I wasn't and still am not sure what "Virtue Ethics" is supposed to mean. My personal ethics are based on the libertarian "non-aggression principle," in other words, don't violate the rights of other persons, and beyond that, do whatever you want. (Which does not mean I don't see a point to charity -- I just see charity as one of many things you might do with your money or time because it makes you happy. In my experience, enough people feel that way that it's rare for anyone to starve or freeze unless he behaves so badly that he doesn't deserve to be helped.)
Apologies if this violates a politics ban, but I can't really answer an ethics question without going there.
As far as the objective "existence" of morals: it's a meaningless idea. Even if there is just one God, his opinion doesn't automatically become The Truth any more than yours or mine does.
Ultimately, morals/ethics are a matter of taste and nothing more. But they're a unique exception to the old saw "there's no accounting for taste" because your moral code determines whether you can be trusted (to do any particular thing someone else expects of you, a question that of course depends on who and what it is).
I just see charity as one of many things you might do with your money or time because it makes you happy. In my experience, enough people feel that way that it's rare for anyone to starve or freeze unless he behaves so badly that he doesn't deserve to be helped.
The final straw was noticing a comment referring to "the most recent survey I know of" and realizing it was from May 2009. I think it is well past time for another survey, so here is one now.
Click here to take the survey
I've tried to keep the structure of the last survey intact so it will be easy to compare results and see changes over time, but there were a few problems with the last survey that required changes, and a few questions from the last survey that just didn't apply as much anymore (how many people have strong feelings on Three Worlds Collide these days?)
Please try to give serious answers that are easy to process by computer (see the introduction). And please let me know as soon as possible if there are any security problems (people other than me who can access the data) or any absolutely awful questions.
I will probably run the survey for about a month unless new people stop responding well before that. Like the last survey, I'll try to calculate some results myself and release the raw data (minus the people who want to keep theirs private) for anyone else who wants to examine it.
Like the last survey, if you take it and post that you took it here, I will upvote you, and I hope other people will upvote you too.