Target-Centered Virtue Ethics

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Target-centered virtue ethics is a form of virtue ethics that aims to ground the nature of virtues in virtuous acts, which hit the targets of their fields in appropriate modes.

Discussion

From a teleological perspective, there’s the question of what the motivating goal of virtue ethics is and how to determine what is virtuous. Eudaimonia-based theories hold that virtues are building blocks for a flourishing life. Agent-centered theories hold that virtues are what virtuous people do (in relevant domains). This can be seen as grounding virtues in terms of exemplary agents, including eir motivations. A challenge is: how are such virtuous exemplary agents identified? Christine Swanton developed the idea of target-centered virtue ethics1For more details, one can also see her books, Virtue Ethics: A Pluralistic View and Target Centered Virtue Ethics, or this review by Christian B. Miller. to ground specifications of virtues in terms of their field of action, their mode of responsiveness, their basis of moral acknowledgment (or justification), and their target of action. This allows one to distinguish the virtuosity of an action from the virtuosity of an agent.

  • The field of a virtue denotes the domain in which the virtue appears: e.g., courage is relevant to situations of (perceived) danger, and honesty is relevant in situations involving social interactions (especially where there is an incentive for deceit). Typically, the field will include some conflicting interests that give rise to a (moral) dilemma that needs to be responded to.
  • The mode of a virtue denotes how one responds to a situation in the field. E.g., generosity promotes some good, courage defends some value, and honesty honors truth2Honestly, I find the specification of virtue modes to be somewhat vaguely confusing. It’s probably trying to capture the fact that intentions matter: one needs to be generous and honest for the right reasons..
  • The basis of a virtue denotes the core values by which the virtue is justified as being good. Swanton offers four bases: value, status, good (or benefit), and bonds3I think it’s a great practice to include the values by which one holds an ethical theory!. For example, consequentialist utilitarianism is usually justified on the grounds of good/benefit as a basis.
  • The target of a virtue denotes the goal of the virtue and is a specification by which one can determine whether one is behaving virtuously. E.g., the target of honesty in communication is to express that which one believes to be true, and the target of courage may be to manage fear cascades and to effectively handle danger.

A target-centered virtue ethics theory can be linked to an agent-centered virtue ethics theory by adding the lemma that an agent possesses a virtue if and only if the agent is likely to hit the target of the virtue in the mode of the virtue when in situations within the virtue’s field. Turning an agent-centered virtue ethics theory into a target-centered one may be more difficult. If there are formal descriptions of what (exemplary) virtuous agents tend to do and which situations their virtues apply to, then these could perhaps be mapped into the virtue’s aspects. Inductive logic programming could be applied to hypothesize targets that would explain the exemplar’s behavior. Thus the language of target-centered virtue ethics can be seen as useful for describing virtues even from an agent-centered point of view.

I define the virtue aspects in terms of binary predicates. For fields, I decided to use subclasses of situations. For bases, I use values, which are defined as abstract entities that influence decisions and judgments. For modes, I use subclasses of behaviors4Autonomous Agent Processes, where one could define special classes of behavior based on the desired properties for a given mode. For targets, I use formulas, similarly to the targets of value judgments. An action hits the target if it realizes a formula that causes the target to be true, and a class of actions generally hits the target if they are likely to hit the target in relevant situations. An action is overall virtuous if it sufficiently hits the target of all relevant virtues (allowing some to override others)5This is a bit ill-defined and would probably require some form of defeasible reasoning to clearly denote, so the present formalization only encodes the perfectionist semantics.6The balance between honesty and kindness can be tricky to balance: e.g., gentle constructive feedback on an artwork could be a balanced response that is preferable to brutal honesty., and one can say that an action is morally good if it is overall virtuous. In this way, target-centered virtue ethics may simplify the interpretation of virtues in the value judgment deontological language7Philosophically, I think target-centered virtue ethics is actually more deontological in nature because it focuses on (formal) specifications of right/virtuous actions rather than on the interior states of agents. From a formalistic lens, “specifying right/virtuous actions via a formula to be satisfied”, covers both deontological and target-centered virtue ethics. I think it’s important to mind the distinction in focusing on agents that learn to behave virtuously in the relevant fields, in line with the notion of the computational trinity. However, the provided language can still help: one can view target-centered virtue ethics as describing the learning tasks..

