Comprehensive Ethics and Justice Principles in Criminal Justice Practice Test

The main concept tested is virtue ethics, which holds that morality rests on the agent’s character and virtuous dispositions. In this view, what makes a person’s actions right is not just the outcome or a rule, but the kind of person performing them. A virtuous individual develops traits such as honesty, courage, temperance, and justice through steady practice and habituation, guided by practical wisdom to discern the best action in a given situation. Moral flourishing, or eudaimonia, comes from cultivating a stable character that naturally leads to good actions.

This differs from utilitarianism, which judges actions by their consequences and the overall happiness they produce; ethical formalism (Kantian ethics) emphasizes adherence to universal duties and rules regardless of one’s character; and natural law ties morality to objective goods discoverable through reason and nature. An example: acting honestly because honesty is a virtue you strive to embody, not merely to achieve good outcomes or to follow a rule.