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From Morality to Virtue

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From Morality to Virtue offers a careful, systematic argument for the attractiveness of Virtue Ethics. The first four chapters of the book critique Kantian, Utilitarian and Common-Sense theories of morality. Chapters five through ten discuss the advantages that virtue ethics has over other theories, covering topics such as Moral Luck, "Virtue Rules," Imperatives, "Virtue in Friends and Citizens," and self and other-regarding reasons. The last seven chapters focus on answering the challenges which Utilitarianism raises for virtue ethics. For anyone interested in ongoing debates in moral theory, this is a book which is instructive and thought-provoking. While Michael Slote does a nice job of laying out the theories and theorists with whom he interacts, I suspect that a reader who was not already somewhat familiar with modern moral theory would find the book daunting. It's style is generally dry and occasionally technical (this is not an objection to the book, merely an observation). If you have a passing interest in moral issues and are looking for an interesting book to read on a Sunday afternoon, this is probably not the right book for you. MacIntyre's After Virtue or Marcus Aurelius' Meditations would be a better choice. However, if you are looking for a serious treatment of virtue ethics by a very thoughtful analytic philosopher, a careful reading of this text will be well worth your time.