Virtue-Based Ethics: A Comparison of Aristotelian-Thomistic and Buddhist Approaches Thomas F. MacMillan Abstract: This paper supports the view of Alasdair MacIntyre that a virtuebased approach to ethics has both intrinsic and comparative superiority to precept-based approaches. The paper identifies a number of ways in which virtue-based ethics in the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition are analogous to the virtue-based ethics of Mahayana Buddhism. On the basis of several such corresponding features, the author suggests further dialogue between the two traditions to investigate areas of common ground. Aristotle or Neitzche?
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irtue-based ethics in the Western philosophical tradition has been the object of a resurgence of interest over the past three decades. Ethicists have revisited classical themes from Plato, Aristotle and Aquinas in urging an emphasis upon the virtues of moral character, as opposed to moral rules or the assessment of consequences. Perhaps most notable for purposes of the present discussion have been the contributions of Alasdair MacIntyre, beginning with After Virtue 1 and continuing with the more recent Whose Justice? Which Rationality? 2 Briefly, MacIntyre argues both the comparative and the intrinsic superiority of the Aristotelian virtue-based model, as compared with the alternatives developed during the Enlightenment and into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. According to MacIntyre’s argument, one must rationally reject both the Kantian “duty” ethics of the Enlightenment and the subsequent utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill because neither provides more than what we might call an “ethics of preference.” In such a case, we quickly discover issue 2, june 2002
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