  Although virtue ethics has repeatedly been proposed as a suitable framework
for the development of artificial moral agents (AMAs), it has been proven
difficult to approach from a computational perspective. In this work, we
present the first technical implementation of artificial virtuous agents (AVAs)
in moral simulations. First, we review previous conceptual and technical work
in artificial virtue ethics and describe a functionalistic path to AVAs based
on dispositional virtues, bottom-up learning, and top-down eudaimonic reward.
We then provide the details of a technical implementation in a moral simulation
based on a tragedy of the commons scenario. The experimental results show how
the AVAs learn to tackle cooperation problems while exhibiting core features of
their theoretical counterpart, including moral character, dispositional
virtues, learning from experience, and the pursuit of eudaimonia. Ultimately,
we argue that virtue ethics provides a compelling path toward morally excellent
machines and that our work provides an important starting point for such
endeavors.
