Volunteering and Virtue Ethics

Volunteering can be understood as a morally worthy action that we perform because we want to. In this chapter, I argue that this feature of volunteering poses problems for modern moral theories centered on moral duty, such as utilitarianism and Kantian approaches. According to these theories, there are only three ways to explain what volunteering is: (a) the fulfillment of a basic moral obligation; (b) the supererogatory (heroic actions beyond duty); and (c) the morally permissible, usually related to a personal search for happiness. As I argue, none of these accounts make sense as accounts of volunteering. I then try to show how a virtue ethics approach is particularly helpful to understand what volunteering is and why it is important. Moral actions are not done from duty but upon a “call from the world,” which gives a special meaning to our own lives