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Notes
Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984), p. 187.
We adopt MacIntyre’s basic framework in this paper, but criticise and amend it below. MacIntyre’s theory of virtue is controversial. See John Horton and Susan Mendus, eds., After MacIntyre: Critical Perspectives on the Work of Alasdair MacIntyre (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1994); Peter McMylor, Alasdair MacIntyre: Critic of Modernity (London: Routledge, 1994); Mark C. Murphy, Alasdair MacIntyre. Contemporary Philosophy in Focus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) for discussions of the theory. See David Carr, “Rival Conceptions of Practice in Education and Teaching,” Journal of Philosophy of Education 37:2 (2003): 253–266; Marian Fitzmaurice, “Considering Teaching in Higher Education as a Practice,” Teaching in Higher Education 15:1 (2010): 45–55; and Paul Hager, “Refurbishing MacIntyre’s Account of Practice,” Journal of Philosophy of Education 45:3 (2011): 545–561, for applications of MacIntyre’s theory of social practice and virtue to teaching.
There are however ways of interpreting or reconceiving what it means to be an engineer or a physician—or the very idea of engineering and medicine—in ways that regard what have been traditionally conceived of as extrinsic goods as intrinsic to the practices themselves; to make for example issues of social justice intrinsic to engineering and architectural practice. See Caroline Baillie and Michael Levine, “Engineering Ethics from a Justice Perspective: A Critical Repositioning of what it means to be an Engineer,” International Journal of Engineering, Social Justice and Peace 2:1 (2013): 1–11; esjp.org/publications/journal; and Maurice Lagueux, “Ethics Versus Aesthetics in Architecture,” Philosophical Forum 35:2 (2004): 117–133, who argues that unlike other professions or practices, ethical issues are intrinsic to the practice of architecture. Architectural problems are at one and the time, and by their very nature, ethical problems as well. David Brain says, “In the context of the urban landscape, every design and planning decision is a value proposition, and a proposition that has to do with social and political relationships.” David Brain, “From Good Neighborhoods to Sustainable Cities: Social Science and the Social Agenda of the New Urbanism,” International Regional Science Review 28:2 (2005): 217–238, p. 233.
See Damian Cox, Michael P. Levine and Marguerite LaCaze, Integrity and the Fragile Self (London: Ashgate, 2003), chapter 4; Greg Scherkoske, Integrity and the Virtues of Reason: Leading a Convincing Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013) makes intellectual integrity central to his account of integrity per se.
Though note that the immunologist has benefited from the non-instrumental academic virtues even in her instrumental practice. Where would immunology, indeed the general practice of medicine, be without a tradition of academics exercising non-instrumental academic virtues? Instrumental academic practice rarely, if ever, succeeds on its own.
“Outbreak of ‘new managerialism’ infects faculties,” The Times Higher Education, 20 July 2001; http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/164003.article (accessed 23.7.14).
The primary academic research grant body in Australia—the Australian Research Council—is a good example of this kind of body. We discuss a specific example from this organisation below.
They have been localized with respect to traditional campuses—universities with a physical presence. Online teaching, including, at times, recorded lectures—anything that interferes with interactive face to face teaching—may also undermine the academic virtue and practices associated with good teaching.
See Aristotle, Politics and the Constitution of Athens, trans. Stephen Everson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) and the discussion of friendship in Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Roger Crisp (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).
See Cox et al., op cit., pp. 148–152, for a discussion of whether and how political and social structures can undermine integrity. Conditions that may “defeat” integrity are discussed throughout that book. Also see Jacqueline Boaks and Michael Levine eds., Ethics and Leadership (London: Bloomsbury, 2014); Michael P. Levine and Jacqueline Boaks, “What Does Ethics have to do with Leadership?” Journal of Business Ethics, 124:2 (2014): 225–242; http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10551-013-1807-y in which virtue, the nature of leadership and its relation to ethics is discussed.
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Levine, M.P., Cox, D. Academic Virtues: Site Specific and Under Threat. J Value Inquiry 50, 753–767 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-016-9579-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-016-9579-0