《社会工作伦理》课程重要文献（英文）：Virtue Ethics and Social Work：Being Lucky, Realistic, and not Doing ones Duty

British Journal of Social Work (2002)32, 1015-1036 Virtue ethics and social work Being lucky, Realistic, and not Doing ones Duty Graham McBeath and Stephen A. Webb Graham B McBeath is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Universiry College, Northampton. He writes mainly interdisciplinary work utilizing philosophy, and political and social theory to explore cul nurallpolitical practices such as social work. His current research is on 'boredom and on complex ity and social flows. In the past he has done DH research on the implementation of the Children Act. Other writing on social work ethics has appeared in B/Sw Stephen A Webb is Lecturer in Social Work at the Universiry of Sussex. He is currently writing a book for Palgrave-Macmillan entitled Social Work in Risk Society: Social and Cultural Perspectives. Here he analyses the development and practice of social work as part of the root condition of modern risk society. His other research interests incude evidence-based briefings in children and family work: new information technologies and the caring professions; and social work theory and ethics. orrespondence to Graham McBeath, Department of Sociology and Politics, University College, Northampton, Northants. NN2 7AL, UK. E-mail: graham@spooner. demon. co. uk: Stephen Webb, Centre for Social Policy and Social Work, University of Sussex Falmer, Nr Brighton, Sussex, UK. Few people can hush the small voice that tells us what is night Radio 4.8 October 2000 Summary This article argues that in a complex socio-political world, social work ethics needs to re-cast the moral identity of the social worker in terms of virtue ethics. We review virtue theory's Aristotelian foundations and criticisms of Kantian and utilitarian theory and show how they apply to social work. Subsequently we offer an account of a virtue sed social work that questions the validity of several models of practice currently fashionable. Virtue theory emphasizes the priority of the individual moral agent who has acquired virtues commensurate with the pursuit of a revisable conception of the good life-the well-being of all in a defined community. The virtues are the acquired inner qualities of humans-character-the possession of which, if applied in due meas- ure, will typically contribute to the realization of the good life or 'eudaimonia. The role of the virtuous social worker is shown to be one that necessitates appropriate application of intellectual and practical virtues such as justice, reflection, perception, judgement, bravery, prudence, liberality and temperance. This'self-flourishing'worker, C 2002 British Association of social Work

British Journal of Social Work (2002) 32, 1015–1036 Virtue Ethics and Social Work: Being Lucky, Realistic, and not Doing ones Duty Graham McBeath and Stephen A. Webb Graham B. McBeath is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at University College, Northampton. He writes mainly interdisciplinary work utilizing philosophy, and political and social theory to explore cul￾tural/political practices such as social work. His current research is on ‘boredom’ and on ‘complex￾ity and social flows’. In the past he has done DH research on the implementation of the Children Act. Other writing on social work ethics has appeared in BJSW. Stephen A. Webb is Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Sussex. He is currently writing a book for Palgrave-Macmillan entitled Social Work in Risk Society: Social and Cultural Perspectives. Here he analyses the development and practice of social work as part of the root condition of modern risk society. His other research interests include evidence-based briefings in children and family work; new information technologies and the caring professions; and social work theory and ethics. Correspondence to GrahamMcBeath, Department of Sociology and Politics, University College, Northampton, Northants. NN2 7AL, UK. E-mail: graham@spooner.demon.co.uk; Stephen Webb, Centre for Social Policy and Social Work, University of Sussex, Falmer, Nr Brighton, Sussex, UK. E-mail: s.a.webb@sussex.ac.uk Few people can hush the small voice that tells us what is right. Radio 4, 8 October 2000 Summary This article argues that in a complex socio-political world, social work ethics needs to re-cast the moral identity of the social worker in terms of virtue ethics. We review virtue theory’s Aristotelian foundations and criticisms of Kantian and utilitarian theory and show how they apply to social work. Subsequently we offer an account of a virtue￾based social work that questions the validity of several models of practice currently fashionable. Virtue theory emphasizes the priority of the individual moral agent who has acquired virtues commensurate with the pursuit of a revisable conception of the good life—the well-being of all in a defined community. The virtues are the acquired inner qualities of humans—character—the possession of which, if applied in due meas￾ure, will typically contribute to the realization of the good life or ‘eudaimonia’. The role of the virtuous social worker is shown to be one that necessitates appropriate application of intellectual and practical virtues such as justice, reflection, perception, judgement, bravery, prudence, liberality and temperance. This ‘self-flourishing’ worker,  2002 British Association of Social Workers

