The Self-Absorption Objection and Neo-Aristotelian Virtue Ethics
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I-Ii, Question 55, Article 4
Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-16578-6 — Commentary on Thomas Aquinas's Virtue Ethics J. Budziszewski Excerpt More Information i-ii, question 55, article 4 Whether Virtue Is Suitably Dei ned? TEXT PARAPHRASE [1] Whether virtue is suitably dei ned? Is the traditional dei nition of virtue i tting? “Virtue is a good quality of the mind that enables us to live in an upright way and cannot be employed badly – one which God brings about in us, with- out us.” St. Thomas respectfully begins with this widely accepted dei nition because it would be arrogant to dismiss the result of generations of inquiry without examination. The ultimate source of the view which it encapsulates is St. Augustine of Hippo, but Augustine did not use precisely this wording. His more diffuse remarks had been condensed into a formula by Peter Lombard, 2 and the formula was then further sharpened by the Lombard’s disciples. Although St. Thomas begins with the tradition, he does not rest with it – he goes on to consider whether the received dei nition is actually correct. The i rst two Objections protest calling virtue a good quality. The third protests calling it a quality of the mind . The fourth objects to the phrase that it enables us to live rightly and the i fth to the phrase that it cannot be employed badly . Finally, the sixth protests the statement that God brings it about in us, without us . Although, in the end, St. Thomas accepts the dei nition, he does not accept it quite in the sense in which some of his predecessors did. -
7 Aristotle on Greatness of Soul
7 Aristotle on Greatness of Soul Roger Crisp n the recent revival of interest in Aristotelian ethics, relatively little attention has been paid to the virtue of greatness of soul (megalopsuchia). This is partly Ibecause of the focus on the more structurally central concepts of Aristotle’s theory, in particular happiness (eudaimonia) and virtue (aret¯e). But in fact a study of greatness of soul can reveal important insights into the overall shape of Aristotelian ethics, including the place of external goods and luck in the virtuous life, and the significance of “the noble” (to kalon). Further, Aristotle describes the great-souled person in more detail than any other, and calls greatness of soul a “sort of crown of the virtues” (NE IV.3.1124a1–2). Many have found aspects of the portrait of the great-souled person in the Nicomachean Ethics repellent or absurd, but that is no good reason for the student of Aristotle to shy away from it. In this chapter, I shall elucidate Aristotle’s account of greatness of soul, addressing some puzzles internal to that account and bringing out its place in, and implications for, the ethics of Aristotle and of those modern writers influenced by him. Greatness of Soul as a Virtue To understand greatness of soul as an Aristotelian virtue requires first understand- ing Aristotle’s conception of virtue itself. Aristotle distinguishes virtues into two classes – intellectual virtues and virtues of character – corresponding to distinct aspects of the human soul (NE I.13). Greatness of soul is a virtue of character, though, like all such virtues, it requires its possessor to have the intellectual virtue of practical wisdom (phron¯esis; NE VI.13). -
Rosalind Hursthouse, on Virtue Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999
Rosalind Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp. x, 275. Reviewed by Gilbert Harman, Department of Philosophy, Princeton Univer- sity Virtue ethics is atype of ethicaltheory in which the notion of virtue or good character plays a central role. This splendid new book describes a “program” for the development of a particular (“Aristotelian”) form of virtue ethics. The book is intended to be used as a textbook, but should be read by anyone interested in moral philosophy. Hursthouse has been a major contributor to the development of virtue ethics and the program she describes, while making use of the many contributions of others, is very much her program, with numerous new ideas and insights. The book has three parts. The first dispels common misunderstandings and explains how virtue ethics applies to complex moral issues. The sec- ond discusses moral motivation, especially the motivation involved in doing something because it is right. The third explains how questions about the objectivity of ethics are to be approached within virtue ethics. Structure Hursthouse’s virtue ethics takes as central the conception of a human be- ing who possesses all ethical virtues of character and no vices or defects of character—”human being” rather than “person” because the relevant char- acter traits are “natural” to the species. To a first approximation, virtue ethics says that a right action is an action among those available that a perfectly virtuous human being would charac- teristically do under the circumstances. This is only a first approximation because of complications required in order accurately to describe certain moral dilemmas. -
Educational Rights and the Roles of Virtues, Perfectionism, and Cultural Progress
