But why is it easier to talk about good and bad actions than about good and bad temperaments?
I'm not saying one is easier than the other, I'm saying one is more fundamental than the other. Bravery is nothing but a disposition to actions, and prudence and wisdom, to the extent that they are not dispositions to actions, are not morally relevant. They're intellectual virtues, not moral virtues.
But I don't actually know how to define utility in a moral sense, and it seems like a very hard problem.
That's a completely different issue.
When consequentialists start talking about "human flourishing," I feel like a virtue ethics is being smuggled in the back door.
No, the other way around: when virtue ethicists talk about "human flourishing", consequentialism is being smuggled in through the back door.
I'm not saying one is easier than the other, I'm saying one is more fundamental than the other. Bravery is nothing but a disposition to actions, and prudence and wisdom, to the extent that they are not dispositions to actions, are not morally relevant.
I happen to agree with you here, but I think you're confusing an epistemological point with an ontological one. It may be that actions are epistemically more fundamental than character, insofar as they're our basis of evidence for saying things about people's characters, but it doesn't follow from this tha...
Disclaimer: I am not a philosopher, so this post will likely seem amateurish to the subject matter experts.
LW is big on consequentialism, utilitarianism and other quantifiable ethics one can potentially program into a computer to make it provably friendly. However, I posit that most of us intuitively use virtue ethics, and not deontology or consequentialism. In other words, when judging one's actions we intuitively value the person's motivations over the rules they follow or the consequences of said actions. We may reevaluate our judgment later, based on laws and/or actual or expected usefulness, but the initial impulse still remains, even if overridden. To quote Casimir de Montrond, "Mistrust first impulses; they are nearly always good" (the quote is usually misattributed to Talleyrand).
Some examples:
I am not sure how to classify religious fanaticism (or other bigotry), but it seems to require a heavy dose of virtue ethics (feeling righteous), in addition to following the (deontological) tenets of whichever belief, with some consequentialism (for the greater good) mixed in.
When I try to introspect my own moral decisions (like whether to tell the truth, or to cheat on a test, or to drive over the speed limit), I can usually find a grain of virtue ethics inside. It might be followed or overridden, sometimes habitually, but it is always there. Can you?