016 Graham McBeath and Stephen A. Webb in bringing together the capacity for theoretical and practical action makes possible a hermeneutic or interpretive praxis best appraised in dialogue with fellow-practitioners and clients. With a social work remit increasingly routinized by accountability, quality control and risk management there is an emphasis on regulation and duties. This has roduced a culture of following approved or typical processes resulting in defensive forms of social work wholly uncongenial to the development of human qualities likely to promote social workers'engagement in critique and revision of what counts as best practice. In sum, our core proposition is that social work practice and education, to fit an unpredictable, non-linear world, should develop means by which professionals nur- ture the virtues. This would reflexively enhance social work itself In this article we will explore the potential of virtue ethics for social work. Rather than fit elements of a virtue ethics literature to aspects of social work practice, we propose to look at the place of social work within a framework of virtue ethics. B this we wish to remind the professional that they play a role in the production and reproduction of the public sphere and have powers to affect the structure of social relations contained therein. However, the notion of being professional carries ideas of closure, competency and control within the relatively determinate universe of a legal-rational administrative or economic systems. The literature on complexity which recognizes the fuid nature of social and institutional relations seems not yet to have been absorbed by social work. If we start from a sceptical thesis that social work interactions and their results are often patterned but not highly predictable--what the complexity literature calls deterministic chaos'(Hayek, 1967; Eve et al., 1997)-then we may have to consider moral action under conditions of uncertainty. However, if we could predict the results of our actions then, under Kantian imperatives or utilitarian calculative reason, we would know what to do morally. These two ethical paradigms prevailing in the social work literature in part hold sway because they fit snugly into--indeed mirror--social work's need to be efficient in terms of procedures and outcomes Such elective affinities entail a moral narrative within the descriptive terms of social work rather than opening up an opportunity for a prescriptive moral ground outside of social work to which social work may have to adapt We wish to argue that social work should recognize that moral agents are constituted by a play of forces which shape the capacity for good (or bad) dement and action. The identity of the moral individual is therefore disposi tional rather than functional, and a result of patterns of experience and under- standing broader than those which may be derived from the ethical dogmas already established in social work. Under these terms any homeostatic view of the social work professional and his environment may be questioned. We try to how that the kind of moral agent best fitted to social work under fluid conditions of a complex social system is that offered by virtue ethics which places emphasis upon judgement, experience, understanding, reflection and disposition. All of this adds up to what we might call the hermeneutic worker--the worker acting within a reflexive-interpretive process of self and other(Gadamer, 1981, pp. 69-139 312-24)

1016 Graham McBeath and Stephen A. Webb in bringing together the capacity for theoretical and practical action makes possible a hermeneutic or interpretive praxis best appraised in dialogue with fellow-practitioners and clients. With a social work remit increasingly routinized by accountability, quality control and risk management there is an emphasis on regulation and duties. This has produced a culture of following approved or typical processes resulting in defensive forms of social work wholly uncongenial to the development of human qualities likely to promote social workers’ engagement in critique and revision of what counts as best practice. In sum, our core proposition is that social work practice and education, to fit an unpredictable, non-linear world, should develop means by which professionals nur￾ture the virtues. This would reflexively enhance social work itself. In this article we will explore the potential of virtue ethics for social work. Rather than fit elements of a virtue ethics literature to aspects of social work practice, we propose to look at the place of social work within a framework of virtue ethics. By this we wish to remind the professional that they play a role in the production and reproduction of the public sphere and have powers to affect the structure of social relations contained therein. However, the notion of being professional carries ideas of closure, competency and control within the relatively determinate universe of a legal-rational administrative or economic systems. The literature on complexity which recognizes the fluid nature of social and institutional relations seems not yet to have been absorbed by social work. If we start froma sceptical thesis that social work interactions and their results are often patterned but not highly predictable—what the complexity literature calls ‘deterministic chaos’ (Hayek, 1967; Eve et al., 1997)—then we may have to consider moral action under conditions of uncertainty. However, if we could predict the results of our actions then, under Kantian imperatives or utilitarian calculative reason, we would know what to do morally. These two ethical paradigms prevailing in the social work literature in part hold sway because they fit snugly into—indeed mirror—social work’s need to be efficient in terms of procedures and outcomes. Such