Evaluation as a moral practice: The case of virtue ethics

Abstract

Evaluation is a moral practice. With this in mind, we look to moral philosophy and the theory of virtue ethics as a case study to identify instances where virtue ethics undergirds professional evaluation. To aid in this we also contrast virtue ethics with the more commonly discussed philosophies of consequentialism and deontology and their corresponding evaluation practices. An important question we hope to address is: why does it matter for evaluators to understand connections between moral philosophy and practice? We argue that a greater awareness of moral philosophy will aid evaluators in seeing both the plurality of moral considerations that undergird an evaluation practice, as well as aid in their ability to make judgements among these considerations. In particular, identifying the moral perspectives that ground evaluation practices will aid in evaluation flexibility and use by helping evaluators to tailor evaluations to the situations and moral issue at hand and bringing evaluations explicitly closer to their implicit moral roots.