In two earlier papers, I began to explore how “ordinary people” acquire virtue. By “ordinary people,” I mean people, not specifically or directly concerned with becoming virtuous, who have goals or aims the pursuit of which requires them to develop virtue. E.g., parents acquire patience and generosity in the course of pursuing their goal to be good parents; those concerned with being peacemakers acquire tact and diplomacy in the pursuit of that goal, and so on. These virtues can be viewed (...) by those who seek them to be of instrumental and not intrinsic value, that is, needed for goal attainment but not necessarily valuable in their own right. Moreover, the virtues so acquired need not be substantially informed by reflective deliberation. Are there pathways by means of which possessors of ordinary virtue can develop Aristotelian virtue, by coming to view the virtues they possess as having intrinsic value; and developing their phronetic capacities such that their virtues become informed by practical wisdom? In this essay, I continue the exploration of ordinary virtue with an eye to revealing possible pathways by which ordinary virtue can indeed take on the characteristics of full Aristotelian virtue. In the spirit of empirical collaboration, I suggest these pathways of virtue development as testable hypotheses. (shrink)

This book is a collection of eight in-depth and detailed research papers authored by Dr. Raman K Attri between 1996 to 2005. The book presents early-career scientific work by the author as a scientist at a research organization. The book provides the conceptual background and key electronics and mechanical design principles used in designing sensors and instrumentation systems to measure snow hydrological parameters. The systems discussed in this book can be used to measure snow depth, layer temperature, (...) temperature distribution profile, surface porosity, etc. The snow parameters measured from instruments and sensors discussed in this book are integrated into larger systems and are used in computer-driven models for snow avalanche predictions. The book presents the design challenges and design methods from electronics and instrumentation design point of view. While the book provides essential understanding of analog electronics design and associated mechanical design for snow hydrological sensors, the book also presents the background theoretical and mathematical models from snow hydrology physics that governs this electronics design. (shrink)

Multi-point Temperature Measurement has always been very important aspect of physical instrumentation mainly in environmental and Industrial application. A multi-point temperature measurement system has been developed to measure temperature at different points simultaneously. This multi-channel system is designed specifically for measuring snow temperature at 28 different points In snow layers and this multi-point data is used in modeling of snow cover. The interfacing of such multi-channel system to Data acquisition system is one of the most critical (...) design aspects, which affect the overall performance of the system. The temperature sensor system and Data Acquisition System may be working satisfactorily when operated independently but total system integrity is absolutely important when these two sub-systems are interfaced together. Further operating conditions in snow causes many performance and reliability issues to be tackled through proper design. This paper discusses the design aspects involved in the interfacing of the multi-channel temperature measurement system with the Data Acquisition System specifically for Snow hydrological applications. (shrink)

In the seventeenth century the new science was introduced through the works of Bacon, Hooke, Boyle, Power, and others. The advocates of the new science promised to divulge the inner workings of nature and to help man overcome his painful fallen state by means of controlling nature. The new sciences of mechanism and corpuscularism were to be based on objective experiments that would reveal the secret inner natures of minerals, vegetables, animals, the sun, moon, and stars. These experiments were done (...) with new and improved telescopes and microscope with magnifications of up to 100 times. One early critic of the new science was Margaret Cavendish. Cavendish was skeptical of the ambitious claims, methodology, instruments, and institutions of the new science. In her work, Observations Upon Experimental Philosophy, Cavendish argued against “experimental and dioptrical writers,” provided her own account of the natural world, investigated aspects of chemistry, medicine, and the nature of heat and color, as well as many other topics in natural philosophy (OEP 10). While many think Cavendish landed on the wrong side of history with respect to her skepticism regarding microscopes and telescopes, her criticisms of the new science were wide ranging and she was by no means the only one to question the value of such experiments and instruments. While several commentators, like Eve Keller (1997), have argued that Cavendish was against all things experimental, several recent commentators, Emma Wilkins (2014) and Deborah Boyle (2018), have tried to show the much more complicated relationship between Cavendish and the Royal Society and medical studies, respectively. In addition, some commentators, such as Lisa Sarasohn (1984, 2010) and Eve Keller (1997), have argued that Cavendish’s criticisms of the new science are based on her belief that Nature, as a representation of the feminine, was under attack by the experimentalists desire to “penetrate” and “manipulate” her for their own ends. While it is certainly true that Cavendish and many of the experimentalists personified nature as a woman, and that Cavendish does portray the men as trying to make her into something she is not, I agree with Deborah Boyle (2004) that these descriptions are not the focus of her objections to experimentalism. Rather than hold that Cavendish is concerned with, as Sarasohn claims, “the sexual implications for both women and nature of the new philosophy” (2010: 147), it seems that Cavendish’s objections were largely based on her philosophical commitments. However, I believe there is one aspect of the new science that Cavendish does critique from a feminist perspective, and that is what she sees as its institutional nature and its exclusion of women on the basis of sex, and to this I will turn in the last section of the chapter.1 My aim is to address Cavendish’s three major critiques of the new science. The chapter is divided as follows: The first section provides a brief overview of Cavendish’s views on the nature of bodies and perception. The second regards her critique of the methods and aims of the new science as represented by Bacon and Boyle. The third section examines her critique of Hooke and the instruments of experimentalism. The final section lays out her feminist critique of the institution of the new science. (shrink)