elective affinities entail a moral narrative within the descriptive terms of social work rather than opening up an opportunity for a prescriptive moral ground outside of social work to which social work may have to adapt. We wish to argue that social work should recognize that moral agents are constituted by a play of forces which shape the capacity for good (or bad) judgement and action. The identity of the moral individual is therefore disposi￾tional rather than functional, and a result of patterns of experience and under￾standing broader than those which may be derived from the ethical dogmas already established in social work. Under these terms any homeostatic view of the social work professional and his environment may be questioned. We try to show that the kind of moral agent best fitted to social work under fluid conditions of a complex social system is that offered by virtue ethics which places emphasis upon judgement, experience, understanding, reflection and disposition. All of this adds up to what we might call the hermeneutic worker—the worker acting within a reflexive-interpretive process of self and other (Gadamer, 1981, pp. 69–139; 1989, pp. 312–24)

Virtue ethics and social Work 1017 The relevance of virtue to ethics in social work Historically, virtue ethics rooted in an account of how a citizen stood to the greek city-state was pre-eminently a theory of the relation between individual character morality and public life. The relevance of such an approach to todays society may rest on the question of how right moral relations can exist between state agencies and clients in terms of the character or 'excellences' of the worker the nature of the organization, and the response of the client. This stands in contrast to the current trend in public agencies, and especially in social services departments(SSD)to engage in defensive decision making. This is a culture of departmental 'battening down of the hatches by doing the least risky option that can be thoroughly accounted for in terms of laid-down procedures and/or deflecting criticism by announcing changes to a purportedly inadequate system. Senior managers have confirmed to us the beyond the UK, certainly to Canada. In British Columbia when Matthew Vaudrieul died, the Gove Inquiry was under enormous pressure to do something in the face of the ensuing scandal. To this end they grabbed at a set of Alaskan risk assessment ocedures that an academic advisor had come across and said was good, and ther posed it upon Canadian professionals irrespective of its efficacy. Thus the right thing was seen to be done, that is inquiry and change to procedures, and most importantly the political pressure was relieved(Craddock, 2001). This may sound familiar In the UK the same political logic is inevitably at work when child protec- tion failures occur, that is to defuse the problem for the authority first. This can lead e bad procedures being put in place as thenever again lobby in association with get up a head of steam. At this point any alternative procedures must be better than the existing ones, and there is no time for careful critical scrutiny. Improvement of work is often cast in terms of updated procedures Their strict application will have positive effect, it is claimed, if workers are adequately supervised. As an aside, Martin Davies and others have suggested that social work is about maintaining societys interests in society; rather it might seem first of all to be about containing sub-system crises However, our point is that the realization of the good society where it connects to social work is too often reduced to a re-negotiation of procedure irrespective of circumstance and human qualities. The Canadian example points up how both Kan- tian and utilitarian forms of reason can be corrupt if applied by persons lacking good will and a broad conception of good life. Politics tells us to act every time to minim ize political costs. If our only context was the SSD then such a course of action would be procedurally right as well as goal maximizing. However, would it be right to live a life and live in a world that is so systemically defensive in character? There would be little room here for the rather dated sounding idea of use of self and by the same token, for the application of a virtue ethics emanating from immanent qualities of persons. Thus our question: can we escape the confines of a Kantian or utilitarian cage of morality by offering a less automated and functional account of the moral conduct of public bodies in terms of the'virtuesof the citizen-worker in

Virtue Ethics and Social Work 1017 The relevance of virtue to ethics in social work Historically, virtue ethics rooted in an account of how a citizen stood to the Greek city-state was pre-eminently a theory of the relation between individual character, morality and public life. The relevance of such an approach to today’s society may rest on the question of how right moral relations can exist between state agencies and clients in terms of the character or ‘excellences’ of the worker, the nature of the organization, and the response of the client. This stands in contrast to the current trend in public agencies, and especially in social services departments (SSD) to engage in defensive decision making. This is a culture of departmental ‘battening down of the hatches’ by doing the least risky option that can be thoroughly accounted for in terms of laid-down procedures and/or deflecting criticism by announcing changes to a purportedly inadequate ‘system’. Senior managers have confirmed to us the presence of this strategy and there is evidence that