Last Thoughts On Virtue Ethics

Follow-up in Scott's virtue-ethics debate, rebutting the 'virtue ethics is just trusting our intuitive moral sense' defense. Two moves: (1) virtue ethics actually makes five contestable claims (teleology, community-grounding, role-dependence, character-over-acts, the canonical virtue list), so it isn't merely 'intuitive ethics' relabelled; (2) the sharp central argument: the set of problems where we genuinely need moral guidance is the exact COMPLEMENT of the set where intuitive morality already suffices (murder is solved; abortion, sociopathy, the trolley problem, historical moral blind spots are not), so 'just use your intuitions' is useless precisely where philosophy is wanted. Self-tagged 'dead horse beating'; a short, conversational entry mid-series.

Quality 61 · Strong. Strong, quotable central argument (the complement point is a clean refutation that does real work), but the post is short, negative/critical, and embedded mid-series in philosophy-department territory rather than a standalone contribution. Low-Strong: above competent-but-forgettable, below his original essays.

Claude’s paradigm shift 38 · Slight. Moderate-minus. Applies a familiar move (you-can't-privilege-your-own-framing; the solved-vs-unsolved-problems distinction) sharply to one debate, but little that was new in 2013 metaethics.

Real-world impact 2 · Minor. A follow-up rebuttal with a clean central argument (we need moral guidance exactly where intuition fails); a quotable idea embedded mid-series in the ethics discourse, no material reach → RWI 2.