This paper discusses the influence and role of Aristotelian ethics in two contemporary ethical theories stemming from different traditions, those put forward by Elizabeth Anscombe and Paul Ricœur. In different ways, these accounts of ethics can be considered “virtue theories”. First, we focus on Anscombe’s recovery of Aristotelian “virtue ethics” in the context of her criticism of the standpoint of moral philosophy. We discuss the reception that her 1958 “Modern Moral Philosophy” has had, leading to contradicting interpretations of the role she ascribes to Aristotelian ethics and the problems raised by modern moral philosophy. Second, we discuss the status of the Aristotelian standpoint in Paul Ricœur’s “little ethics”, focusing on the primacy given to the ethical aim over moral obligation, and the role of Aristotelian practical wisdom (phronesis) in the overcoming of the difficulties of a modern deontological standpoint. Drawing on these two readings of Aristotelian ethics, we discuss issues such as the prospects of “human flourishing”, the conception of the subject underlying these accounts and the extent to which the context-dependent traits of human experience – as against an essentialist standpoint – should be taken into account in these theories.
