Non-Eudaimonistic Virtue Ethics

Abstract To understand what is non-eudaimonistic virtue ethics, one needs to understand what is virtue ethics and what is eudaimonistic virtue ethics. This chapter gives an account of virtue ethics as a family of moral theories. It then defines eudaimonistic virtue ethics as the view that it is a necessary condition of a trait being a virtue that it characteristically benefits its possessor. Non-eudamonistic virtue ethics is understood as rejecting this view. There are two broad ways of categorizing types of non-eudaimonistic virtue ethics: their structure and historical figures which have inspired them, notably David Hume and Friedrich Nietzsche. The chapter largely focuses on structure, before arguing that target-centred virtue ethics, a type of non-eudaimonistic view, has the advantage of resolving a persistent criticism of virtue ethics, its alleged self-centredness.