SUMO

(documentation TargetCenteredVirtueEthics EnglishLanguage "Target-Centered Virtue Ehics is an ethical paradigm 
that judges the morality of an action based on how virtuous it is.  Unlike agent-centered virtue ethics that focuses on 
the character of the agent performing an action, criteria are given to determine which actions are virtuous and by 
which moral bases without necessarily referencing the character of the actor.")
(subclass TargetCenteredVirtueEthics GeneralVirtueEthics)

(documentation TargetCenteredVirtueEthicsTheory EnglishLanguage "A set of sentences assigning virtue or vice attributes to behaviors.")
(subclass TargetCenteredVirtueEthicsTheory GeneralVirtueEthicsTheory)

(theoryFieldPairSubclass TargetCenteredVirtueEthics TargetCenteredVirtueEthicsTheory)

(documentation TargetCenteredVirtueEthicsSentence EnglishLanguage "A sentence of a Target-Centreed Virtue Ethics Theory.")
(subclass TargetCenteredVirtueEthicsSentence GeneralVirtueEthicsSentence)

(<=>
  (instance ?V TargetCenteredVirtueEthicsTheory)
  (forall (?S)
    (=>
      (element ?S ?V)
      (or
        (instance ?S TargetCenteredVirtueEthicsSentence)
        (exists (?TCVES)
          (and
            (instance ?TCVES TargetCenteredVirtueEthicsSentence)
            (hasPurposeInArgumentFor ?S ?TCVES)))))))

Target-Centered Virtue Ethics is defined as a proposition, a subclass of General Virtue Ethics. A target-centered virtue ethics theory is defined as a set containing target-centered virtue ethics sentences and sentences whose purpose is to be used in explanations for them.

A simple sentence assigns a virtue or vice to an instance of an action8I’m not sure whether assigning virtues or vices to agents should be included, too.9Furthermore, to save energy, I’ve only done tho formalization for virtues, assuming that vices are symmetric. Swanton also treads lightly on the topic of vices!. A virtue aspect sentence is one that describes one of the four aspects: the field, the basis, the mode, or the target. For simplicity of formalization, a complete virtue aspect sentence is added. Generally, a target-centered virtue ethics sentence is one containing a simple or virtue aspect sentence.

documentation SimpleTargetCenteredVirtueEthicsSentence EnglishLanguage "A sentence that assigns a virtue to an action.")
(subclass SimpleTargetCenteredVirtueEthicsSentence TargetCenteredVirtueEthicsSentence)
(subclass SimpleTargetCenteredVirtueEthicsSentence SimpleGeneralVirtueSentence)

(<=>
  (instance ?SENTENCE SimpleTargetCenteredVirtueEthicsSentence)
  (exists (?IPROC ?VIRTUEATTRIBUTE)
    (and
      (equal ?SENTENCE (attribute ?IPROC ?VIRTUEATTRIBUTE))
      (instance ?IPROC AutonomousAgentProcess)
      (instance ?VIRTUEATTRIBUTE MoralVirtueAttribute))))

(documentation VirtueAspectSentence EnglishLanguage "A sentence that assigns a field, basis, mode, or target to a virtue.")
(subclass VirtueAspectSentence TargetCenteredVirtueEthicsSentence)

(<=> 
  (instance ?SENTENCE VirtueAspectSentence)
  (exists (?VIRTUE ?FIELD ?BASIS ?MODE ?TARGET)
    (or
      (equal ?SENTENCE (virtueField ?VIRTUE ?FIELD))
      (equal ?SENTENCE (virtueBasis ?VIRTUE ?BASIS))
      (equal ?SENTENCE (virtueMode ?VIRTUE ?MODE))
      (equal ?SENTENCE (virtueTarget ?VIRTUE ?TARGET)))))

(documentation CompleteVirtueAspectSentence EnglishLanguage "A sentence that assigns a field, basis, mode, and target to a virtue.")
(subclass CompleteVirtueAspectSentence TargetCenteredVirtueEthicsSentence)

(<=> 
  (instance ?SENTENCE CompleteVirtueAspectSentence)
  (exists (?VIRTUE ?FIELD ?BASIS ?MODE ?TARGET)
    (equal ?SENTENCE 
      (and 
        (virtueField ?VIRTUE ?FIELD)
        (virtueBasis ?VIRTUE ?BASIS)
        (virtueMode ?VIRTUE ?MODE)
        (virtueTarget ?VIRTUE ?TARGET)))))