this extends beyond the UK, certainly to Canada. In British Columbia when Matthew Vaudrieul died, the Gove Inquiry was under enormous pressure to do something in the face of the ensuing scandal. To this end they grabbed at a set of Alaskan risk assessment procedures that an academic advisor had come across and said was good, and then imposed it upon Canadian professionals irrespective of its efficacy. Thus the right thing was seen to be done, that is inquiry and change to procedures, and most importantly the political pressure was relieved (Craddock, 2001). This may sound familiar. In the UK the same political logic is inevitably at work when child protec￾tion failures occur, that is to defuse the problemfor the authority first. This can lead to bad procedures being put in place as the ‘never again’ lobby in association with the ‘where’s the report’ lobbies get up a head of steam. At this point any alternative procedures must be better than the existing ones, and there is no time for careful critical scrutiny. Improvement of work is often cast in terms of updated procedures. Their strict application will have positive effect, it is claimed, if workers are adequately supervised. As an aside, Martin Davies and others have suggested that social work is about maintaining society’s interests in society; rather it might seem first of all to be about containing sub-systemcrises. However, our point is that the realization of the good society where it connects to social work is too often reduced to a re-negotiation of procedure irrespective of circumstance and human qualities. The Canadian example points up how both Kan￾tian and utilitarian forms of reason can be corrupt if applied by persons lacking good will and a broad conception of good life. Politics tells us to act every time to minim￾ize political costs. If our only context was the SSD then such a course of action would be procedurally right as well as goal maximizing. However, would it be right to live a life and live in a world that is so systemically defensive in character? There would be little roomhere for the rather dated sounding idea of ‘use of self ’, and, by the same token, for the application of a virtue ethics emanating from immanent qualities of persons. Thus our question: can we escape the confines of a Kantian or utilitarian cage of morality by offering a less automated and functional account of the moral conduct of public bodies in terms of the ‘virtues’ of the citizen-worker in

the delivery of services? If this were achieved it would perhaps chime well with the Major-Blair citizenship ethos that wants to see public servants doing acts not merely by simple rule-following, but because they are persons disposed to do acts well towards others(Major, 1999, ch. 23). Kantian and utilitarian ethics to a degree rely, respectively, upon the mechanical application of rights-claims and adherence to duties, or upon the comparison of nticipated outcomes. Virtue ethics makes foundational the qualities of ones charac- ter which are manifest in ones actions. Taking this along with a claim that virtue is a cultural product, we may see that a virtue-based ethics cultivates through experience, reflection, understanding and judgement a way of "living a good lifein plural social domains. Such an account is clearly within striking distance of an existential pheno- menological approach, but because of the very strong link with Aristotle and ancient Greek philosophy it does not quite connect to the ideas of Sartre or Heidegger(cf Each of us is a citizen who ought to practise good conduct in regard of others as an aspect of being human, and not as a function of ethical or organizational imperat- ives. However, we do not believe that social workers possess some prior unitary concept of the good that they purposefully pursue en bloc each day they go into work. A little ethnography would probably bear this out. A generalized, if somewhat temporary, notion of the good acceptable to the community may result across time from the totality of activities by the SSD--it may make a positive contribution to the social welfare function. The idea, though, that workers have a rational plan for doing good which fits with an established and distinct notion of a common good rather than doing a job consisting of various kinds of actions, many of which are reactions to changing circumstances, invites the comment that this would be a case of the triumph of hope over experience. The pressing question becomes: what account of morality can be given if the link between means and ends is often weak precisely because social work is a contingent non-linear task? How can a worker do good if their world is inconsistent? What price universalizability'of morality under the complex indeterminate world of social work? To reiterate, it is our view that virtue ethics enables us to characterize what it is to be moral in a world subject to frequent revision. To connect a virtue ethics to social wor ne n question thus: what is the relation of morality to experience? Could the latter, in some way, produce the former? To fashion an answer to these questions will involve exploring the links between virtues, their cultivation, judgement and community. Some accounts of virtue ethics make virtues, as intrinsic qualities, logically prior to moral outcomes. Having already argued that the field of social work is complex and variable, we shall try to give being pointless without a prior determination of the goals of human flourishing, aTg g n account of virtue ethics applied to social work which resists the claim of virtu which needs prior value of the poses of action may work inside a discrete social system, for example social services, but this tends to make workers''virtues' functional imperatives of the routines of the organization independent of the broader human question of the good life, and how parts of its development relate to the whole. It may be that social work actually has no need

