「幸福」是諮商的目的嗎？「幸福」是否具有倫理道德等價值的意涵？亞里斯多德等人從至善、德行的觀點來理解幸福，傳統心理諮商強調價值中立，因此若從至善或德行等價值的觀點來理解幸福似乎容易招致傳統心理諮商的質疑與否定。然而，心理諮商在修復個案的心理創傷時，其最終目的也不外乎要使個案有能力走向美好人生，給予個案追求幸福的支持力量。因此，如果立基於德行論的哲學諮商模式，能夠與個案一同致力於自我發展、追求幸福的良好生活，那麼相信，作為助人追求幸福的哲學諮商，也能夠像心理諮商那樣成為一種有效的助人模式，故而就此方面觀之，心理諮商與哲學諮商二者在協助追求個案的幸福與快樂的目的方面，二者之間並無矛盾與衝突。亞里斯多德認為德行是幸福人生的核心，幸福與德行幾乎是共生的關係，德行是幸福必要且不可缺少的條件。麥金泰爾致力於復興亞里斯多德至多瑪斯以來的德行論傳統，致力於將「德行」重新放入社會制度、社會生活等整個公共領域之核心地位，由此建構出一種有助於成就美好人生技巧的探究模式。麥金泰爾強調社會背景脈絡之於德行的重要性，他主張社會背景脈絡至少包含三重要環節：德行實踐的活動、行動者（德行主體）的人生敘述、傳統。德行的踐行與理解皆需透過這三環節才得以完成。本文探討麥金泰爾的德行論三環節如何應用在諮商活動中，幫助個案透過理性思維來澄清自己的概念，如何藉由道德推論來認知與堅固自己所堅守的價值，進而成就其理想中的幸福。

What is “happiness”? Is “happiness” the purpose of counseling?Does “happiness” contain the immanence of such values as ethics and morality? Aristotle and others understood happiness in the light of the supreme good and virtues. As psychological counseling used to emphasize value neutrality, bringing up the concept of ethics in counseling activities would unavoidably be questioned and rejected. And yet, are the concepts of value neutrality and ethics completely opposed and incompatible to one another? By repairing the client’s psychological trauma, psychological counseling enables the client to move toward a good life and supports him or her to pursue happiness. Based on virtue ethics, philosophical counseling also becomes a power and method that help people pursue happiness, since virtue ethics is committed to the pursuit of happiness and good life through developing oneself. Therefore,
psychological counseling and philosophical counseling are consistent in their aspiration for the client’s happiness.For Aristotle, virtue is vital to a life of happiness, as happiness and virtue are almost symbiotic. To the concept of either the highest happiness or the second best happiness, virtue is a necessary and indispensible condition. As one of the most representative philosophers of virtue ethics in fifty years, Alasdair MacIntyre is committed to restoring the tradition of virtue ethics from Aristotle to Saint Thomas Aquinas, putting “virtue” back into center of the whole public domain such as social institutions and social life. In this way, he builds up an exploration mode that contributes to the skills of achieving good life. MacIntyre’s virtue ethics accentuates the importance of the social context to virtues; this social context comprises at least three key points: the activity to practice virtues, the agent’s life narrative and tradition. It is by means of these three key points that virtues get to be practiced and understood.
Here we are to make a preliminary inquiry on how MacIntyre’s three key points of virtue ethics are applied to the activities of counseling, helping the client clarify the concept of him or her through reasonable thinking, and how to recognize and secure the values that one sticks to through moral reasoning so as to, furthermore, achieve one’s ideal happiness.