The Law of Education: Educational Rights and the Roles of Virtues, Perfectionism, and Cultural Progress R. GEORGE WRIGHT* I. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................... 385 II. EDUCATION: PURPOSES, RECENT OUTCOMES, AND LEGAL MECHANISMS FOR REFORM ................................................................ 391 A. EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES AND RIGHTS LANGUAGE ...................... 391 B. SOME RECENT GROUNDS FOR CONCERN IN FULFILLING EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ............................................................. 393 C. THE BROAD RANGE OF AVAILABLE TECHNIQUES FOR THE LEGAL REFORM OF EDUCATION ............................................................... 395 III. SOME LINKAGES BETWEEN EDUCATION AND THE BASIC VIRTUES, PERFECTIONISM, AND CULTURAL PROGRESS ..................................... 397 IV. VIRTUES AND THEIR LEGITIMATE PROMOTION THROUGH THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM ...................................................................... 401 V. PERFECTIONISM AND ITS LEGITIMATE PROMOTION THROUGH THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM ...................................................................... 410 VI. CULTURAL PROGRESS OVER TIME AND ITS LEGITIMATE PROMOTION THROUGH THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM .............................................. 417 VII. CONCLUSION: EDUCATION LAW AS RIGHTS-CENTERED AND AS THE PURSUIT OF WORTHY VALUES AND GOALS: THE EXAMPLE OF HORNE V. FLORES ............................................................................................ 431 I. INTRODUCTION The law of education -
Explaining Emotional Outbursts: a Davidsonian Account of Hursthouse's Arational Actions
Aporia vol. 20 no. 1—2010 Explaining Emotional Outbursts: A Davidsonian Account of Hursthouse’s Arational Actions NICHOLAS BLOOM n his paper, “Actions, Reasons, and Causes,” Donald Davidson dis- cusses what makes an action intentional. According to Davidson, an Iagent acts intentionally if the agent acts for a reason. He defines reason as “a belief and desire” (5). This means that the agent desires to perform an action of a certain type and believes that the action she chooses is of that type. This explanation is very plausible since almost all intentional actions can be explained in this way. For example, if I want to illuminate my room and believe that turning on a light will do so, my turning on the light is intentional. In her essay “Arational Actions,” Rosalind Hursthouse presents a set of counterexamples to Davidson’s belief and desire theory of intentional action. Her counterexamples are supposed to illustrate arational actions, which she claims are intentional but do not fit into Davidson’s belief-desire formula. In this paper, I offer a response on behalf of David- son by arguing that arational actions do not exist as Hursthouse defines them. I do this by showing that Hursthouse’s arational actions either satisfy Davidson’s conditions of intentionality, or they are unintentional. My argument has four parts. First, I will explain Davidson’s causal theory of intentional action. Second, I will discuss Hursthouse’s theory of arational actions and explain how they may threaten Davidson’s theory. Third, I will present a counterargument to Hursthouse’s theory that shows how arational actions either fit into Davidson’s formula or are actually un- intentional. -
Anscombe, Foot, and Contemporary Virtue Ethics
J Value Inquiry (2010) 44:209–224 DOI 10.1007/s10790-010-9218-0 Virtue Ethics without Right Action: Anscombe, Foot, and Contemporary Virtue Ethics John Hacker-Wright Published online: 5 March 2010 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010 1 Introduction Working out a criterion of morally right action is central to developing virtue ethics.1 Most advocates of virtue ethics believe that achieving such a criterion is crucial to vindicating virtue ethics as a normative theory. Yet the centrality of this task marks a departure from the views of at least some of the philosophers credited with the revival of virtue ethics in the twentieth century, especially from the views of G.E.M. Anscombe and Philippa Foot. Anscombe especially has sharp criticisms of the way philosophers handle the concept of morally right action along with related concepts like moral obligation. Yet the work of contemporary virtue ethicists such as Rosalind Hursthouse, Michael Slote, and Christine Swanton features little discussion of Anscombe’s criticisms or the reasons that the other virtue revivalists avoided providing a criterion of moral rightness. The dominant assumption appears to be that the earlier virtue revivalists neglect establishing a criterion of morally right action because their concern is to give priority to the evaluation of an agent over his acts as a corrective to the exclusive attention given to act-evaluation in the moral philosophy of the time. For Anscombe and Foot, at least, the concern to give priority to agent-evaluation is not among their motives for advocating a return to virtues.2 Instead, they believe that moral philosophers from the modern period forward have given the terms ‘‘right’’ and ‘‘ought’’ an artificial and incoherent sense. -
Understanding Bernard Williams's Criticism of Aristotelian Naturalism
