ABSTRACT:The language of virtue is gaining wider appreciation in the philosophical, psychological, and management literatures. Ethicists and social scientists aim to integrate normative and empirical approaches into a new “science of virtue.” But, I submit, they are talking past each other; they hold radically different notions of what a virtue is. In this paper, I shall examine two conflicting conceptions of virtue, what I call the reductive and the non-reductive accounts of virtue. I shall critically study them and argue that (...) the non-reductive view is the best philosophical account of virtue and the only one that can account for the way we talk about virtue in business and in everyday life. We can only understand what it means to act virtuously through the examination of the attitudes, beliefs, desires, and inclinations of the virtuous agent. I shall illustrate the differences between the reductive and non-reductive accounts by considering the virtue of gratitude. (shrink)

The article discusses the characteristics of virtuous persons in relation to their social role(s). It explores the key features of the neo-Aristotelian account of right action and some problems for this account in the context of a certain social role. The problem can be characterized as a dilemma. When evaluating an action in some role, one view is that the obligations and requirements of roles could be taken as something already given by social or professional role descriptions, such that (...) the virtuous person must respond to these demands in the right way. Alternatively, the virtuous person could evaluate the role itself in terms of what the “good parent, teacher, doctor” and so on should be like. Using two different neo-Aristotelian approaches to the ethics of professional roles as examples I argue that neither strategy is, as it stands, satisfactory. ‘Internalism’ about role demands takes institutionally specified role requirements in a way that is too strongly determinate for a virtue ethical analysis. On the other side, ‘externalism’ is all too indeterminate in bypassing or failing to accommodate the institutionally determined demands of social or professional roles. These shortcomings contour an “institution shaped gap” in virtue ethics such that it needs to attend to the qualities of social institutions as well as the character and actions of individuals. In response I suggest that there is a distinctly Aristotelian way in which the virtue ethicist can address it, by appeal to the distinctive function or “characteristic activity”— ergon—of the institution. (shrink)

Would the virtuous person eat animals? According to some ethicists, the answer is a resounding no, at least for the virtuous person living in an affluent society. The virtuous person cares about animal suffering, and so, she will not contribute to practices that involve animal suffering when she can easily adopt a strict plant-based diet. The virtuous person is temperate, and temperance involves not indulging in unhealthy diets, which include diets that incorporate (...) animals. Moreover, it is unjust for an animal to be killed for food when this is unnecessary. By contrast, I argue that the virtuous person in an affluent society would eat animals, at least sometimes. I explain how the very virtues thought to motivate “virtuous modest veganism”—compassion, temperance, and justice—motivate the virtuous person to consume some animals. (shrink)

In this paper I seek to analyse the following question: how is it that I am able, today, to succeed in fulfilling my goals? My analysis will, I hope, demonstrate that virtues are important because they facilitate this sort of fulfilment. An examination of the classical notion of virtue is thus called for, and this in turn suggests that, at least in certain cases, virtue is connected with luck—that these two belong together. This points towards a new form of contemporary (...) virtue ethics, whose distinctive character will be reflected in the particular significance it invests in the concepts of “qualification” and “competence.” Finally, we are led to Wittgenstein's assertion that “The world of the happy person is other than the world of the hapless person.”. (shrink)

Cet article est fondé sur deux principes : le principe de partialité et le principe d’impartialité. M’appuyant sur un argument relativement peu connu de Kant, j’énonce et je défends le second principe. Je démontre ensuite que le premier principe est lié à la thèse présentée par Annas dans sa théorie sur l’éthique de la vertu, selon laquelle aucun adulte mûr ne souhaite qu’on lui dise quoi faire, ainsi qu’à son récit sur l’enseignement et l’apprentissage de la vertu. Je soutiens que (...) la théorie d’Annas sur l’éthique de la vertu est susceptible, contrairement à celle de Kant, de donner prise soit à l’objection de la circularité, soit à l’objection du relativisme. (shrink)

This article discusses Aristotle’s description of the virtuous person as inclined to superiority and to contempt. The issue is about superiority in the act, which is expressed in leading the origin of the act upwards to oneself, that is, about the superiority of the moral subject’s being. Contempt is not an estimation but something like a gesture removing any obstacle to being oneself. Aristotle creates a unified image to personify the idea of the moral subject and to answer (...) the question of being human. (shrink)

