Bro I'm the one who doesn't understand virtue ethics, I said so from the start. I absolutely hate arguing about bullshit irrelevant terms, and so 90% of the time someone brings up honesty, justice, integrity, compassion, or bravery I will always agree with their usage, no matter how ridiculous it may seem. Would you ask an atheist what the minimum standard to consider something a "god"? Would you ask a Utilitarian what it means to treat a person as a means to an end?

You say virtue ethics is not subjectivism, but I seriously cannot see how virtue ethics creates any sort of objective common ground between disagreeing parties. You say we need to find common sense ideas, but from basically every single agreement I can remember, the disagreement always arose out of these kinds of more fundamental disagreements, such as having a different "common sense" understanding of one or another virtue.

Why do I have to discuss anything before you are able to apply your own personal moral philosophy? I seriously have zero clue what is going on right now. Please help me.

One of the interesting challenges and learning opportunities I’ve come across in dabbling with fiction is the process of merging narrator/author voice with character voice.

Both as a reader and writer, close third-person limited is my favorite point of view method (as opposed to first person or third person omniscient) for most stories. This means the narrator only knows what the point-of-view character knows, even though it’s written in third person.

But interestingly, when done closely, it also means the narration itself is colored by the character’s personality. Rather than just come across the page in dialog or in italicized literal thoughts, the rest of the narration is also basically an indirect extension of their thoughts.

And so for example if a character is cynical and curses a lot, then in addition to the dialogue reflecting that, the narration also reflects that. It comes across more cynical and will curse at times. “What a shit day. Bob pulled out of his driveway and…” In contrast, if a character is upbeat and polite, the narration will feel similar.

And there’s no right answer on how much to let character voice color the dialogue in third person limited, because an author can choose how close to get to the character. And readers have preferences for their favorite points of view. I like a bit of everything but like close third person limited the majority of the time.

Distant third person limited has a rather consistent and detached narrator voice, despite still being limited to what the character knows. Very close third person is almost like first person, meaning the narration is basically just like that character, except all the “I/me” words are replaced with “he/she” and so forth.

As a reader, a lot of this is often invisible. As a writer though, it’s interesting to 1) pick how close you want third person limited to be for your given book, and 2) be consistent with it so you don’t unintentionally zoom in or out at certain times.

So it’s kind of a mindfuck because there are multiple layers to be aware of. A really interesting process to tackle.

Oh I see. Well, I believe that someone who truly embodied honesty justice, integrity, and compassion then they would agree with me about everything and act in exactly the way that I believe is ethical. In other words, it seems like virtue ethics just simplifies down to my exact particular moral philosophy. Is that how its supposed to work? Did I make a mistake again?

Hmm, let me just put myself into the mind of a digital pirate.

Yep, a digital pirate would not consider the piracy to be theft, would not consider the piracy to be patronizing, and, if they truly considered honensty, justice, integrity, and compassion to be virtues, and if the digital pirate truly considered a person who embodied these virtues, then they would imagine this person to be fine with pirating the music in order to figure out whether to praise Frank's works far and wide.

Wow, very cool. How did I do? Did I make any mistakes regarding how a digital pirate would properly apply virtue ethics?

Sometimes, when I notice I have persistent trolls over months, I take a couple tries to reach out and talk to them.

I try to directly address their issues, and ask what their problem is, or who hurt them.

Like someone who is clearly a human but posts anti-Bitcoin stuff on my threads 193 times. Or who makes fun of my voice 65 times.

Thus far, it has almost never worked out. They just keep going until they burn out. Their views and comments tend to be near-zero anyway. It’s a mental illness issue. And I’m not equipped to handle it.

Kind of like how people throw poop in certain cities, there are people who digitally just parasitically can’t stop clutching to others negatively.

I invite them to do better, hope they recover, but I increasingly learn that dealing with them rationally doesn’t work and I’m not the right one to help with that sort of mental illness.

Awesome! What about piracy? Is piracy immoral under virtue ethics? I know all the classic excuses, so what if piracy is actually beneficial to the person whose media you are taking against their will? It it okay to use the media if they only don't want you to have it because they don't realize how beneficial piracy is to them?

What about if some of the money used to purchase the product is used for abuse or exploitation? How would virtue ethics evaluate piracy in this case?

I'm also curious about money laundering under virtue ethics. Obviously stealing is immoral. But if someone has already stolen some money and they aren't giving it back, is it also equally immoral if they place it alongside the money they legally earned from running their Los Pollos Hermanos restourant? Does virtue ethics afford any roles to the community or the local government when it comes to preventing money laundering?

I could also ask you about abortion or the trolley problem, but to be honest the examples I gave earlier are the biggest things I am interested in. Is there any moral dilemma that you believe virtue ethics handles well where another moral frameworks (like Deontology) would perform poorly?

It's been a while since I heard those explanations and I don't want to assume that any impressions I got out of them accurately represent your beliefs. I would much rather hear an explanation in your own words. Otherwise who's to say it wasn't some idiot just SAYING they were a proper virtue ethicist?

What if I just give you some different ethical scenarios and courses of action? Do you think you would be able to analyze them to come to a conclusion on what would and wouldn't be ethical? I'd love to hear your thought process. How does that sound?

Can you explain what virtue ethics is to me? None of the explanations I've read have made sense to me.