Abstract

The author maintains that virtue and obligation are interdependent notions, neither of which is capable of either being understood or put into practice without the other. He argues that William Frankena's treatment of these concepts obscures this relationship, both because it gives primacy to an ethics of obligation and because it consists in examination of an artificial model of a "pure" theory of virtue. The author also considers the implication of this relationship for the question of the relation of morality and religion.