According to the traditional interpretation, Aristotle’s ethics, and ancient virtue ethics more generally, is fundamentally grounded in self-interest, and so in some sense egoistic. Most contemporary ethical theorists regard egoism as morally repellent, and so dismiss Aristotle’s approach. But recent traditional interpreters have argued that Aristotle’s egoism is not vulnerable to this criticism. Indeed, they claim that Aristotle’s egoism actually accommodates morality. For, they say, Aristotle’s view is that an agent’s best interests are partially constituted by acting morally, so that (...) the virtuous person sees morality as essential to her happiness. (Call this, ‘the Constitutive Thesis’.) In this paper, I argue that the constitutive thesis is unpersuasive, both from a theoretical standpoint and (for similar reasons) as an interpretation of Aristotle. It is unpersuasive because it is much more demanding in both respects than several nonegoist alternatives. My argument builds on an objection originally offered by John McDowell. McDowell claimed (1) that the Constitutive Thesis requires that there are independent standards of self-interest that can be agreed upon in advance by all parties to the dispute, both virtuous and nonvirtuous; and (2) that there are no such standards. I argue that McDowell is mistaken. The orthodox position requires much less than McDowell claims if it makes an appeal to the distinctiveness of the virtuous person’s point of view. However, unfortunately for traditionalists, the price of this point of view defence is high. First, to be even remotely plausible, the revised orthodox view must be almost frighteningly complex. Second, once this complexity is exposed, the orthodox view is much less plausible than its major rivals, in particular those which appeal directly to moral reasons. (shrink)

When evaluating the arguer instead of the argument, we soon find ourselves confronted with a puzzling situation: what seems to be a virtue in one argumentative situation could very well be called a vice in another. This paper will present the idea that there are in fact two sets of virtues an arguer has to master—and with them four sometimes very different roles.

An organisation which operates without a ‘self-concept’ of its goals, authorised roles, governance procedures regarding sharing information, decisional powers and procedures, and distribution of benefits, or without continuous audit of its impact on its end-users, other players in the practice, and the state, does so at some ethical risk. This paper argues that a quasi-personal model of the collective ethical agency of organisations and states is helpful in suggesting some of these key areas which are liable to need careful organisational (...) design and control by leadership groups if the organisation as a whole entity (directors, operators, enablers) steered by the board/CEO as ‘mind/will,’ is to identify its stakeholders - internal and external - and treat them well. Such a quasi-personal model is outlined (QPM) in which six suggested areas should be covered by the leadership group in ethical governance: goals, roles, decision procedures, execution/verification, relations with endusers and other players in the practice, and relations with the community and the state. The ethical conception presupposed is Neo-Aristotelian Virtue Ethics (NAVE). In subsequent papers the many advantages of QPM/NAVE which will be claimed are these: it comes with an analysis of justice which straddles individuals, families, communities, markets, and states; it offers a more coherent normative account of ‘stakeholder’ and the internal/external stakeholder distinction, by differentiating their descriptive, ethical, and causal relations to the firm as collective agent; and it suggests that business practice and business corporations are partly creatures of the state, and merely one kind of evolving and changeable institution, in a practice with a specific socio-political permit, (not the source of ethics, politics, and social policy). (shrink)

In this paper I describe and defend an account of virtuous motivation that differs from what we might call ordinary moral motivation. It is possible to be morally motivated without being virtuously motivated. In the first half of the essay, I explore different senses of moral motivation and the philosophical puzzles and problems it poses. In the second half, I give an account of virtuous motivation that, unlike ordinary moral motivation, requires the motivational structure characteristic of a fully (...) virtuous person. I draw on Aristotle's account of virtuous action to argue that a fully virtuous agent's judgment reflects a robust form of moral knowledge about what features of an action render it virtuous and hence, choiceworthy. Virtuously motivated actions are chosen in light of those features and are accompanied by the affective state appropriate to the overall moral landscape in which the judgment is made. (shrink)

The central argument of this article is that the standard conception of character given in virtue theory, as exemplified in the work of Rosalind Hursthouse, is seriously flawed. Partially, this is because looking behind a moral action for a ‘character’ is suspiciously akin to looking behind an object for an ‘essence’, and is susceptible to the same interpretive errors as an epistemic strategy. Alternately, a character—once inducted and projected upon a moral agent—is supposed to be a more or less permanent (...) property of that individual; a schema which leaves little room for the real possibility of personal transformation. I argue here that what is often referred to in virtue literature as ‘character’ can be productively re-described as the aggregate of all moral actions performed by any one moral agent: nothing more, and nothing less. My hope is that this interpretive strategy will result in broader and more coherent readings of moral actions, and thus also clarify moral confusion resulting from the current lack of the same. (shrink)

