and risk her life to save the fourth child. Be pragmatic - in which case she
should stay with the other 3 children; this would, in the long term mean that
she would be saving 3 lives instead of 1. Virtues sometimes conflict therefore
they would be of little practical use to this woman. In this particular case
there would also be no time to start considering which would be the more moral
thing to do. To go through all the virtues would take time, something which the
mother wouldn't have.
Some would say that the woman could be being selfish if she didn't go into the
house because that way she could be using it as an excuse to save her own life.
It is too hard to be dependant upon virtue ethics when faced with a moral
dilema. The mean may be too hard to find, and sometimes there may not even be a
mean, for example promise-keeping, compassion and loyalty are inherently good.
They don't seem to lie between two extremes.
However, some people would argue that virtue ethics would come in very useful
when a person is facing a moral dilema. For example, in the case of when a
mother is deciding whether or not to have an abortion, she has time to think
over her problem and can think of the various outcomes and things she could do.
One virtue is compassion, and so if the woman is compassionate about having the
abortion, then her decision must be virtuous. Virtue ethics can be acceppted and
understood by a wide variety of different people. Although the system is based
on ideals, it isn't unrealistic because it looks at the examples set by virtuous
people, like for example, Jesus. Therefore the targets are attainable by
everyone.
Virtue ethics teaches us to look at our lives on the whole. In a moral dilema
this would be very useful. The person's judgement wouldn't be clouded by single
actions, they could look forward and consider the effect it would make on their
whole life. This would make the decision more moral and still make the person
virtuous.
When considering this statment it is important to note that situation ethics
play an important role as well. They are combined with Virtue ethics. For
example if the mother found out her unborn child was dissabled, the final
decision could be different. It could be better for the woman not to have the
baby because the child could be brought into a life where it couldn't be looked
after properly. It all depends on the situation.
Another example is considering whether the war on Iraq is moral. Is it just to
kill 10 000 people in Iraq in order to stop Saddam Husein from ruling? We have
to consider the whole situation - we know that Saddam Husein could be in
possession of nuclear weapons therefore it would be more moral to try to stop
him in whatever way we can.
Overall I think that dependant on the situation, virtue ethics would be of some
use to someone facing a moral dilema, as they give an all-round view on the
situation and make sure that the outcome will be a virtuous one.
