Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-c4f8m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-18T06:39:03.739Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Annas: The Just Soul, the Community, and the Circularity Objection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2014

HUSAIN SARKAR
HUSAIN SARKAR*
Affiliation:
Louisiana State University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Annas’ virtue ethics faces the Circularity Objection. She claims that a just soul is disposed to doing just acts. If a just soul is defined neither in terms of right acts nor rules, then the Circularity Objection is circumvented. Drawing upon Korsgaard’s recent work, it is shown that Annas’ argument faces anew the Circularity Objection. Then, I examine Annas’ fresh attempts to avert the Circularity Objection by appealing to the community of the virtuous. I argue that this move does not save her theory from either relativism or the Circularity Objection.

L’éthique de la vertu d’Annas est confrontée à l’objection de la circularité. Annas affirme qu’une âme juste est disposée à poser des actes justes. On contourne l’objection de la circularité si l’on ne définit l’âme juste ni en termes d’actes bons, ni en termes de règles. En m’appuyant sur les récents travaux de Korsgaard, je démontre que l’argument d’Annas se heurte de nouveau à l’objection de la circularité. Ensuite, j’examine de quelle façon Annas tente une fois de plus d’éviter l’objection de la circularité en faisant appel à la communauté des vertueux. Je soutiens que cette démarche ne préserve sa théorie ni du relativisme, ni de l’objection de la circularité.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 54 , Issue 1 , March 2015 , pp. 159 - 184
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Annas, Julia 1981 An Introduction to Plato’s Republic. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Annas, Julia 1993 The Morality of Happiness. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Annas, Julia 2001“Moral Knowledge as Practical Knowledge,” Social Philosophy and Policy, 18: 236–256.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Annas, Julia 2002“My Station and Its Duties: Ideals and the Social Embeddedness of Virtue,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 102: 109–123.Google Scholar
Annas, Julia 2004“Being Virtuous and Doing the Right Thing,” Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, 78: 61–74.Google Scholar
Annas, Julia 2006“Virtue Ethics,” in Copp, David, editor. The Oxford Handbook of Ethical Theory. New York: Oxford University Press, 515–536.Google Scholar
Annas, Julia 2007“Virtue Ethics and the Charge of Egoism,” in Bloomfield, Paul, editor. Morality and Self-Interest. New York: Oxford University Press, 205–221.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Annas, Julia 2011 Intelligent Virtue. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Driver, Julia 2001 Uneasy Virtue. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hursthouse, Rosalind 2003“Normative Virtue Ethics,” in Crisp, Roger, editor. How Should One Live? Essays on the Virtues. New York: Oxford University Press, 19–36.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel 1998 The Metaphysics of Morals. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel 1999 Practical Philosophy. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel 2011 Anthropology, History, and Education. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel 2012 Critique of Practical Reason. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel 2013 Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Korsgaard, Christine 2008 The Constitution of Agency: Essays on Practical Reason and Moral Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Korsgaard, Christine 2009 Self-Constitution: Agency, Identity, and Integrity. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha C.1988“Non-Relative Virtues: An Aristotelian Account,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy, XIII: 32–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha C.1997“Kant and Stoic Cosmopolitanism,” Political Philosophy, 5:1–25.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha C.1999“Virtue Ethics: A Misleading Category?” The Journal of Ethics, 3:163–201.Google Scholar
Parfit, Derek 2011 On What Matters. Volume Two. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Plato, 1997 Laches in Complete Works. Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Wolf, Susan 2011“Hiking the Range,” in Parfit, Derek, On What Matters. Volume Two. New York: Oxford University Press, 33–57.Google Scholar