Everyday moral thought uses the concepts of virtue and vice at two different levels. At what I will call a global level it applies these concepts to persons or to stable character traits or dispositions. Thus we may say that a person is brave or has a standing trait of generosity or malice. But we also apply these concepts more locally, to specific acts or mental states such as occurrent desires or feelings. Thus we may say that a particular (...) act was brave or that a desire or pleasure felt at a particular moment was malicious. Even when they concern acts, these last judgements are of virtuousness rather than of moral rightness. They therefore turn essentially on a person’s motives; while he can act rightly from a bad motive, he cannot act virtuously from a bad motive. But they assess the virtue or vice of particular acts and mental states rather than of persons or traits of character. These global and local uses of the virtue-concepts are clearly connected, in that we expect virtuous persons to perform and have, and virtuous traits to issue in, particular virtuous acts, desires, and feelings. A philosophical account of virtue should explain this connection, but there are two different ways of doing so. Each takes one of the two uses to be primary and treats the other as derivative, but they disagree about which is the primary use. A dispositional view takes the global use to be primary and identifies virtuous acts, desires, and feelings in part as ones that issue from virtuous.. (shrink)

I defend an account of when and why anger is morally virtuous or vicious. Anger often manifests what we care about; a sports fan gets angry when her favorite team loses because she cares about the team doing well. Anger, I argue, is made morally virtuous or vicious by the underlying care or concern. Anger is virtuous when it manifests moral concern and vicious when it manifests moral indifference or ill will. In defending this view, I reject (...) two common views about anger and moral character. First, I respond to several arguments that attempt to show that all anger is vicious. Then I respond to the view that some anger is required to be a virtuous person. Anger, on my view, can be morally virtuous but is not a necessary condition for being a virtuous person. This best accommodates not only morally irrelevant failures to get angry but also allows for emotional variation among virtuous people. (shrink)

Over several articles, John McDowell sketches an analogy between virtue and perception, whereby the virtuous person sees situations in a distinctive way, a way that explains her virtuous behavior. Central to this view is his notion of silencing, a psychological phenomenon in which certain considerations fail to operate as reasons in a virtuous person's practical reasoning. Despite its influence on many prominent virtue ethicists, McDowell's ‘silencing view’ has been criticized as psychologically unrealistic. In this article, (...) I defend a silencing view of practical reasoning. I argue that the phenomenon of silencing has a narrower scope than is typically acknowledged. As a result, the view does not require the virtuous to be detached, unfeeling, or unpalatably stoic. Furthermore, I offer a psychologically plausible interpretation of McDowell's claim that the virtuous see situations in a distinctive sort of way. The salient fact at which the virtuous arrive in their view of a situation should be understood, I argue, in terms of subjective construal. (shrink)

Is there any reason not to spy on other people as necessary to get the facts straight, especially if you can put the facts you uncover to good use? To “spy” is secretly to monitor or investigate another's beliefs, intentions, actions, omissions, or capacities, especially as revealed in otherwise concealed or confidential conduct, communications and documents. By definition, spying involves secret, covert activity, though not necessarily lies, fraud or dishonesty. Nor does spying necessarily involve the use of special equipment, such (...) as a tape recorder or high-powered binoculars. Use of a third party agent, such as a “private eye” or Central Intelligence Agency operative is not necessary for surveillance to count as spying. Spying is morally troublesome both because it violates privacy norms and because it relies on secrecy and, perhaps, nefarious deception. Contemporary technologies of data collection make secret, privacy-invading surveillance easy and nearly irresistible. For every technology of confidential personal communication - telephone, mobile phone, computer email - there are one or more counter-technologies of eavesdropping. But covert surveillance conducted by amateur and professional spies still includes old-fashioned techniques of stealth, trickery and deception known a half century ago: shadowing by car, peeking at letters and diaries, donning disguises, breaking and entering, taking photographs, and tape recording conversations. The ethical examination of spying cannot be reduced to a conversation about reigning in the mischief potential of twenty-first century technology. We do need to concern ourselves with what tomorrow's spies will do with nanotechnology, but plenty of spying is possible with the time-tested techniques of the Baby Boomers, or even, for that matter, the Victorians. The philosophical problem I wish to consider here is the ethical limits of spying on others, when the reasons for spying are good. I explore the plausibility of three interrelated ideas. The first idea is one I will call the anti-spying principle: spying on other adults is prima facie unethical. The second idea is an exception to the anti-spying principle: spying on others is ethically permissible, even mandatory, in certain situations, where the ends are good. The third and final idea is a constraint on exceptions to the anti-spying principle: where spying is ethically permitted or required, there are ethical limits on the methods of spying. The virtuous spy will violate privacy and transparency norms, of course; but he or she will, to the extent possible, continue to act with respect for the moral autonomy and for the moral and legal interests of the investigative target. (shrink)

