possible responses (iii) the challenge from cultural relativism and possible responses.

Course

In this course, Dr Ryan Byerly (University of Sheffield) explores virtue ethics, and Christianity. In the first module, we examine virtue ethics as a normative theory. In the second module we analyse the nature and role of the virtues themselves in virtue ethics. In the third module, we look at Aristotle’s account of the virtues, before discussing Jesus’ account of the virtues in the fourth module. In the fifth module we evaluate some of the challenges to virtue ethics. In the sixth and final module, we look at developments in contemporary virtue theory from philosophy, psychology and interdisciplinary practice.

Lecturer

Dr Ryan Byerly is a lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Sheffield. His research interests are in Philosophy of Religion, Epistemology, and Virtue Theory. His recent publications include Putting Others First: The Christian Ideal of Others-Centeredness (2018) and Introducing Logic and Critical Thinking: The Skills of Reasoning and the Virtues of Inquiry (2017).