Virtue ethics (also aretaic ethics,[a][1] from Greek ἀρετή [aretḗ]) is an approach to ethics that treats the concept of moral virtue as central. Virtue ethics is usually contrasted with two other major approaches in ethics, consequentialism and deontology, which make the goodness of outcomes of an action (consequentialism) and the concept of moral duty (deontology) central. While virtue ethics does not necessarily deny the importance of goodness of states of affairs or moral duties to ethics, it emphasizes moral virtue, and sometimes other concepts, like eudaimonia, to an extent that other ethical dispositions do not.
“Phronesis” (φρόνησις; prudence, practical virtue or practical wisdom) is an acquired trait that enables its possessor to identify the thing to do in any given situation.[5] Unlike theoretical wisdom, practical reason results in action or decision.[6] As John McDowell puts it, practical wisdom involves a "perceptual sensitivity" to what a situation requires.[7]
Eudaimonia (εὐδαιμονία) is a state variously translated from Greek as 'well-being', 'happiness', 'blessedness', and in the context of virtue ethics, 'human flourishing'.[8] Eudaimonia in this sense is not a subjective, but an objective, state.[citation needed] It characterizes the well-lived life. According to Aristotle, the most prominent exponent of eudaimonia in the Western philosophical tradition, eudaimonia is the proper goal of human life. It consists of exercising the characteristic human quality—reason—as the soul's most proper and nourishing activity. In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle, like Plato before him, argued that the pursuit of eudaimonia is an "activity of the soul in accordance with perfect virtue",[9] which further could only properly be exercised in the characteristic human community—the polis or city-state.
Although eudaimonia was first popularized by Aristotle, it now belongs to the tradition of virtue theories generally.[10] For the virtue theorist, eudaimonia describes that state achieved by the person who lives the proper human life, an outcome that can be reached by practicing the virtues. A virtue is a habit or quality that allows the bearer to succeed at his, her, or its purpose. The virtue of a knife, for example, is sharpness; among the virtues of a racehorse is speed. Thus, to identify the virtues for human beings, one must have an account of what is the human purpose.