(<=>
  (instance ?SENTENCE TargetCenteredVirtueEthicsSentence)
  (exists (?TCVES)
    (and
      (or
        (instance ?TCVES VirtueAspectSentence)
        (instance ?TCVES SimpleTargetCenteredVirtueEthicsSentence))
      (or
        (part ?TCVES ?SENTENCE)))))

Every target-centered virtue ethics theory should contain a simple sentence ascribing a virtue or vice to an action, that is, connecting the virtue descriptions with the moral judgments. Further, every virtue present in the theory should be fully described in the theory10I think that there’s an argument only the target should be strictly required, while the other aspects could remain optional. These variations shouldn’t be hard to formalize, albeit perhaps time-consuming.. 

(=>
  (instance ?V TargetCenteredVirtueEthicsTheory)
  (exists (?SENTENCE ?STCVES)
    (and
      (element ?SENTENCE ?V)
      (instance ?STCVES SimpleTargetCenteredVirtueEthicsSentence)
      (part ?STCVES ?SENTENCE))))

(=>
  (instance ?V TargetCenteredVirtueEthicsTheory)
  (forall (?VIRTUE)
    (=>
      (and
        (instance ?VIRTUE VirtueAttribute)
        (exists (?SENTENCE)
          (and
            (element ?SENTENCE ?V)
            (part ?VIRTUE ?SENTENCE))))
      (exists (?SF ?SB ?SM ?ST ?FIELD ?BASIS ?MODE ?TARGET)
        (and
          (part (virtueField ?VIRTUE ?FIELD) ?SF)
          (part (virtueBasis ?VIRTUE ?BASIS) ?SB)
          (part (virtueMode ?VIRTUE ?MODE) ?SM)
          (part (virtueTarget ?VIRTUE ?TARGET) ?ST)
          (element ?SF ?V)
          (element ?SB ?V)
          (element ?SM ?V)
          (element ?ST ?V))))))

A virtue’s field is denoted by a class of situations that concern the virtue. The basis denotes the values on which the virtue is deemed to be morally good. The mode denotes a class of behaviors by which one may appropriately respond to the situations in the field11The class of behaviors may be constrained by the inner dispositions of the agent performing them.. The target denotes a formula describing what a successful response to situations in the field looks like.

(documentation virtueField EnglishLanguage "Specifies the field or domain of concern for a virtue, in which there's likely a challenging element.")
(domain virtueField 1 VirtueAttribute)
(domainSubclass virtueField 2 Situation)
(instance virtueField BinaryPredicate)

(documentation virtueBasis EnglishLanguage "Specifies the moral basis of the virtue as a value.")
(domain virtueBasis 1 VirtueAttribute)
(domain virtueBasis 2 Value)
(instance virtueBasis BinaryPredicate)

(documentation virtueMode EnglishLanguage "Specifies how a virtue responds within its field by the class of behaviors that are considered appropriate.")
(domain virtueMode 1 VirtueAttribute)
(domainSubclass virtueMode 2 AutonomousAgentProcess)
(instance virtueMode BinaryPredicate)

(documentation virtueTarget EnglishLanguage "Specifies the aim or goal at which a virtue is directed, representing a successful response to the situation at hand.")
(domain virtueTarget 1 VirtueAttribute)
(domain virtueTarget 2 Formula)
(instance virtueTarget BinaryPredicate)

An action hits the virtue’s target in the case that it realizes a formula that causes the target to be true. Additionally, the action should be an instance of the mode and the action’s situation should be contained in a situation that is an instance of the field. Both meaning postulates emphasize a different aspect of what it means to hit a target: (1) an action hitting a target means that there is an appropriate context where the target’s formula is realized, and, (2) in the case that an appropriate context within the virtue’s field holds, hitting the target is equivalent to realizing a formula that causes it to be true.