1018 Graham McBeath and Stephen A. Webb the delivery of services? If this were achieved it would perhaps chime well with the Major-Blair citizenship ethos that wants to see public servants doing acts not merely by simple rule-following, but because they are persons disposed to do acts well towards others (Major, 1999, ch. 23). Kantian and utilitarian ethics to a degree rely, respectively, upon the mechanical application of rights-claims and adherence to duties, or upon the comparison of anticipated outcomes. Virtue ethics makes foundational the qualities of ones charac￾ter which are manifest in ones actions. Taking this along with a claim that virtue is a cultural product, we may see that a virtue-based ethics cultivates through experience, reflection, understanding and judgement a way of ‘living a good life’ in plural social domains. Such an account is clearly within striking distance of an existential pheno￾menological approach, but because of the very strong link with Aristotle and ancient Greek philosophy it does not quite connect to the ideas of Sartre or Heidegger (cf. Hodge, 1995). Each of us is a citizen who ought to practise good conduct in regard of others as an aspect of being human, and not as a function of ethical or organizational imperat￾ives. However, we do not believe that social workers possess some prior unitary concept of the good that they purposefully pursue en bloc each day they go into work. A little ethnography would probably bear this out. A generalized, if somewhat temporary, notion of the good acceptable to the community may result across time from the totality of activities by the SSD—it may make a positive contribution to the social welfare function. The idea, though, that workers have a rational plan for doing good which fits with an established and distinct notion of a common good rather than doing a job consisting of various kinds of actions, many of which are reactions to changing circumstances, invites the comment that this would be a case of the triumph of hope over experience. The pressing question becomes: what account of morality can be given if the link between means and ends is often weak precisely because social work is a contingent non-linear task? How can a worker do ‘good’ if their world is inconsistent? What price ‘universalizability’ of morality under the complex indeterminate world of social work? To reiterate, it is our view that virtue ethics enables us to characterize what it is to be moral in a world subject to frequent revision. To connect a virtue ethics to social work one might put the question thus: what is the relation of morality to experience? Could the latter, in some way, produce the former? To fashion an answer to these questions will involve exploring the links between virtues, their cultivation, judgement and community. Some accounts of virtue ethics make virtues, as intrinsic qualities, logically prior to moral outcomes. Having already argued that the field of social work is complex and variable, we shall try to give an account of virtue ethics applied to social work which resists the claimof virtues being pointless without a prior determination of the goals of human flourishing, that is which needs prior value commitments. The point here is that a pre-setting of the pur￾poses of action may work inside a discrete social system, for example social services, but this tends to make workers’ ‘virtues’ functional imperatives of the routines of the organization independent of the broader human question of the good life, and how parts of its development relate to the whole. It may be that social work actually has no need

Virtue ethics and social Work 1019 of an ethical perspective, but inasmuch as this goes against an important strand within the history of olation of th question how ought one to live?', then we should be concerned with bringing our encultured self into a right relation with the social whole. This calls for a genuine ecolo gical perspective that examines the richness of play between the micro-, the meso-and the macro-levels of society. In regard of this, it is a pity that government and educators in the last few years have been so keen on reducing the broader social science elements of vocational training at the same time as there has been talk of reviving"civics'in schools. It was perhaps no accident that the eighteenth-century political economy of Ferguson, Hume and Smith linked an uncertain universe to an analysis of the interac- tion between the political, the economic, the social, the moral and the cultivation of manners (Winch, 1978). The recognition that human behaviour was not causally abso- lute, obliged an emphasis upon evolving the best way of doing things likely to lead to outcomes conducive to the public good. Once more we are led to recognize the signi cance of an analysis in terms of emergent cultural-moral patterns over that of scient ific prediction Everitt and Hardiker (1996) noted that, in the middle 1980s one or two writers in social work began to consider whether an Aristotelian notion of the good, defined in terms of the virtues, might be helpful as a source of ethics in social work. How- ever, such attempts fell stillborn from the presses. None the less these few writers vere to be congratulated for their prescience inasmuch as they were