The primary explanatory items of Nietzsche’s philosophical psychology are the drives. Such drives, he holds, are arranged hierarchically in virtue of their entering dominance-obedience relations analogous to those obtaining in human societies. This view is puzzling for two reasons. First, Nietzsche’s idea of a hierarchical order among the drives is far from clear. Second, as it postulates relations among subpersonal items that mimic those among persons, Nietzsche’s view seems to trade on the homunculus fallacy. In this paper, I argue that (...) a Hume-inspired dispositional reading of the drives’ order successfully addresses these two problematic issues. Moreover, I argue that my reading is superior to the two main competing interpretations, which I call the vitalistic reading and the normative reading, for these ascribe to Nietzsche a view committed to the homunculus fallacy. (shrink)

We propose that virtue ethics can be used to address ethical issues central to discussions about sex robots. In particular, we argue virtue ethics is well equipped to focus on the implications of sex robots for human moral character. Our evaluation develops in four steps. First, we present virtue ethics as a suitable framework for the evaluation of human–robot relationships. Second, we show the advantages of our virtue ethical account of sex robots by comparing it to current instrumentalist approaches, showing (...) how the former better captures the reciprocal interaction between robots and their users. Third, we examine how a virtue ethical analysis of intimate human–robot relationships could inspire the design of robots that support the cultivation of virtues. We suggest that a sex robot which is equipped with a consent-module could support the cultivation of compassion when used in supervised, therapeutic scenarios. Fourth, we discuss the ethical implications of our analysis for user autonomy and responsibility. (shrink)

In this essay, Elizabeth Campbell reviews three recent books that address the ethical nature of professional practice: Knowledge and Virtue in Teaching and Learning: The Primacy of Dispositions, by Hugh Sockett; The Good Life of Teaching: An Ethics of Professional Practice, by Chris Higgins; and Towards Professional Wisdom: Practical Deliberation in the People Professions, edited by Liz Bondi, David Carr, Chris Clark, and Cecelia Clegg. While the first two books are situated within the context of teaching and education, the third (...) book, as an edited volume, contains chapters that represent a multidisciplinary perspective on the work of professionals within nursing, social work, counseling, and the ministry, as well as in teaching. Each of the books engages in the careful inquiry into philosophy broadly and educational philosophy specifically from conceptual frameworks widely associated with Aristotelian virtue ethics. Writing from an applied perspective on the field of scholarship relating to the moral and ethical dimensions of teaching, Campbell applauds the books for their timely reminder of the central role or persona of the individual professional as a moral agent and ethical practitioner. She argues that within the contemporary context of teacher education, which tends either to neglect or narrowly define the ethics of the profession, such an emphasis on the cultivation of personal character and responsibility within a framework of clear ethical dispositions or virtues is a welcome contribution to the field. It enables teachers, teacher educators, and student teachers to concentrate on both the ethics of practice and the practice of ethics in the ongoing quest to further their own development of virtue, practical wisdom, and personal and professional knowledge. (shrink)

Debates about our moral relation to the law typically focus on the moral force of law. Often, the question asked is: Do we have a moral duty to follow the law? Recently, that question has been given a virtue-ethical formulation: Is there a virtue in abiding by the law? This paper considers our moral relation to the law in terms of virtue but focuses on a different question from the traditional ones. The question here is: Can the law model virtue (...) in beneficial ways that enable us to cultivate virtue? This paper shows that the law can do this by setting a moral example that we have good reason to emulate. This is significant given the distinctive influence the law has over our lives. The paper begins by examining the nature of a model, comparing different models of virtue, and then questions the possibility of a complete model of virtue such as the so-called Virtuous Person. The paper then articulates several ways in which the law can model virtue for us and responds to three objections: 1) the embodiment problem, 2) the poisoning problem, and 3) the emulation problem. (shrink)

Both Confucius and Xúnzǐ take for granted that contempt, in certain situations, is an appropriate and justified response for a person of virtuous character. But Xúnzǐ departs from his predecessor in his insistence on drawing clear boundaries around contempt so as to diminish its destructive and destabilizing potential. This article argues that Xúnzǐ's efforts to circumscribe contempt reflect a shift in the vision of the ritual community from one based on affective ties to one based on an impersonal, (...) universalist state. It also traces the implications of this connection for how we might confront the problem of toxic contempt that has pervaded our political landscape today. (shrink)

This chapter presents an account of an angrily virtuous, or patient, person informed by research on emotion in empirical and philosophical psychology. It is argued that virtue for anger is determined by excellence and deficiency with respect to all three of anger’s psychological functions: appraisal, motivation, and communication. Many competing accounts of virtue for anger assess it by attention to just one function; it is argued that singular evaluations of a person’s anger will ignore important dimensions of (...) anger that bear on virtue and vice. Thus, possessing excellence with respect to only one function of anger is insufficient for virtue. The account is also extended to the characteristic vices of anger: wrath and meekness. (shrink)

