In the reading Rachels discusses “what is the good of a man?” According to Aristotle the good man is a virtuous character thus virtues are taken to be the subject matter of ethics. Ancient approach towards ethics revolves around faith, hope, charity and obedience known as the Divine Law; which in my perspective is true because many parts of the world these principle are the basic building blocks of many religions. Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhist etc. all preach same thing but in different context. Thus person born into one of these religions would start believing in their on preconceived notions of what is good or bad.
On the contrary modern view towards philosophy of ethics and virtue on what is good or bad is based on the concepts of obligation, duty, and rightness which British Philosopher Anscombe consider nonsensical. I think this approach is kind of inherited by more educated modern society to cope up with the fast life. The five components of virtue ethics discussed by Rachels are what virtue is, which character traits are virtues, what these virtues consist in, why these qualities are good ones for a person to have and whether the virtues are the same for all people or whether they are different from person to person.
Virtue is a trait of character that is manifested in habitual actions which can be compared to the distinctive features of Courage, Generosity, Honesty and Loyalty towards family and friends. Although author discusses that an honest person will never lie but in my opinion it’s not true because there are many constraints when a person would have to lie. Though it might be for some good cause but it’s still a lie which raises my concern over the argument here. Rachels then also discuss ...