trying to intro- duce a moral theory which was only just being revived by professional philosophers such as Alisdair MacIntyre who saw that his'communitarian political theory was underpinned by virtue theory(MacIntyre, 1981). By the middle 1990s there were still only one or two who were considering virtue as a component of social work ethics, notably Richard Hugman and David Smith(1995), and Sarah Banks(1997/ 2001). That an 'Aristotelian perspective in social work ethics was not taken up was perhaps testimony to the persistent drone of Kantianism and utilitarianism or, out of the depths of the 1970s, a mix of the two(cf CCETSW, 1976)and to the ubiquity of an'ethicsof anti-discrimination which, though pitched at a low level of critical analysis, none the less was given equal status to a higher order moral thinking inspired by Aristotle, Kant and Mill. The easily bought discussion of an ethics of anti-discrimination reduced humanity to narrow sociologically-driven categories of race, gender and disability. What looked like a way into ethical analysis was actually a closing off of discussion as most social workers and students saw the moral obliga tions towards these groups as self-evident and therefore they largely wanted to engage in considerations of practice instead of developing the virtue of providing philosophically informed reasons for action. Social work traditions themselves have dictated the relevance of some ethical bases and not others, and the absence of virtue theory from any of social works history or cognate disciplines in part explains its' continuing absence. The weakness of a rationale for developing a virtue perspective in a discipline other than philo- sophy--and even there it was lacking until the 1980s--has quickly extinguished its first glimmerings. However, in the last few years a virtue literature has been circulat- (Crisp and Slote, 1997; Statman, 1997a)as has a post-Thatcherite political lar

Virtue Ethics and Social Work 1019 of an ethical perspective, but inasmuch as this goes against an important strand within the history of humanity, that is a practical as well as theoretical contemplation of the question ‘how ought one to live?’, then we should be concerned with bringing our encultured self into a right relation with the social whole. This calls for a genuine ecolo￾gical perspective that examines the richness of play between the micro-, the meso- and the macro-levels of society. In regard of this, it is a pity that government and educators in the last few years have been so keen on reducing the broader social science elements of vocational training at the same time as there has been talk of reviving ‘civics’ in schools. It was perhaps no accident that the eighteenth-century political economy of Ferguson, Hume and Smith linked an uncertain universe to an analysis of the interac￾tion between the political, the economic, the social, the moral and the cultivation of manners (Winch, 1978). The recognition that human behaviour was not causally abso￾lute, obliged an emphasis upon evolving the best way of doing things likely to lead to outcomes conducive to the public good. Once more we are led to recognize the signi- ficance of an analysis in terms of emergent cultural-moral patterns over that of scient￾ific prediction. Everitt and Hardiker (1996) noted that, in the middle 1980s one or two writers in social work began to consider whether an Aristotelian notion of the good, defined in terms of the virtues, might be helpful as a source of ethics in social work. How￾ever, such attempts fell stillborn from the presses. None the less these few writers were to be congratulated for their prescience inasmuch as they were trying to intro￾duce a moral theory which was only just being revived by professional philosophers such as Alisdair MacIntyre who saw that his ‘communitarian’ political theory was underpinned by virtue theory (MacIntyre, 1981). By the middle 1990s there were still only one or two who were considering virtue as a component of social work ethics, notably Richard Hugman and David Smith (1995), and Sarah Banks (1997/ 2001). That an ‘Aristotelian’ perspective in social work ethics was not taken up was perhaps testimony to the persistent drone of Kantianism and utilitarianism or, out of the depths of the 1970s, a mix of the two (cf. CCETSW, 1976) and to the ubiquity of an ‘ethics’ of anti-discrimination which, though pitched at a low level of critical analysis, none the less was given equal status to a higher order moral thinking inspired by Aristotle, Kant and Mill. The easily bought discussion of an ethics of anti-discrimination reduced humanity to narrow sociologically-driven categories of race, gender and disability. What looked like a way into ethical analysis was actually a closing off of discussion as most social workers and students saw the moral obliga￾tions towards these groups as self-evident and therefore they largely wanted to engage in considerations of practice instead of developing the virtue of providing philosophically informed reasons for action. Social work traditions themselves have dictated the relevance of some ethical bases and not others, and the absence of virtue theory fromany of social works’ history or cognate disciplines in part explains its’ continuing absence. The weakness of a rationale for developing a virtue perspective in a discipline other than philo￾sophy—and even there it was lacking until the 1980s—has quickly extinguished its first glimmerings. However, in the last few years a virtue literature has been circulat￾ing (Crisp and Slote, 1997; Statman, 1997a) as has a post-Thatcherite political lan-