This article will explore a paradoxical dramaturgy. Last year I played Yahweh in a production entitled OT: Chronicles of the Old Testament. It was part of the 2007 Malthouse Theatre season in Melbourne, and directed by Christian Leavesley and Phil Rolfe. To embody Yahweh is to make manifest the divine, make material the ineffable, and yet allow the illusion that all is still spirit. How does one become God, if only for a moment? Well, for at least as long as (...) the play lasts. Given the atheist fundamentalism espoused recently by Dawkins, Onfray and Hitchens, in what spirit is a corporeal critique of the pervasive power of the Old Testament, and in particular it's vengeful, wrathful, forgetful, dancing God the Father, possible? (shrink)

Against the backdrop of the recent emergence of disturbing currents of populism in several countries, including the United States, this article argues for a conception of hope as a democratic civic virtue. In section 1, it offers a general overview of hope and sketches an initial conception of hope as a democratic civic virtue. In section 2, the stage is set for further theorizing of this conception in the present American context. Drawing on the work of Ghassan Hage, the article (...) makes the point that the United States is in the process of becoming a nation of worriers in part because of the failure of the government to distribute social hope. Section 3 fleshes out what hope as a democratic civic virtue could look like in the United States today. Section 4 concludes with brief comments about theorizing civic hope in the context of a modified pragmatism. (shrink)

Our primary aim in this paper is to sketch the account of virtue that we think most amenable to virtue measurement. Our account integrates Whole Trait Theory from psychology with a broadly neo-Aristotelian approach to virtue. Our account is ‘ecumenical’ in that it has appeal for a wide range of virtue ethicists. According to WTT, a personality trait is composed of a set of situation-specific trait-appropriate responses, which are produced when certain “social-cognitive” mechanisms are triggered by the perception of trait-relevant (...) stimuli in a person’s external and/or internal environment. Moving from this starting point, we discuss our conception of a virtue and respects in which it both aligns with and diverges from Aristotle’s conception. We discuss roles for practical wisdom and motivation in our conception of virtue, and highlight respects in which WTT provides an amenable empirical framework into which key Aristotelian elements can be integrated. We conclude with brief remarks about our conception as an empirically adequate and measurable account. (shrink)

Our primary aim in this paper is to sketch the account of virtue that we think most amenable to virtue measurement. Our account integrates Whole Trait Theory from psychology with a broadly neo-Aristotelian approach to virtue. Our account is ‘ecumenical’ in that it has appeal for a wide range of virtue ethicists. According to WTT, a personality trait is composed of a set of situation-specific trait-appropriate responses, which are produced when certain “social-cognitive” mechanisms are triggered by the perception of trait-relevant (...) stimuli in a person’s external and/or internal environment. Moving from this starting point, we discuss our conception of a virtue and respects in which it both aligns with and diverges from Aristotle’s conception. We discuss roles for practical wisdom and motivation in our conception of virtue, and highlight respects in which WTT provides an amenable empirical framework into which key Aristotelian elements can be integrated. We conclude with brief remarks about our conception as an empirically adequate and measurable account. (shrink)

Our primary aim in this paper is to sketch the account of virtue that we think most amenable to virtue measurement. Our account integrates Whole Trait Theory from psychology with a broadly neo-Aristotelian approach to virtue. Our account is ‘ecumenical’ in that it has appeal for a wide range of virtue ethicists. According to WTT, a personality trait is composed of a set of situation-specific trait-appropriate responses, which are produced when certain “social-cognitive” mechanisms are triggered by the perception of trait-relevant (...) stimuli in a person’s external and/or internal environment. Moving from this starting point, we discuss our conception of a virtue and respects in which it both aligns with and diverges from Aristotle’s conception. We discuss roles for practical wisdom and motivation in our conception of virtue, and highlight respects in which WTT provides an amenable empirical framework into which key Aristotelian elements can be integrated. We conclude with brief remarks about our conception as an empirically adequate and measurable account. (shrink)

