Virtue ethics in the contemporary social and political realm.

This thesis concerns the problem of applying the ideas developed in contemporary
virtue ethics to political philosophy. The core of the problem, explained in the
opening chapters, is that assessment of right action offered by virtue ethics - in terms
of what 'the virtuous person' characteristically does or would do - is focused on
individual persons, rather than political principles of government. Accordingly,
interpretations of traditional Aristotelianism have struggled to accommodate the
putative value of modern value pluralism and manifold conceptions of the 'good life',
whilst liberal theories that employ virtue concepts fail to offer a political philosophy
that is distinctly virtue ethical.
Rather than trying to fit individualistic virtue ethics to political theory in these ways,
subsequent chapters start from the viewpoint of individuals and look outward to their
social and political environment, arguing that an adequately socio-political virtue
ethics requires, and suits, an ethics of social roles. Various virtue ethical approaches
to roles, however, fail in different ways to determine what it means to act virtuously
in such a role. Inresponse, it is argued that virtue ethics needs a normative account of
what specific role-determining institutions should be like. The possibilities for the
Aristotelian ergon - function or 'characteristic activity' - serving as a normative
criterion for a good institution of its kind are discussed and modified, leading to a
positive account of institutional ergon that links the primary function of an institution
with the specific and distinct human good or goods that it serves. The promissory
conclusion to the thesis is that contemporary virtue ethics can, in this way, offer a
distinct and enlightening approach to social and political philosophy, whilst also
strengthening itself as an ethical theory.