There is now a renewed concern for moral psychology among moral philosophers. Moreover, contemporary philosophers interested in virtue, moral responsibility and moral progress regularly refer to Plato and Aristotle, the two founding fathers of ancient ethics. The book contains eleven chapters by distinguished scholars which showcase current research in Greek ethics. Four deal with Plato, focusing on the Protagoras, Euthydemus, Symposium and Republic, and discussing matters of literary presentation alongside the philosophical content. The four chapters on Aristotle address problems such (...) as the doctrine of the mean, the status of rules, equity and the tension between altruism and egoism in Aristotelian eudaimonism. A contrast to classical Greek ethics is presented by two chapters reconstructing Epicurus' views on the emotions and moral responsibility as well as on moral development. The final chapter on personal identity in Empedocles shows that the concern for moral progress is already palpable in Presocratic philosophy. (shrink)

For Aristotle, some wrongdoers do not deserve blame, and the virtuous judge should extend sungnōmē, a correct judgment about what is equitable, under the appropriate excusing circumstances. Aristotle’s virtuous judge, however, does not forgive; the wrongdoer is excused from blame in the first place, rather than being forgiven precisely because she is blameworthy. Additionally, the judge does not fail to blame because she wishes to be merciful or from natural feeling, but instead, because that is the equitable action (...) to take under the circumstances. Moreover, while Aristotle does claim in his discussions of the virtues of megalopsychia and praotēs that the virtuous person will sometimes fail to become angry at blameworthy wrongdoers, Aristotle’s reasons for repudiating anger or forestalling blame have little to do with the sorts of reasons that one would or could be forgiving for. Although an Aristotelian virtuous agent does let go of anger for her own reasons, she does not forgive. As a result, I argue that since Aristotle’s account of equity entails that forgiveness is positively vicious, forgivingness is not merely a virtue left out of Aristotle’s account, but is in fact incompatible with his account. (shrink)

This book explores the role of artificial intelligence in the development of a claim that morality is person-made and rational. Professor Danielson builds moral robots that do better than amoral competitors in a tournament of games like the Prisoners Dilemma and Chicken. The book thus engages in current controversies over the adequacy of the received theory of rational choice. It sides with Gauthier and McClennan, who extend the devices of rational choice to include moral constraint. Artificial Morality goes further, (...) by promoting communication, testing and copying of principles and by stressing empirical tests. (shrink)

While it is often supposed that Spinoza understood a life of virtue as one of pure activity, with as few passions as possible, this paper aims to make explicit how the passions for Spinoza contribute positively to our virtue. This requires, first, explaining how a passion can increase our power, given Spinoza’s view on the passions generally, which, in turn, requires coming to terms with the problem of passive pleasure, that is, the problem of explaining how being passive can cause (...) an increase in our power. In brief, this paper will argue that, for Spinoza, even when we are passive, we are somewhat active or, in Spinoza’s language, “adequate” to varying degrees. The passions represent activity because they exercise our understanding by providing us with intelligence about external bodies and our own bodies, in particular, the degree of our bodies’ perfection. It follows that a passion can be sufficiently adequate to bring about an increase in one’s power; in this sense, they can be virtuous. Moreover, this paper will show that the passions can also be virtuous in a moral sense. The view goes roughly as follows: according to Spinoza, the passions serve as a measure of our perfection. Consequently, they play a necessary role in moral reasoning, by indicating which activities increase or hinder our virtue. On this view, a truly virtuous person would require the passions in order to engage consistently in the sorts of activities which increase her power, in particular, following reason. Since this sort of consistency in behavior is necessary for a virtuous character, the passions can be virtuous in the sense that they are necessary aspects of the sort of character which disposes us to act according to reason. (shrink)

This book explores the role of artificial intelligence in the development of a claim that morality is person-made and rational. Professor Danielson builds moral robots that do better than amoral competitors in a tournament of games like the Prisoners Dilemma and Chicken. The book thus engages in current controversies over the adequacy of the received theory of rational choice. It sides with Gauthier and McClennan, who extend the devices of rational choice to include moral constraint. _Artificial Morality_ goes further, (...) by promoting communication, testing and copying of principles and by stressing empirical tests. (shrink)

Tax compliance has been extensively researched. Yet, the classic question ‘why do people pay taxes?’ remains unanswered. In Jordan, tax evasion is widespread. The state and citizens have been trapped in a continuous hide-and-seek game, which has taken the form of a virtuous cycle. This paper investigates tax evasion along with the most noticeable features of the Jordanian tax system. It also highlights how the virtuous cycle of tax evasion has been established and what could possibly be a (...) way out of it. We argue that sociocultural values are the most prominent cause for tax evasion. That is, the procedures of state formation and functionality in Jordan have created mutual distrust between the state and its citizens. Having been raised in a community characterized by deep distrust, tax evasion is no longer considered immoral by substantial numbers of the Jordanian population. We argue that successive governments need to create a high-trust-based culture and formulate strategies that serve to acquire normative ethical values in order to enhance voluntary compliance. The way to accomplish this necessity is through enforcing the state’s transparency and accountability. The taxation system needs to concentrate on income tax rather than raise tax rates on essential commodities to collect substantial tax revenues. Thus, further reform of the taxation system along with a reduction in tax incentives need to be considered. Moreover, lowering the exceptionally high personal income tax threshold would bring Jordan in line with its peers, expand the base, and introduce more progressivity. There would also be a scope to introduce a minimum tax based on sales as a tool to address tax evasion. (shrink)