(documentation actionHitsVirtueTarget EnglishLanguage "An action hits the target of a virtue if it brings about the virtue's target in the relevant situation.")
(domain actionHitsVirtueTarget 1 Process)
(domain actionHitsVirtueTarget 2 VirtueAttribute)
(instance actionHitsVirtueTarget BinaryPredicate)

(<=>
  (actionHitsVirtueTarget ?IPROC ?VIRTUE)
  (exists (?FIELD ?MODE ?TARGET ?SITUATION)
    (and
      (virtueField ?VIRTUE ?FIELD)
      (virtueMode ?VIRTUE ?MODE)
      (virtueTarget ?VIRTUE ?TARGET)
      (instance ?SITUATION ?FIELD)
      (part (SituationFn ?IPROC) ?SITUATION)
      (instance ?IPROC ?MODE)
      (realizesFormula ?IPROC ?FTARGET)
      (causesProposition ?FTARGET ?TARGET))))

(=>
  (and
    (instance ?VIRTUE Virtue)
    (virtueField ?VIRTUE ?FIELD)
    (virtueMode ?VIRTUE ?MODE)
    (virtueTarget ?VIRTUE ?TARGET)
    (instance ?SITUATION ?FIELD)
    (part (SituationFn ?IPROC) ?SITUATION)
    (instance ?IPROC ?MODE)
    (causesProposition ?FTARGET ?TARGET))
  (<=>
    (actionHitsVirtueTarget ?IPROC ?VIRTUE)
    (realizesFormula ?IPROC ?FTARGET)))

Then one can say that an action is attributed a virtue if and only if it hits the target of the virtue. An action is virtuous if and only if there exists a virtue whose target it hits.

(<=>
  (attribute ?IPROC ?VIRTUE)
  (actionHitsVirtueTarget ?IPROC ?VIRTUE))

(<=>
  (instance ?IPROC VirtuousAct)
  (exists (?VIRTUE)
    (actionHitsVirtueTarget ?IPROC ?VIRTUE)))

Swanton connections the virtue ethics notions of virtuous actions to the deontological notions of an action being right via the equivalence: “An action is right if and only if it is overall virtuous, and an act is overall virtuous if and only if it hits the targets of relevant virtues to a sufficient extent12The “sufficient extent” includes the possibility of virtues conflicting and adequately minding these conflicts and priorities in a context-appropriate manner..”

Given that overall virtue quantifies over all relevant virtues, I defined it as a unary predicate because a specific instance of an action will have a specific situation. For discussing whether a class of actions is generally overall virtuous in a specific class of situations, I defined a binary predicate. Let’s say that a virtue is relevant to an action if the situation of the action is part of an instance of the virtue’s field. Then, an action is overall virtuous if it hits the target of all relevant virtues, that is, all virtues whose fields cover it13Degrees of hitting a target and conflicts are not dealt with. An exercise left to the reader. One could add, “or there exists a virtue whose fields intersect and whose targets are contradictory…”, to the definition as a start.. A class of actions is overall virtuous in a class of situations if the class generally hits the target of all virtues whose fields contain the class of situations. One can say that a class of actions generally hits the target of a virtue if instances of the class are likely to hit the target in situations within the field. Now defining the equivalence between an action being morally good and overall virtuous is trivial14I’m not sure about attributing an action directly with MorallyGood..

(documentation overallVirtuous EnglishLanguage "An act is overall virtuous if and only if it hits the targets of all relevant virtues (to a sufficient extent).")
(instance overallVirtuous Predicate)
(instance overallVirtuous InheritableRelation)
(valence overallVirtuous 1)
(domain overallVirtuous 1 AutonomousAgentProcess)

(documentation overallVirtuousClassInSituation EnglishLanguage "An class of actions is overall virtuous if and only if it hits the targets of all relevant virtues (to a sufficient extent).")
(instance overallVirtuousClassInSituation BinaryPredicate)
(domainSubclass overallVirtuousClassInSituation 1 AutonomousAgentProcess)
(domainSubclass overallVirtuousClassInSituation 2 Situation)

(=>
  (and
    (virtueField ?VIRTUE ?FIELD)
    (instance ?SITUATION ?FIELD)
    (part (SituationFn ?IPROC) ?SITUATION)
    (instance ?IPROC AutonomousAgentProcess))
  (relevant ?VIRTUE ?IPROC))

(<=>
  (overallVirtuous ?IPROC)
  (forall (?VIRTUE)
    (=>
      (relevant ?VIRTUE ?IPROC)
      (actionHitsVirtueTarget ?IPROC ?VIRTUE))))

(<=>
  (overallVirtuousClassInSituation ?CPROC ?SC)
  (forall (?VIRTUE)
    (=>
      (and
        (virtueField ?VIRTUE ?FIELD)
        (subclass ?SC ?FIELD))
      (actionClassGenerallyHitsVirtueTarget ?CPROC ?VIRTUE))))