Our primary aim in this paper is to sketch the account of virtue that we think most amenable to virtue measurement. Our account integrates Whole Trait Theory from psychology with a broadly neo-Aristotelian approach to virtue. Our account is ‘ecumenical’ in that it has appeal for a wide range of virtue ethicists. According to WTT, a personality trait is composed of a set of situation-specific trait-appropriate responses, which are produced when certain “social-cognitive” mechanisms are triggered by the perception of trait-relevant (...) stimuli in a person’s external and/or internal environment. Moving from this starting point, we discuss our conception of a virtue and respects in which it both aligns with and diverges from Aristotle’s conception. We discuss roles for practical wisdom and motivation in our conception of virtue, and highlight respects in which WTT provides an amenable empirical framework into which key Aristotelian elements can be integrated. We conclude with brief remarks about our conception as an empirically adequate and measurable account. (shrink)

The central claim of this comparative study of Kant and Kierkegaard is that the aesthetic experience of the sublime is both autonomous and formative for extra-aesthetic ends. Aesthetic autonomy is thus inseparable from aesthetic heteronomy. In Part I, through an examination of Kant’s Critique of Judgement and his essays on the French Revolution, the Kantian sublime is shown to conflict with our existing cognitive, moral and political frames of meaning, at the same time that the engagement of the aesthetic judge (...) (Chapter 1) or the enthusiastic spectator (Chapter 2) with this conflict furthers our pursuit of cognitive, moral and political ends. The Kantian sublime is built on the autonomy of aesthetic judgement, which nevertheless has non-aesthetic value. Part II argues that certain aesthetic and ethical-religious figures in Kierkegaard’s work can be shown to be transfigurations of the Kantian sublime, despite the absence of the term. Antigone and the silhouettes from Either/Or embody what I coin the tragic sublime and sublime grief. The God-man in Practice in Christianity is interpreted as a sublime image of contradiction. The figures are submitted to aesthetic representation, while their contradictory interior lives are unrepresentable. The Kierkegaardian sublime is built on a radical critique of aesthetic autonomy, whose failure serves the end of ethico-religious self-formation. (shrink)

The late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have seen a renaissance in the study of virtue -- a topic that has prevailed in philosophical work since the time of Aristotle. Several major developments have conspired to mark this new age. Foremost among them, some argue, is the birth of virtue ethics, an approach to ethics that focuses on virtue in place of consequentialism or deontology. The emergence of new virtue theories also marks this new wave of work on virtue. Put (...) simply, these are theories about what virtue is, and they include Kantian and utilitarian virtue theories. Concurrently, virtue ethics is being applied to other fields where it hasn't been used before, including bioethics and education. In addition to these developments, the study of virtue in epistemological theories has become increasingly widespread to the point that it has spawned a subfield known as 'virtue epistemology.' This volume therefore provides a representative overview of philosophical work on virtue. It is divided into seven parts: conceptualizations of virtue, historical and religious accounts, contemporary virtue ethics and theories of virtue, central concepts and issues, critical examinations, applied virtue ethics, and virtue epistemology. Forty-two chapters by distinguished scholars offer insights and directions for further research. In addition to philosophy, authors also deal with virtues in non-western philosophical traditions, religion, and psychological perspectives on virtue. (shrink)

The notion that our society, its education system and its intellectual life, is characterised by a split between two cultures – the arts or humanities on one hand, and the sciences on the other – has a long history. But it was C. P. Snow's Rede lecture of 1959 that brought it to prominence and began a public debate that is still raging in the media today. This 50th anniversary printing of The Two Cultures and its successor piece, A (...) Second Look features an introduction by Stefan Collini, charting the history and context of the debate, its implications and its afterlife. The importance of science and technology in policy run largely by non-scientists, the future for education and research, and the problem of fragmentation threatening hopes for a common culture are just some of the subjects discussed. (shrink)

