Diacritica 25-2_Filosofia.indb - cehum - Universidade do Minho

VIRTUE ETHICS AND COMMUNITARIANISM
A ÉTICA DAS VIRTUDES E O COMUNITARISMO
Rui Silva *
Th e last decades have witnessed a revival of virtue ethics, in opposition to impersonal
approaches to ethics and to attempts to codify moral knowledge in a set of
rules or principles. Th e article argues that the humanist idea of Bildung can be an
important contribution to the project of virtue ethics and explores the connections
between virtue ethics and communitarianism.
Keywords: ethics, virtue, communitarianism, Bildung, relativism
Assistimos, nas últimas décadas, a um regresso à Ética das Virtudes em oposição
a abordagens impessoais da ética e a tentativas de codifi cação do conhecimento
moral num conjunto de regras ou princípios. Este artigo sugere que a ideia humanista
de Bildung pode dar um contributo importante ao projecto da Ética das Virtudes
e explora as conexões entre a Ética das Virtudes e o comunitarismo.
Palavras-chave: ética, virtude, comunitarismo, Bildung, relativismo.
To help others where one can is a duty, and besides this there are many spirits
of so sympathetic a temper that, without any further motive of vanity, or selfinterest,
they fi nd an inner pleasure in spreading happiness around them and can
take delight in the contentment of others as their own work. Yet I maintain that
in such a case an action of this kind, however right and however amiable it may
be, has still no genuinely moral worth. […] It stands on the same footing as other
* University of the Azores.
Diacritica 25-2_Filosofia.indb 141 05-01-2012 09:38:26