I have a physicist’s view on this. Every model is an approximation, including ethical ones. I think that virtue ethics is a decent approximation in many realistic situations. To me it often encodes precommitment to symmetric decisions. E.g. I will cooperate (be honest, generous...) as long as the other person does, because it’s a virtuous thing to do. It does not stumble on PD or Parfit’s hitchhiker as long as everyone values the same set of virtues. However, like any other normative ethics, it goes awry in many edge cases or when the symmetry breaks down. Thus I don’t much care about the notion of eudaimonia or any attempts to pronounce VE “correct” or “incorrect”. Again, it’s one approximation which often works well, nothing more.
I have a physicist’s view on this. Every model is an approximation, including ethical ones. I think that virtue ethics is a decent approximation in many realistic situations. To me it often encodes precommitment to symmetric decisions. E.g. I will cooperate (be honest, generous...) as long as the other person does, because it’s a virtuous thing to do. It does not stumble on PD or Parfit’s hitchhiker as long as everyone values the same set of virtues. However, like any other normative ethics, it goes awry in many edge cases or when the symmetry breaks down. Thus I don’t much care about the notion of eudaimonia or any attempts to pronounce VE “correct” or “incorrect”. Again, it’s one approximation which often works well, nothing more.