Is Agent-Based Virtue Ethics Self-Undermining?

Agent-based virtue ethics strives to offer a viable account of both moral conduct and the source of moral value, independent of 'deontic' teleological and deontological characterizations. One of its chief proponents offers an agent-based virtue-ethical account that aspires to derive all moral value, including the moral status of actions, solely from the 'aretaic' concept of benevolence. I suggest that morality as benevolence fails to offer a viable account of either virtuous moral conduct or the source of moral value, because it is self-undermining in both respects. In order to solve this structural problem, it appears as if the theory may have to give up its agent-based status.