Virtue Ethics' Critique of Rule-Based Moral Theories

A recurring theme uniting Anscombe, Foot, Hursthouse, and MacIntyre is a structural critique of both deontological and consequentialist moral theory as excessively "act-centered" or "rule-centered": such theories ask primarily "what should I do," codifiable in principle into rules or decision procedures (the categorical imperative, the principle of utility), while relegating questions about the agent's own character, motives, and emotions to secondary or merely instrumental status. Critics point out that an action can satisfy a rule-based criterion of rightness while nonetheless being performed from a defective motive — Immanuel Kant's own example, in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), of the shopkeeper who deals honestly with customers purely from calculated self-interest rather than from genuine concern for them, is frequently cited by virtue ethicists as illustrating precisely this gap between rule-conforming action and virtuous character, even though Kant himself, of course, denies that such an action possesses genuine moral worth.