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Modern philosophers such as Alasdair MacIntyre have re-focused on virtue ethics, so Googling him might help. Essentially, modern moral philosophy has concentrated upon the ethical status of particular moral choices: "Is it right to break promises?"; "When is going to war OK?"; "Should the state allow abortions?" etc. Virtue ethics is concerned with the cultivation of particular character traits which societies define as "good". Examples would be courage, patience, truthfulness, etc.

"Modern" can mean just about anything. The modern naturalism movement denies free will and makes "compassion" its central feature, because "there but for the circumstance go I." It's very deterministic. http://naturalism.org/

"In 1958 Elisabeth Anscombe published a paper titled “Modern Moral Philosophy” that changed the way we think about normative theories. She criticized modern moral philosophy’s pre-occupation with a law conception of ethics." http://www.iep.utm.edu/virtue/

I think we are still preoccupied with that. If it's against the law, it must be unethical. Forget the idea the most of our laws are in direct violation of the Constitution in some way. Our 10th Amendment is meaningless if the federal government want to over ride it. It overrides the State's 10th Amendment rights too, every time it "mandates" the State to do this or that.

"Most virtue ethics theories take their inspiration from Aristotle, although some (admittedly less well discussed) versions incorporate elements from Plato, Aquinas, Hume and Nietzsche." http://www.iep.utm.edu/virtue/

But the Objectivism movement is so strong, with its emphasis on "rational", not "ethical" values that many people in the Tea Party Movement are Objectivists. Ron Paul is an Objectivist, but he is brave to admit it. Most who are in the political limelite won't admit, for fear of being attacked, so you have to look for their ethics "between the lines" so to speak.

One problem Anscombe had was "This [law conception] approach to ethics relies on universal principles and results in a rigid moral code." Virtue ethics would have to be based on the virtues that allow a person to keep to this concept. Objectivist ethics, on the other hand, state that a virtue is that character trait that "gains or keeps something of value." What is of value is yours to choose, so your virtues are also yours to choose. The one absolute in Objectivist ethics is variously called the "no harm" principle, or the "non-aggression" principle, or the "non-initiation of force" principle.

Many people who choose to use this principle are Objectivists, many of whom don't want to say so. But acting according to this principle they can be Objectivists without saying so.

"The basic political principle of the Objectivist ethics is: no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. No man—or group or society or government—has the right to assume the role of a criminal and initiate the use of physical compulsion against any man. Men have the right to use physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. The ethical principle involved is simple and clear-cut: it is the difference between murder and self-defense."

This means that no such things as "normative virtues" can exist. Not thrift, nor education, nor restraint of tongue and pen, nor acquiescence to the law when one finds it wrong to adhere to it, can exist in a system that relies on the OBJECTIVE nature of virtues, versus those which are subjective because they demand adherence to the dogma that "this" thing is requires a normative virtue.

There are no normative virtues. Any action taken--even if, in some other context it would be hideously immoral---any action taken to adhere to the absolute that one may not initiate the use of force BUT MAY DO ANYTHING ELSE THAT ONE WISHES, anything at all no matter who complains so long as it does not initiate the use of force, is acceptable.

Why is "anything goes" acceptable? Because the 10th Amendment upholds the unlienable right to which we are endowed at birth by nature, to be and to do anything "not delegated" to the Federal government, "nor prohibited by it to the States" unless reserved to the States. That means the State could say "no nudity in public because we deem that it requires forcing others to observe you or not to go to the park if they don't want to see you."

But somewhere it may be perfectly acceptable. Look at what we have just been told about Pompeii--its dirty little secrets deemed too much for polite society to know about. Even the Romans didn't want the outside world to know about Pompeii, but the Romans went there for the things prohibited in other Roman states. In Pompeii, those things were virtues.

I think these ideas are permanent and same at all times. It is the supreme quality of thinking. There is no end to perfection.