(1) Is the rational person _eo ipso_ intellectually virtuous? (2) Is the intellectually virtuous person _eo ipso_ rational? In what follows I answer both questions in the negative.

In this essay, I shall assume that at least some groups are moral agents, a view successfully argued for by Peter French (1972, 1979, 1981). To that view I add only the following two refinements: (a) The reality of group or organizational agents depends on the existence of rules that constitute them. Because a moral agent acts in a community of moral agents, it is important that the rules that give a group agent its identity be accepted not only by (...) persons in the group but also by the persons and groups with which that group can reasonably be expected to interact. (b) The rule structure of groups provides a basis for claims about the (in)-voluntariness of group action. This is especially important in moral contexts. My primary concern in the essay will be to lay a conceptual foundation for certain normative questions about group moral agency. The questions with which I shall be concerned have to do most directly with the structure of the organization itself and only indirectly with its interactions with others. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

The standard approach to ethics in psychotherapy is to focus on the therapist. Although normative “boundary” ethics revolves around what the therapist ought, or ought not, to do, virtue ethics can revolve around the kind of person the therapist ought to be. One can thus apply virtue ethical theory to clinical practice and argue for therapist virtues that are relevant to meeting professional standards and to working effectively through the problems that arise in psychotherapy. Considerably less attention has been (...) paid to how virtue ethics relates to the patient. The ethics of psychotherapy can also revolve around the sort of person the patient should be. I argue that there are nascent virtues which the patient can bring to psychotherapy that, when cultivated with the therapist, can facilitate a beneficial outcome and virtues that can be seen as psychotherapeutic goals toward which the patient ought to strive. (shrink)

(1) Is the rational person _eo ipso_ intellectually virtuous? (2) Is the intellectually virtuous person _eo ipso_ rational? In what follows I answer both questions in the negative.

One prominent feature of contemporary virtue ethics is its insistence on the normative priority of the virtuous person. Another is its scepticism about the place of rules or principles in moral decision-making. But the Stoics seem paradoxical on this score. On the one hand, they are great proponents of the authority and privileged position of the sage; on the other, they see moral life as structured by an elaborate system of principles and rules. In this paper, I suggest (...) a resolution to this apparent paradox through an examination of Seneca's discussion of the place of rules in moral life. I also explain how this Stoic position avoids some of the problems normally attributed to virtue ethics because of its insistence on the normative priority of the virtuous person. (shrink)

Teacher-administrator Philip Dow explores the implications of setting intellectual character (rather than intellectual content) at the heart of our educational programs. With ample stories and practical suggestions, Dow shows how intellectual virtues like tenacity, carefulness and curiosity are teachable traits that can produce good lives.

(1) Is the rational person eo ipso intellectually virtuous? (2) Is the intellectually virtuous person eo ipso rational? In what follows I answer both questions in the negative.

Despite the bad press that revenge has received from moral philosophers and legal theorists, it can be a legitimate way to forge a link between wrongful behavior and penalties that karmic moral theories can only postulate. It can be especially effectual in commonplace cases that are under the radar of formal systems of justice. In such cases it can play a positive role in strengthening the moral foundations of a community. In those cases acts of revenge can provide a morally (...) valuable antidote to the negative participant reactive attitudes of community members. They can be an expression of morality in and for itself while exorcizing such pent up emotions as resentment, hatred, indignation, anger, antipathy, annoyance, umbrage, and ire. I maintain that responding in morally appropriate ways to insults, derisions, disparagements, and other forms of perceived wrongful disrespect and ill will is elemental in sustaining equitable human relations. To reiterate and paraphrase a point Robert Nozick made, the only power that morality has to affect human affairs resides in the critical responses moral people feel obliged to make upon recognizing the wrongful quality of another person’s acts or will. In this paper I apply the four criteria I defended in the book The Virtues of Vengeance to rather mundane cases of perceived maltreatment, exploitation, oppression, and/or neglect, and I deal with the issue of regulating multiple avengers who are bent on dealing out revenge to offenders in such commonplace cases. (shrink)