(documentation actionClassGenerallyHitsVirtueTarget EnglishLanguage "An class of actions is likely to hit the target of a virtue if it usually brings about the virtue's target in the relevant situation.")
(domainSubclass actionClassGenerallyHitsVirtueTarget 1 Process)
(domain actionClassGenerallyHitsVirtueTarget 2 VirtueAttribute)
(instance actionClassGenerallyHitsVirtueTarget BinaryPredicate)

(<=>
  (and
    (actionClassGenerallyHitsVirtueTarget ?CPROC ?VIRTUE)
    (virtueField ?VIRTUE ?FIELD)
    (virtueMode ?VIRTUE ?MODE)
    (virtueTarget ?VIRTUE ?TARGET)
    (subclass ?CPROC ?MODE))
  (modalAttribute 
    (forall (?IPROC ?SITUATION)
      (=>
        (and
          (instance ?IPROC ?CPROC)
          (instance ?SITUATION ?FIELD)
          (part (SituationFn ?IPROC) ?SITUATION))
        (actionHitsVirtueTarget ?IPROC ?VIRTUE))) Likely))

(<=>
  (attribute ?IPROC MorallyGood)
  (overallVirtuous ?IPROC))

(<=>
  (instance ?IPROC VirtuousAct)
  (overallVirtuous ?IPROC))

Usually, I’ve been using the approach to say that it’s good for there to be an instance of a class of actions, which then means that it is likely that each instance of this class of actions will be overall virtuous. Another way to connect the paradigms is to say that, an action class is overall virtuous in a class of situations (a ‘field’) if and only if it is morally good for agents in situations subjectively similar to the field to take the action15One scruple is that while it may be good intentions to take the action, after the fact, one can determine it was not good due to failing to hit the target. All of which can be formally specified (in theory)..

(<=>
  (modalAttribute
    (exist (?IPROC)
      (instance ?IPROC ?CPROC)) MorallyGood)
  (modalAttribute 
    (forall (?IPROC)
      (=>
        (instance ?IPROC ?CROP)
        (overallVirtuous ?IPROC))) Likely))

(<=>
  (modalAttribute
    (=>
      (and
        (equal ?SITUATION (SituationFn ?AGENT))
        (similar ?AGENT ?SITUATION ?FIELD))
      (exist (?IPROC)
        (and
          (agent ?IPROC ?AGENT)
          (instance ?IPROC ?CPROC)))) MorallyGood)
  (overallVirtuousClassInSituation ?CPROC ?FIELD))

Using these paradigm-equivalence lemmas, any target-centered virtue ethics theory can be turned into a moral value judgment theory (and then into a deontological imperative/prohibition theory16Where one encounters the question of whether you ‘should’ do that which is morally good.) without needing to translate any specific virtue ethics sentences. The focus is merely changed from judging virtuosity and viciousness to that of judging goodness/rightness and badness/wrongness17Adding “overall goodness” would further unify the perspectives: if an act is good for multiple reasons, one could hypothesize each corresponds to a virtue. Is virtue ethics complete in its coverage of moral goodness?.

The connection with (agentic) virtue ethics is probabilistic: one cannot say that an agent who possesses a virtue will always hit the target in relevant situations. An agent possesses a virtue with given aspects if and only if in all situations where the agent is within the field, the agent is likely to take an action that hits the target. Agent-centered approaches focus on the internal motivations and character of the agent, so this definition would appear symptomatic. One hack would be to replace the likelihood with the claim that an agent possesses a virtue if and only if the agent desires to hit the target in all relevant situations18Some form of “values” could be used instead of “desires”.19And both meaning postulates are compatible: what can we say about an agent who desires F? Perhaps that, if ey are competent, ey are likely to do F in the relevant situations..

