Virtuous Liaisons: Care, Love, Sex, and Virtue Ethics

Author Raja Halwani discusses how virtue ethics sheds light on three crucial areas of our lives: care, love, and sex. He has three groundbreaking theses: first, care should be construed as a virtue, and care ethics should be subsumed under virtue ethics. Second, romantic love is an emotion and not a virtue, and the best (most moral) love is the one found in a virtuous person. Third, virtue ethics allows for sexual lifestyles (promiscuity, open relationships, and sex work) that are abjured by traditional morality.

The book’s three theses are unique in important respects. The Chapter on care settles decisively the issue of care ethics’ status. By arguing that care ethics is subsumed by virtue ethics, the book preserves the importance of care ethics and avoids objections to it. The chapter on love spells out the connections between love and the virtues and argues that romantic love is crucial to a well-lived, flourishing life. The third chapter argues that virtue ethics is perfectly hospitable to alternative sexual lifestyles, which boldly counters the conservative viewpoints of many virtue ethicists.