Despite a long history in eastern and western culture of defining leadership in terms of virtues and character, their significance for guiding leader behavior has largely been confined to the ethics literature. As such, agreement concerning the defining elements of virtuous leadership and their measurement is lacking. Drawing on both Confucian and Aristotelian concepts, we define virtuous leadership and distinguish it conceptually from several related perspectives, including virtues-based leadership in the Positive organizational behavior literature, and from ethical and (...) value-laden leadership. Then, two empirical studies are presented that develop and validate the Virtuous Leadership Questionnaire, an 18-item behaviorally based assessment of the construct. Among other findings, we show that the VLQ accounts for variance in several outcome variables, even after self-assessed leader virtue and subordinate-rated social and personalized leader charisma are controlled. (shrink)

Modern approaches to engineering ethics typically involve the systematic application of universal abstract principles, reflecting the culturally dominant paradigm of technical rationality (techne). By contrast, virtue ethics recognizes that sensitivity to context and practical judgment (phronesis) are indispensable in particular concrete situations, and therefore focuses on the person who acts, rather than the action itself. Virtues are identified within a specific social practice in accordance with its proper purpose, its societal role and associated responsibilities, and the internal goods that (...) are unique to it. As a result, ethics is recognized as something integral to engineering, rather than supplemental to it. This is necessary and appropriate, since engineers are often the decision-makers in contexts where the potential beneficiaries and harm-bearers are not the same; even their routine technical choices have ethical ramifications. The reasoning process commonly employed by engineers is similar in structure to that of scientists as articulated by Charles Sanders Peirce, the founder of philosophical pragmatism. As a "logic of ingenuity," it requires retroductively creating a diagrammatic model of a problem and its proposed solution, and then deductively working out the consequences, such that this serves as an adequate substitute for inductively evaluating the actual situation, which does not yet exist. As with ethical deliberation more generally, the key to success is having the ability to discern the significant aspects of reality and consistently capture them, before definitively selecting a way forward from among multiple viable options. This requires a carefully cultivated habit of imagining possibilities, assessing alternatives, and selecting one of them to bring about. (shrink)

Human affectivity is a research topic situated at the intersection of psychology, philosophical anthropology, theory of action and ethics. This article reconstructs the Aristotelian theory of emotions in the context of his theory of aspiration /recij ) and in terms of their function as primary evaluators of situations, which forms the basis for virtue ethics. The Aristotelian model integrates desire, motivation and morality for a rational being in community. Affects reveal the profile of relevance of the world to a (...) class='Hi'>person as an indispensable basis for the work of practical reason. They are analysed in the dimensions of their cognitive core, their social, bodily, and motivational aspects. Affectivity constitutes a primary evaluative response to situations and thereby disposes human beings to realise their call to morally good, virtuous and fulfilling action. (shrink)

The developers of Red Hook Studios’ 2016 gothic horror game ‘Darkest Dungeon’ said that they wanted to ‘capture the human response to stress’. This paper analyses how the game does this with its ‘stress’, ‘affliction’ and ‘virtue’ mechanics. With reference to research literature on stress, I show how these mechanics, which could easily have been cheap gimmicks, approach the topic of stress with admirable detail, offering a complex reflection on the various aspects, positive and negative, of several possible human responses (...) to stress. They show how different responses include similar symptoms, how stress impacts the people around the stressed person, and make the case that stress can break people, but also fuel heroism. It is a fantastic example of how video game mechanics can be used to educate people about complex subjects without explicitly saying this is what they’re doing. (shrink)

According to qualified-agent virtue ethics, an action is right if and only if it is what a virtuous agent would characteristically do in the circumstances. I discuss two closely related objections to this view, both of which concern the actions of the non-virtuous. The first is that this criterion sometimes gives the wrong result, for in some cases a non-virtuous agent should not do what a virtuous person would characteristically do. A second objection is it (...) altogether fails to apply whenever the agent, through previous wrongdoing, finds herself in circumstances that a virtuous person cannot be in. I focus on Rosalind Hursthouse's account of right action, and argue that it can provide a satisfactory response to both these objections. I do so by drawing attention to the distinction between action guidance and action assessment, and arguing that while the above criterion is adequate as a means of action assessment, we should turn to the virtue- and vice-rules (v-rules) for action guidance. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Higher‐Level Account: Consequentialist Virtues The Higher‐Level Account: Deontological Virtues References.