Schelling’s “Bruno” provides a provocative illustration of his conviction that early modern science has adopted a radically flawed and impoverished concept of matter, and therefore of nature. The “Bruno” has been read as a settling of scores with Fichte, with whom Schelling had recently quarreled, and as a critique of Kant’s idealism. I propose to look at how the dialogue reveals Schelling’s developing understanding of pantheism, as reflected in the arguments he borrows from Giordano Bruno and then transforms. “Bruno” is (...) a dialogue with four interlocutors, and ranges widely. I will discuss two central sections, in which the two main roles are played by Bruno (Schelling) and Lucian (Fichte). Lucian begins by restating their agreement in an earlier section of the dialogue that when it is considered in the light of the supreme idea, the distinction of knowledge and being is untrue, a tantalizing claim. He then goes on to pose the question of how it can be possible to understand the departure of the finite from the eternal. (shrink)

The notion that our society, its education system and its intellectual life, is characterised by a split between two cultures – the arts or humanities on one hand and the sciences on the other – has a long history. But it was C. P. Snow's Rede lecture of 1959 that brought it to prominence and began a public debate that is still raging in the media today. This fiftieth anniversary printing of The Two Cultures and its successor piece, A (...) Second Look features an introduction by Stefan Collini, charting the history and context of the debate, its implications and its afterlife. The importance of science and technology in policy run largely by non-scientists, the future for education and research, and the problem of fragmentation threatening hopes for a common culture are just some of the subjects discussed. (shrink)

Jeffrey conditionalization is a rule for updating degrees of belief in light of uncertain evidence. It is usually assumed that the partitions involved in Jeffrey conditionalization are finite and only contain positive-credence elements. But there are interesting examples, involving continuous quantities, in which this is not the case. Q1 Can Jeffrey conditionalization be generalized to accommodate continuous cases? Meanwhile, several authors, such as Kenny Easwaran and Michael Rescorla, have been interested in Kolmogorov’s theory of regular conditional distributions as a possible (...) framework for conditional probability which handles probability-zero events. However the theory faces a major shortcoming: it seems messy and ad hoc. Q2 Is there some axiomatic theory which would justify and constrain the use of rcds, thus serving as a possible foundation for conditional probability? These two questions appear unrelated, but they are not, and this paper answers both. We show that when one appropriately generalizes Jeffrey conditionalization as in Q1, one obtains a framework which necessitates the use of rcds. It is then a short step to develop a general theory which addresses Q2, which we call the theory of extensions. The theory is a formal model of conditioning which recovers Bayesian conditionalization, Jeffrey conditionalization, and conditionalization via rcds as special cases. (shrink)

_Virtue as Social Intelligence: An Empirically Grounded Theory_ takes on the claims of philosophical situationism, the ethical theory that is skeptical about the possibility of human virtue. Influenced by social psychological studies, philosophical situationists argue that human personality is too fluid and fragmented to support a stable set of virtues. They claim that virtue cannot be grounded in empirical psychology. This book argues otherwise. Drawing on the work of psychologists Walter Mischel and Yuichi Shoda, Nancy E. Snow argues that (...) the social psychological experiments that philosophical situationists rely on look at the wrong kinds of situations to test for behavioral consistency. Rather than looking at situations that are objectively similar, researchers need to compare situations that have similar meanings _for the subject_. When this is done, subjects exhibit behavioral consistencies that warrant the attribution of enduring traits, and virtues are a subset of these traits. Virtue can therefore be empirically grounded and virtue ethics has nothing to fear from philosophical situationism. (shrink)

Introduction -- In search of global traits -- Habitual virtuous actions and automaticity -- Social intelligence and why it matters -- Virtue as social intelligence -- Philosophical situationism revisited -- Conclusion.

Research examining firm and industry effects on performance has primarily focused on the financial aspects of firm performance. Corporate social performance is a major aspect of firm performance that has been under-examined empirically in the literature to date. Adding to the fundamental debate regarding firm versus industry effects on performance, this study uses data drawn from the Kinder, Lydenberg and Domini Co. database to examine the degree to which CSP is related to firm, industry, and temporal factors. The results of (...) these analyses suggest that CSP tends to change in a linear manner over time; however, the slope of this line varies across firms and industries. These findings are supported by several robustness checks accounting for autocorrelation, alternative measures of industry, different samples commonly used when using KLD data to measure CSP, and alternative measures of CSP when using the KLD database. The authors also directly compare firm, industry, and temporal effects between CSP and financial performance. (shrink)

This book features new essays by philosophers, psychologists, and a theologian on the important topic of virtue development. The essays engage with work from multiple disciplines and thereby seek to bridge disciplinary divides. The volume is a significant contribution to the emerging interdisciplinary field of virtue development studies.

