Ethics: What We Still Know After a Skeptical Age

In reality, philosophers rejected classical ethics because they rejected Aristotle's teleological view of nature. In the seventeenth century, philosophers accepted the new physics, which explained nature on the basis of mechanical causes, not of goals. If nature is not teleological, then it is impossible to base ethics on human nature.

But we still think teleologically about human nature when we base our idea of health on the proper functioning of our basic physical capabilities. Likewise, if we base the idea of arete on the proper functioning of all our capabilities, we can develop a version of classical ethics that is still convincing after a skeptical age.