1Preface: Malthus the Utilitarian vs. Malthus the Christian moral thinker. The chapter aims at reconstructing the deadlocks of Malthus scholarship concerning his relationship to utilitarianism. It argues that Bonar created out of nothing the myth of Malthus’s ‘Utilitarianism’, which carried, in turn, a pseudo-problem concerning Malthus’s lack of consistency with his own alleged Utilitarianism; besides it argues that such misinterpretation was hard to die and still persists in Hollander’s reading of Malthus’s work. ● -/- 2 Eighteenth-century Anglican ethics. The chapter (...) gives an overview of eighteenth-century Anglican ethics, noticing how the Cambridge tradition gave special weight to natural theology as opposed to positive or revealed theology and how two Cambridge fellows, John Gay and Thomas Brown worked out a kind of a rational-choice account of the origins of natural laws, where a law-giver God chooses among a number of possible sets of laws on the basis of a maximizing criterion, happiness for his creatures. ● -/- 3 Malthus’s meta-ethics. The chapter reconstructs the two ethical chapters of the second Essay. It argues that Malthus’s ethics is not dependent on Paley’s, but is derived from Cumberland, Butler, Gay, Brown. Besides, it argues that theodicy takes a new place in the 1803 Essays and ethics becomes a key to theodicy. The new solution is that, once it has been proved that passions can be mastered and that a world where passions are under control would be a comparatively happy place, a society where moral restraint prevailed would make the middling ranks more numerous, reduce dependence, and preserve liberty. ● -/- 4 Malthus’s early normative ethics: a morality of freedom. The chapter reconstructs young Malthus’s views on the foundations of ethics, proving his adhesion to voluntarist consequentialism. Then it reconstructs his treatment of political issues, whence a clear stance emerges in favour of traditional Whig concerns, such as political freedom, personal independence and dignity. Finally, it gives a fresh look at the theological argument in the two well-known final chapters, locating it in the context of consequentialism, voluntarism, and quasi-Leibnizian theodicy. ● -/- 5 Malthus’s intermediate normative ethics: a morality of prudence. Malthus’s normative ethics focuses on two main ‘natural’ virtues, benevolence and chastity, and three artificial virtues. These include love for equality and love for liberty. A special place is granted to another virtue, prudence, which is the link between natural and artificial virtues. This special virtue also provides an invisible link between the private and the public domains, in that it contributes to combine self-love with general happiness. This is granted by the unintended results mechanism, or “the happiness of the whole is to be the result of the happiness of individuals, and to begin first with them. No cooperation is required”. ● -/- 6 Malthus’s mature normative ethics: a morality of humanity. The chapter describes reactions by Evangelicals, such as Gisborne, Sumner, and Chalmers, to Malthus’s theory and Malthus’s transformation of his own system in order to pave objections. This amounts to incorporating The Evangelicals’ ideas into his own system. The friendly controversy with his Evangelical fellow-travellers yielded several important changes in 1806, 1817, and 1826 editions of the second Essay in the formulation of Malthusian ethics, in the adoption of moral improvement instead of happiness as the variable to be maximised, in the adoption of generalized education as the main weapon in the war on poverty. ● -/- 7 Malthus’s applied ethics. The chapter reconstructs Malthus’s treatment of a few issues in ‘applied ethics’, sexual morality, public morality, poverty, and besides, war and slavery. On the first issue, he argues the duty to marry only at a time when one is ready to carry the burden of six children as a moral duty imposed by prudence and rejects birth control because of its alleged effect of encouraging ‘indolence’. On the second issue, he defends a peculiar kind of Whiggism as anti-Machiavellian politics centred on rights, equality, and dignity. On the third issue, his final approach is a kind of Institutional approach to poverty, making room for generalized basic education, free markets for labour and allowing for a subsidiary role for private beneficence. The goal to be aimed at is bringing about circumstances which tend to elevate the character of the lower classes of society and offer them a chance of being respectable, virtuous and happy. ● -/- 8 Conclusions: strengthening the theological foundation. Malthus’s criteria for policy appraisal were not utilitarian ones. His normative ethics and his politics were sharply different from Bentham’s. Utility is just one element in Malthus’s ethics, going with laws of nature and rights, and ironically, far from being a Benthamite insertion, is the most markedly theological element in Malthus’s system of ideas. ● -/- . (shrink)

While business as a social activity has involved communities of persons embedded in dense relational networks and practices for thousands of years, the modern legal, theoretical psychological, and moral foundations of business have progressively narrowed our understanding of practical wisdom. Although practical wisdom has recently regained ground in business ethics and management studies, thanks mainly to Anscombe's recovery of virtue ethics, Anscombe herself once observed that it lacks, and has even neglected, a moral psychology that genuinely complements the nuanced philosophical (...) perspective of a virtue‐centered moral philosophy. Herein, we offer one way to fill this gap by suggesting two opposing psychological paradigms, namely the inter‐processual self and the autonomous self, which are classified according to the assumptions they make about the self, human agency and action more broadly, as well as how they relate to practical wisdom. Upon presenting these moral psychologies, we will bring this proposal into conversation with business ethics to show how the IPS paradigm can enable and support virtuous management. (shrink)