UNDERSTANDING BERNARD WILLIAMS’S CRITICISM OF ARISTOTELIAN NATURALISM Michael Addison A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of MPhil at the University of St Andrews 2015 Full metadata for this item is available in St Andrews Research Repository at: http://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/ Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10023/9315 This item is protected by original copyright Understanding Bernard Williams’s Criticism of Aristotelian Naturalism. Michael Addison This thesis is submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree of MPhil at the University of St Andrews 19th November 2015 Abstract: In Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (henceforth ELP) Williams claims that holding a naturalistic Aristotelian ethical theory is no longer an option for us—we cannot believe what Aristotle believed about human beings. It is the purpose of this thesis to understand what Williams means by this claim and to evaluate whether or not it constitutes a pressing argument against Aristotelian naturalism. The modern Aristotelian (represented here by Martha Nussbaum, Philippa Foot and Rosalind Hursthouse) seems to be untouched by the claim as presented—they do not have to hold Aristotle’s view of human nature. The Aristotelian approaches human nature, not from an “outside” perspective, like the scientist, but from an “inside” perspective—from the point of view of an ethically engaged agent. The method does not seek to use a theory-independent notion of human nature to vindicate the Aristotelian claim that the properly functioning human being is virtuous. Rather, the Aristotelian is engaged in a project of using the notions of virtue that we already possess, to paint a picture of the kind of lives that we can all identify with, and endorse as properly functioning. -
Aristotelian Phronãªsis, the Discourse of Human Rights, And
Bryn Mawr College Scholarship, Research, and Creative Work at Bryn Mawr College Political Science Faculty Research and Scholarship Political Science 2013 Aristotelian Phronêsis, the Discourse of Human Rights, and Contemporary Global Practice Stephen Salkever Bryn Mawr College, [email protected] Let us know how access to this document benefits ouy . Follow this and additional works at: http://repository.brynmawr.edu/polisci_pubs Part of the Political Science Commons Citation Salkever, Stephen, "Aristotelian Phronêsis, the Discourse of Human Rights, and Contemporary Global Practice" (2013). Political Science Faculty Research and Scholarship. Paper 25. http://repository.brynmawr.edu/polisci_pubs/25 This paper is posted at Scholarship, Research, and Creative Work at Bryn Mawr College. http://repository.brynmawr.edu/polisci_pubs/25 For more information, please contact [email protected]. DRAFT—NOT FOR QUOTATION OR CITATION. Aristotelian Phronêsis , the Discourse of Human Rights, and Contemporary Global Practice Stephen Salkever Bryn Mawr College August, 2013 (A version of this paper was presented at a conference on Practical Wisdom and Globalizing Practice held in November 2012 at Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China. For questions and comments I thank my fellow conferees and especially the conference organizer, Prof. Xu Changfu of the SYSU Philosophy Department.) In this paper, I will outline some fundamental differences between the evaluative and explanatory language of Aristotelian practical reason based on his empirical psychological -
I ABSTRACT in This Paper I Aim to Explain the View of the Will Put
ABSTRACT In this paper I aim to explain the view of the will put forward by John Duns Scotus in the late 13th- and early 14th-century. First, I will explain Scotus’s account of the will as free and rational. Scotus takes the will to be a self-determining, and thereby free, cause of human action. He understands it as rational insofar as it possesses and applies reasons or principles in its operation, and is thereby capable of opposite effects. Second, I will explain Scotus’s account of the two affections or motivations of the will: the love of justice and the love of the advantageous. For Scotus, the love of justice is a disposition of the will to choose for the sake of the intrinsic goodness of the object of choice (e.g., an act or thing). In contrast, the love of the advantageous is a disposition of the will to choose for the sake of the value that an object of choice has relative to the agent. Finally, I will argue that recent claims to the effect that Scotus’s view of moral motivation amounts to a radical break from eudaimonistic ethical views are unjustified. Indeed, I will claim that the motivational resources of Scotus’s view may not be different from the resources available on Aristotle’s view in the Nicomachean Ethics, and are certainly no different from those available on a plausible eudaimonistic view of ethics. Insofar as dual motives for action—i.e., the love of the advantageous and the love of justice—seem possible on both kinds of view, and insofar as both views share a similar account of the inherent goodness of an action as grounded in the suitability of the action to human nature, the two views do not necessarily seem far apart on the issue of moral or ethical motivation. -
Nussbaum on Moral Perception and the Priority of the Particular
