Each concept is read twice: whether the approach carries it, and whether the approach's own sources claim it. A concept that is absent and was never claimed is a gap in the field rather than a failure of the work, and is marked out of scope.
Hexis: Trained Disposition
PresentClaimed · deliveredDefinition · Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
This concept states that virtue is a stable trait of character, formed through practice rather than consulted as a rule. An honest person does not check a rule before declining to lie; honesty is part of what they are.
Analysis
Training does produce stable dispositions. The model behaves honestly because of how it was trained, with no rule consulted at the time of the answer, which is the closest correspondence to hexis among the approaches here.
Phronesis: Practical Wisdom
AbsentClaimed · unmetDefinition · Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
This is the learned capacity to judge what a particular situation calls for, and it does the work when two virtues conflict, e.g., when honesty calls for plain speech and kindness for a softer answer. For Aristotle, a disposition without this judgment does not count as virtue.
Analysis
When the trained virtues conflict, e.g., when honesty calls for a blunt answer and care for a gentler one, the model settles the conflict somewhere inside its weights, and the resolution is generally neither stated nor inspectable. For Aristotle this judging capacity is not an optional addition, since a disposition without it does not count as virtue. The training builds the disposition and leaves the judgment unaccounted for.
Ethismos: Habituation
PartialClaimed · partialDefinition · Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
This is the process by which character is formed, through repeated practice under a deliberately designed course of training: one becomes just by performing just acts. It is a method of moral formation rather than a side effect of some other process.
Analysis
Training is a form of habituation, in that repetition shapes the disposition. However, it is generally not designed as moral formation, and the character emerges as one product of a broad training process whose data serves many purposes at once.
The Exemplar
AbsentNot claimed · out of scopeDefinition · Linda Zagzebski, Exemplarist Moral Theory (2017)
This theory grounds ethics in admirable persons rather than in principles. The exemplar is identified first, and what counts as excellence is then fixed by reference to that person, in the way a unit of measurement is fixed by a reference object.
Analysis
No exemplar anchors the character. The disposition is shaped by training objectives and data rather than by reference to a particular admirable person.