The Most Effective Ethical Theory?

While I do not think that one specific theory encompasses all of moral action and offers "the answer" so to speak, I think that Virtue Ethics and Autonomy offer the strongest solutions because they focus on the actor, the freedom to act, and our responsibilities as a result of this freedom. Out of these two theories, I believe that Virtue Ethics is the stronger. Virtue Ethics basically makes the claim that instead of focusing on the act itself or the consequences of the action, you have to look at the person acting and what his or her motivations may have been for acting in that certain manner. Virtue Ethics offers the view that in order to truly flourish and thrive as a human being, you have to cultivate your sense of virtue until it becomes almost like a habit because acting in a way that is not virtuous leads to fleeting happiness that ultimately leaves us unfulfilled and unhappy as human beings. When we train ourselves to act virtuously, then we are working on overcoming the base parts of ourselves that cause us pain and suffering, and we are also increasing our chances of acting in the best way possible in any given future moral dilemma. If we were to rely on consequentialism, then there would be instances where we would have to take ourselves out of the picture, or act in a way that should seem morally wrong to us, in order to benefit the maximum amount of people, or cause the greatest amount of happiness. If we were to act deontologically, then while our acts may be inherently morally right, they may not be the best for the given situation. Virtue Ethics, because it focuses on the agent/actor instead of the action, best serves to accommodate the situations and circumstances surrounding a moral action.