87

In this paper I concede that virtue ethics has failed to relate in a practicable manner to our actual efforts at ethical betterment. I introduce a phenomenon called ‘strategies’, as a means of bridging general virtue ethical reflection and everyday practice in the way required. After presenting empirical support for the efficacy of strategies, the paper establishes that virtue ethics can accommodate each of their three defining characteristics: a rule format, a basis in the agent’s past experience, and an articulation in terms of the agent’s own understanding and abilities. After a point-by-point relating of strategies to a conception of virtue, the paper finally argues that strategies provide a common ground for virtue ethics and situationism, the originator of the empirical criticism.