VIRTUOUS LIVING - Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University

Community is held together by shared standards and values (moral goods). Without acommonality of these goods, there is nothing to preserve together and nothingnecessitates holding on together. The quest for the survival of the fittest has reducedpeople to a means to an end. The very negation of the deontological ethical theory(categorical imperative) has been ironically produced by the same moral theories.What we have is a defenceless community something that we can call: AcquiredValue-deficiency Community Syndrome (AVDCS) (cf Nkesiga 2004, July). HereHIV/AIDS thrives, politics of obscurantism and (the) perpetuation of corrupt livingcharacterise the ethos of the community, leading to widespread frustration andfeelings of powerlessness. To turn the tide, some concerned moral philosophers haveproposed this third moral theory, namely Virtue Ethics. They hope that Virtue Ethicswill resolve the current moral dilemma, recover the individual and re-establish thecommunity. This paradigm will sustain goodness in the community.2.4 The nature of moral disagreementDebates on moral theory and moral practice are marked by three dishearteningcharacteristics. The first, argues MacIntyre, is that moral utterances are characterisedby “disagreements” as a dominant intellectual correctness. This aspect has been morecommon in moral discourse. Secondly, the debates on moral theory and practicesimply go on endlessly as their main feature and lifeline. Thirdly, the “interminablecharacter” of these debates, is that there “seems to be no rational way of securing amoral agreement in our culture” (MacIntyre 1981:6). Three examples are used toelucidate these observations.2.4.1 The question of a “just war”(a) “A just war is one in which the ‘good’ to be achieved outweighs the evilsinvolved in waging the war and in which a clear distinction can be made between thecombatants – whose lives are at stake – and the innocent non-combatants” (MacIntyre1981:6). Unfortunately most wars remain unplanned according to this suggestion. Nolife, not even that of the combatants is dispensable. Individual or group interests haveclouded the motives of most recent wars. In addition, no war has succeeded in154