(<=>
  (and
    (attribute ?AGENT ?VIRTUE)
    (virtueField ?VIRTUE ?FIELD)
    (virtueMode ?VIRTUE ?MODE)
    (virtueTarget ?VIRTUE ?TARGET))
    (forall (?SITUATION)
      (=>
        (and
          (equal ?SITUATION (SituationFn ?AGENT))
          (instance ?SITUATION ?FIELD))
        (modalAttribute 
          (exists (?IPROC)
            (and
              (agent ?IPROC ?AGENT)
              (instance ?IPROC ?MODE)
              (actionHitsVirtueTarget ?IPROC ?VIRTUE))) Likely))))

(<=>
  (and
    (attribute ?AGENT ?VIRTUE)
    (virtueField ?VIRTUE ?FIELD)
    (virtueMode ?VIRTUE ?MODE)
    (virtueTarget ?VIRTUE ?TARGET))
  (desires ?AGENT
    (forall (?SITUATION)
      (=>
        (and
          (equal ?SITUATION (SituationFn ?AGENT))
          (instance ?SITUATION ?FIELD))
        (exists (?IPROC)
          (and
            (agent ?IPROC ?AGENT)
            (instance ?IPROC ?MODE)
            (actionHitsVirtueTarget ?IPROC ?VIRTUE)))))))

One can easily turn these equivalences into translations from target-centered virtue ethics theories to (agentic) virtue ethics theories and value judgment theories. For any complete sentence, one can translate it into the claim that any agent possessing this virtue desires to take an action that hits the target in the mode when in the field of the virtue. Likewise, for a complete target-centered virtue ethics sentence, the translated value judgment sentence states that it is good for agents in situations within the field who are capable of performing an action of the mode’s class to take an action that hits the virtue’s target.

(documentation CompleteSimpleTCVEToVirtueDesireSentence EnglishLanguage "A UnaryFunction that maps complete simple target-centered virtue ethics sentences to (agentic) virtue desire ethics sentences.")
(domain CompleteSimpleTCVEToVirtueDesireSentence 1 CompleteVirtueAspectSentence)
(range CompleteSimpleTCVEToVirtueDesireSentence SimpleVirtueDesireSentence)
(instance CompleteSimpleTCVEToVirtueDesireSentence TotalValuedRelation)
(instance CompleteSimpleTCVEToVirtueDesireSentence UnaryFunction)
(subrelation CompleteSimpleTCVEToVirtueDesireSentence CompleteSimpleTCVEToVirtueSentence)

;; Now to SimpleVirtueDesireSentence
(=>
  (and 
    (equal (CompleteSimpleTCVEToVirtueDesireSentence ?TVS) ?SVDS)
    (equal ?TVS 
      (and 
        (virtueField ?VIRTUE ?FIELD)
        (virtueBasis ?VIRTUE ?BASIS)
        (virtueMode ?VIRTUE ?MODE)
        (virtueTarget ?VIRTUE ?TARGET))))
  (equal ?SVDS
    (forall (?AGENT)
      (=>
        (attribue ?AGENT ?VIRTUE))
        (desires ?AGENT
          (forall (?SITUATION)
            (=>
              (and
                (equal ?SITUATION (SituationFn ?AGENT))
                (instance ?SITUATION ?FIELD))
              (exists (?IPROC)
                (and
                  (agent ?IPROC ?AGENT)
                  (instance ?IPROC ?MODE)
                  (actionHitsVirtueTarget ?IPROC ?VIRTUE))))))))))

(documentation CompleteSimpleTCVEToValueJudgmentSentence EnglishLanguage "A UnaryFunction that maps complete simple target-centered virtue ethics sentences to (situational action) value judgment sentences.")
(domain CompleteSimpleTCVEToValueJudgmentSentence 1 CompleteVirtueAspectSentence)
(range CompleteSimpleTCVEToValueJudgmentSentence ValueJudgmentSentence)
(instance CompleteSimpleTCVEToValueJudgmentSentence TotalValuedRelation)
(instance CompleteSimpleTCVEToValueJudgmentSentence UnaryFunction)

(=>
  (and 
    (equal (CompleteSimpleTCVEToValueJudgmentSentence ?TVS) ?VJS)
    (equal ?TVS 
      (and 
        (virtueField ?VIRTUE ?FIELD)
        (virtueBasis ?VIRTUE ?BASIS)
        (virtueMode ?VIRTUE ?MODE)
        (virtueTarget ?VIRTUE ?TARGET))))
  (equal ?VJS
    (modalAttribute 
      (forall (?AGENT ?SITUATION)
        (=>
          (and
            (equal ?SITUATION (SituationFn ?AGENT))
            (instance ?SITUATION ?FIELD)
            (capableInSituation ?MODE agent ?AGENT ?SITUATION))
          (exists (?IPROC)
            (and
              (agent ?IPROC ?AGENT)
              (instance ?IPROC ?MODE)
              (actionHitsVirtueTarget ?IPROC ?VIRTUE))))) MorallyGood)))

