The Character of Evil

Abstract

This chapter examines the ‘Virtue Ethics’ approach to the problem of evil, which focuses on the idea of ‘character’ – certain individuals have a character which leads to them perform evil actions. It explores John Kekes's distinction between choice-morality and character-morality, and defends a Kantian choice-morality against his critique. The problem with character-morality is that the agent does not choose their character traits, and therefore morality becomes a matter of luck. And again, the possibilities of reform and redemption a marginalised by those approach.