Nussbaum on Moral Perception and the Priority of the Particular Benjamin Visscher Hole IV University of Washington Department of Philosophy Seattle, WA 98195 E-mail: [email protected] Phone: (509) 570-8428 Abstract prior to ethical principles. This is her priority of the particular Martha Nussbaum’s account of moral perception holds the thesis thesis and my stalking horse of my paper. that we perceive moral particulars prior to ethical principles. First, I explain her account. Second, I present her with a dilemma: our §1. The Priority of the Particular Thesis perception of moral particulars is either non-inferential or it is Nussbaum’s account of moral perception assumes that inferential. If Nussbaum accepts a non-inferential interpretation, moral value is heterogeneous and non-commensurable.6 She then she is committed to an unsavory view about moral claims that the objects of this moral perception include: new epistemology – one that invites intuitionism and further invites and unanticipated features, the context-embeddedness of relativism. But if she accepts a non-inferential account, then the moral particular is no longer prior to the ethical principle. I suggest these relevant features, and the ethical relevance of particular 7 that her better option is to grab the second horn. This move avoids persons and relationships. the problems of the first horn without sacrificing her neo- We perceive new and unanticipated features the same way Aristoelian commitments or her overarching view that literature doctors perceive the medically relevant features when plays an ineliminable in moral enquiry. At the same time, this move performing differential diagnoses.8 Doctors are trained to renders her priority thesis trivial. -
Augustine's Ethics
15 BONNIE KENT Augustine’s ethics Augustine regards ethics as an enquiry into the Summum Bonum: the supreme good, which provides the happiness all human beings seek. In this respect his moral thought comes closer to the eudaimonistic virtue ethics of the classical Western tradition than to the ethics of duty and law associated with Christianity in the modern period. But even though Augustine addresses many of the same problems that pagan philosophers do, he often defends very different answers. For him, happiness consists in the enjoyment of God, a reward granted in the afterlife for virtue in this life. Virtue itself is a gift of God, and founded on love, not on the wisdom prized by philosophers. The art of living In Book 8 of De civitate Dei Augustine describes “moral philosophy” (a Latin expression), or “ethics” (the Greek equivalent), as an enquiry into the supreme good and how we can attain it. The supreme good is that which we seek for its own sake, not as a means to some other end, and which makes us happy. Augustine adds, as if this were an uncontroversial point, that happiness is the aim of philosophy in general.1 Book 19 opens with a similar discussion. In his summary of Varro’s treatise De philosophia, Augustine reports that no school of philosophy deserves to be considered a distinct school unless it differs from others on the supreme good. For the supreme good is that which makes us happy, and the only purpose of philosophizing is the attainment of happiness.2 Both of these discussions cast philosophy as a fundamentally practical discipline, so that ethics appears to overshadow logic, metaphysics, and other comparatively abstract areas as a philosopher’s chief concern. -
A Virtue Ethics Model Based on Care
University of South Florida Scholar Commons Graduate Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 2011 The Virtuoso Human: A Virtue Ethics Model Based on Care Frederick Joseph Bennett University of South Florida, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd Part of the American Studies Commons, and the Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons Scholar Commons Citation Bennett, Frederick Joseph, "The Virtuoso Human: A Virtue Ethics Model Based on Care" (2011). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/3007 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Virtuoso Human: A Virtue Ethics Model Based on Care by Frederick J. Bennett A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Department of Philosophy College of Arts and Sciences University of South Florida Major Professor: Thomas Williams, Ph.D. Joanne B. Waugh, Ph.D. Brook J. Sadler, Ph.D. Deni Elliott, Ed.D. Date of Approval: March 28, 2011 Keywords: Aristotle, Aquinas, Noddings, Charity, Unity © Copyright 2011, Frederick J. Bennett Table of Contents Abstract ii Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Chapter 2: Ethics 4 Virtue Ethics 7 Chapter 3: Aristotle’s Virtue 15 Borrowing from Aristotle 32 Modern Challenges to Virtue Ethics Theory from Aristotle’s Work 41 Aquinas and Aristotle 44 Chapter 4: Charity 48 Chapter 5: Care-Based Virtue Ethics Theory 56 The Problem 57 Hypothesis 59 First Principle 63 Care as a Foundation 64 The Virtue of Care 72 Care and Charity 78 Chapter 6: Framework for Care-Based Virtue Ethics 87 Care and the Virtues 87 The Good 89 The Virtuoso Human 91 Practical Wisdom 94 Chapter 7: Conclusion 97 References 101 i Abstract The goal of this thesis is to develop the foundation and structure for a virtue ethics theory grounded in a specific notion of care.