A perk of target-centered virtue ethics is that it includes a lot of detail about the virtue. The way I formalized value judgment statements and virtue ethics, by default, the theories do not have as much information, thus a translation will be underspecified. In the case of simple situational action value judgment sentences where one says that it is morally good to take an action of a specific class in certain situations, one can interpret the situations as being in a field, the class as denoting a mode, and the target as the instantiation of the action. An alternative is to merely say that there exists a target that is caused by this action, but that we cannot know what it is. Bearing in mind the equivalences, the definition of simple situational action value judgment sentences could be updated to include a description of a class of situations. Then the virtue could be given a Skolem name. In this manner, the first translation would provide a suitably grounded translation.

(documentation SimpleSituationalActionValueJudgmentToTCVirtueSentenceFn EnglishLanguage "A UnaryFunction that maps simple situational action value judgment sentences into target-centered virtue ethics sentences.")
(domain SimpleSituationalActionValueJudgmentToTCVirtueSentenceFn 1 SimpleSituationalActionValueJudgmentSentence)
(range SimpleSituationalActionValueJudgmentToTCVirtueSentenceFn TargetCenteredVirtueEthicsSentence)
(instance SimpleSituationalActionValueJudgmentToTCVirtueSentenceFn TotalValuedRelation)
(instance SimpleSituationalActionValueJudgmentToTCVirtueSentenceFn UnaryFunction)

(=>
  (and 
    (equal (SimpleSituationalActionValueJudgmentToVirtueSentenceFn ?SSAVJ) ?VES)
    (subclass ?CLASS AutonomousAgentProcess)
    (equal ?SSAVJ 
      (and 
        ?DESCRIPTION
        (modalAttribute 
          (forall (?AGENT ?SITUATION1)
            (=> 
              (and
                (equal ?SITUATION (SituationFn ?AGENT)
                (similar ?AGENT ?SITUATION (SituationFormulaFn ?DESCRIPTION))
                (capableInSituation ?CLASS agent ?AGENT ?SITUATION1)))
              (exists (?PROC)
                (and
                  (agent ?PROC ?AGENT)
                  (instance ?PROC CLASS))))) MorallyGood))))
  (exists (?VIRTUE ?FIELD)
    (and
      (instance (SituationFormulaFn ?DESCRIPTION) ?FIELD)
      (equal ?TCVES
          (and
            (instance ?VIRTUE VirtueAttribute)
            (virtueField ?VIRTUE ?FIELD)
            (virtueMode ?VIRTUE ?CLASS)
            (virtueTarget ?VIRTUE
              (forall (?SITUATION)
                (=>
                  (instance ?SITUATION ?FIELD)
                  (exists (?IPROC)
                    (instance ?IPROC ?CLASS))))))))))

(=>
  (and 
    (equal (SimpleSituationalActionValueJudgmentToVirtueSentenceFn ?SSAVJ) ?VES)
    (subclass ?CLASS AutonomousAgentProcess)
    (equal ?SSAVJ 
      (and 
        ?DESCRIPTION
        (modalAttribute 
          (forall (?AGENT ?SITUATION1)
            (=> 
              (and
                (equal ?SITUATION (SituationFn ?AGENT)
                (similar ?AGENT ?SITUATION (SituationFormulaFn ?DESCRIPTION))
                (capableInSituation ?CLASS agent ?AGENT ?SITUATION1)))
              (exists (?PROC)
                (and
                  (agent ?PROC ?AGENT)
                  (instance ?PROC CLASS))))) MorallyGood))))
  (exists (?VIRTUE ?FIELD ?TARGET)
    (and
      (instance (SituationFormulaFn ?DESCRIPTION) ?FIELD)
      (causesProposition 
        (forall (?SITUATION)
          (=>
            (instance ?SITUATION ?FIELD)
            (exists (?IPROC)
              (instance ?IPROC ?CLASS))))
        ?TARGET)
      (equal ?TCVES 
        (and
          (instance ?VIRTUE VirtueAttribute)
          (virtueField ?VIRTUE ?FIELD)
          (virtueMode ?VIRTUE ?CLASS)
          (virtueTarget ?VIRTUE ?TARGET))))))