Virtue Ethics

If I were to choose a classic category that describes how I make ethical choices, I would have to say that I would go with the theory of virtue ethics. I believe that I’ve made “the right” decisions because of the virtues of life that I have grown up with and cultivated since I was younger. One thing that I think makes me someone who follows the theory of virtue ethics is that I think that it has to do a lot with upbringing including where I was specifically placed in life and how my parents reacted to the good and bad things that I did. Whenever I would reflect in my behavior a good habit of character, I would get positive feedback and encouragement. This positivity and encouragement helped me develop the virtues in hopes that one day I would habitually act on throughout my life. For instance, my family put an emphasis on the virtue of honesty and stressed its importance to me throughout my childhood. An example of this would be if I had not cleaned my room and my mother had passed by room and had already known that I had not cleaned it and asked me about it. I would be given a choice to choose honesty. If I had chosen to live in honesty, and told her the real state of my messy room, then I would continue developing a positive ethical virtue. Since this virtue of honesty became a pattern in my life, I see myself as an “honest person”. I see myself as an honest person not because honesty was forced on me, but because I chose to do the moral thing over and over again until it became who I am. A lot of people try to separate character, morality, and immoral things, but I think it is the intertwining of all of these things that makes up a person’s true character and essentially influences his or her ethical and moral decisions in life. Earlier when I talked about my upbringing, I wasn’t just talking about my parents on earth. I also think that God has a way of teaching His children how to behave because He gives us the Holy Ghost. He gives us a guide through life, situations, and the strength for us to develop and grow as a person of moral virtue.