Virtue ethics is established as one of the dominant ethical theories that has application for healthcare practice, including oral health. Attributed to ancient Aristotelian concepts living a deeply fulfilled life, virtue draws attention first and foremost, significance character traits, or virtues in process decision-making. This focus on character, contrasts with duty-based such deontological ...

It’s not difficult to say what’s objectionable about soma in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World: the majority of the blissed-out, mindless denizens of this socially and biologically engineered dystopia are oblivious not only to their own manipulation but also to the fact that their lives have become empty and hollow; they no longer care or strive for anything greater than the ecstasy of their next...

Nietzsche's ethics is basically an ethics of virtue. In his own unique way, and in accordance with his extra-moral view of life, Nietzsche recovers and re-appropriates certain virtues – notably pagan, aristocratic virtues – as part of his project to reconceptualise (‘rehabilitate’) the virtues in terms of virtù (virtuosity and vitality), to which he also refers as his ‘moraline-free’ conception...

Nurses are increasingly confronted with situations of moral difficulty, such as not to feed terminally ill patients, whistle blowing, or participation in termination of pregnancy. Most of these moral dilemmas are often analyzed using the principle-based approach which applies the four moral principles of justice, autonomy, beneficence, and non-malificence. In some instances, consequentialism is...

Responsible conduct of research training typically includes only a subset of the issues that ought to be included in science ethics and sometimes makes ethics appear to be a set of externally imposed rules rather than something intrinsic to scientific practice. A new approach to science ethics training based upon Pennock's notion of the scientific virtues may help avoid such problems. This pape...

The sort of ethical theory derived from Aristotle, variously described as virtue ethics, virtue-based ethics, or neo-Aristotelianism, is becoming better known, and is now quite widely recognized as at least a possible rival to deontological and utilitarian theories. With recognition has come criticism, of varying quality. In this article I shall discuss nine separate criticisms that I have fr...