In the last few decades,there has been an impressive revival of virtue ethics as an alternative to deontology and consequentialism dominating modern and contemporary moral discourses.Virtue ethics comes in a variety of forms.While most contemporary virtue ethicists are neo-Aristotelians,there are others who get their primary inspirations from the Stoics,David Hume,Nietzsche,and John Dewey,among others.What is unique about virtue ethics and common to its various forms is its focus on the characters of the agent,in contrast to deontology and consequentialism,which focus on the nature of actions,despite the obvious connections between the agent and its actions.In other words,virtue is primary in virtue ethics,which means two things.On the one hand,virtue ethics does not disregard the importance of rightness of action entirely;it only regards it as secondary in comparison to virtue or admirable characters.On the other hand,it does not exclude the possibility that other types of ethics can reserve an important role for virtues.For example,in both deontology and consequentialism,virtues can have very important instrumental values of promoting good consequences or acting on moral principles,while in virtue ethics,because of the primacy of virtue,virtue is intrinsically good.