A vexing question in Bayesian epistemology is how an agent should update on evidence which she assigned zero prior credence. Some theorists have suggested that, in such cases, the agent should update by Kolmogorov conditionalization, a norm based on Kolmogorov’s theory of regular conditional distributions. However, it turns out that in some situations, a Kolmogorov conditionalizer will plan to always assign a posterior credence of zero to the evidence she learns. Intuitively, such a plan is irrational and easily Dutch bookable. (...) In this paper, we propose a revised norm, Kolmogorov-Blackwell conditionalization, which avoids this problem. We prove a Dutch book theorem and converse Dutch book theorem for this revised norm, and relate our results to those of Rescorla (2018). (shrink)

In parts I and II, this article briefly sketches two approaches to virtue ethics – those taken by Aristotle and the contemporary exemplarist moral theory of Linda Zagzebski – with an eye to providing resources for miliary educators. Each section concludes with remarks about the pros and cons of the author’s experiences of teaching these theories to undergraduates. Part III deals with the social articulation of morality and its implications for war crimes. The social articulation of morality is the idea (...) that moral principles cannot be applied in the abstract, but must be interpreted in terms of social backgrounds and norms. This draws on War Crimes: Causes, Excuses, and Blame (2019) by Talbert and Wolfendale, who consider how social articulations of morality led the military in various countries to commit war crimes in the mistaken belief that they were acting in accordance with moral principles. Democratic countries have commitments to free speech that enable us to resist such abuses. The implications for military education are that virtues such as intellectual discernment should be joined with discussions of ethical issues to ensure that future military leaders do not fall prey to false moral narratives. (shrink)

Aaron Stalnaker's Mastery, Dependence, and the Ethics of Authority is a significant achievement. The aim of this book is to mine the insights of the early Confucians, or Ru, for enriching Western ethical and political thought on the ethics of authority and dependence. Stalnaker does this through a meticulous and in-depth study that highlights, but is not limited to, the early Confucian thinkers Kongzi, Mengzi, and Xunzu. His focus is on the ways in which their approach to ritual and certain (...) forms of authority/dependence relationships, such as master/student and father/son, have the potential to inform contemporary Western political structures and governance. The Ru thought that by learning certain virtues and... (shrink)

This volume features new findings by nine interdisciplinary teams of researchers on the topics of self, motivation, and virtue. Nine chapters bringing together scholars from the fields of philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, and sociology advance our substantive understanding of these important topics, and showcase a variety of research methods of interdisciplinary interest. Essays on Buddhism and the self in the context of romantic relationships, the development of personal projects and virtue, the notion of self-distancing and its moral impact, virtues as self-integrated (...) traits, humility and the self in loving encounter, the importance of nation and faith in motivating virtue in western and non-western countries, roles for the self and virtue in eudaimonic growth, overcoming spiritual violence and sacramental shame in Christian communities, and an investigation into the moral self highlight the range and diversity of topics explored in this volume. The concept of deep integration also characterizes this work: each member of the interdisciplinary teams was fully and equally invested in their project from inception to completion. This approach invites teams to examine their disciplinary assumptions, rethink familiar concepts, and adjust methodologies in order to view their topics with fresh eyes. The result is not only new findings of substantive and methodological interest, but also an interesting glimpse into the thinking of the researchers as they sought interdisciplinary common ground in their research. Self, Motivation, and Virtue will be of interest to scholars in philosophy, moral psychology, neuroscience, and sociology who are working on these topics. (shrink)

This comprehensive, general introduction to Schelling's philosophy shows that it was Schelling who set the agenda for German idealism and defined the term of its characteristic problems.

Dual process theorists in psychology maintain that the mind’s workings can be explained in terms of conscious or controlled processes and automatic processes. Automatic processes are largely nonconscious, that is, triggered by environmental stimuli without the agent’s conscious awareness or deliberation. Automaticity researchers contend that even higher level habitual social behaviors can be nonconsciously primed. This article brings work on automaticity to bear on our understanding of habitual virtuous actions. After examining a recent intuitive account of habitual actions and habitual (...) virtuous actions, the author offers her own explanation in terms of goal-dependent automaticity. This form of automaticity provides an account of habitual virtuous actions that explains the sense in which these actions are rational, that is, done for reasons. Habitual virtuous actions are rational in the sense of being purposive or goal-directed and are essentially linked with the agent’s psychological states. Unlike deliberative virtuous actions, the agent’s reasons for habitual virtuous actions are not present to her conscious awareness at the time of acting. (shrink)

This book addresses current threats to citizenship and democratic values posed by the spread of post-truth communication. The contributors apply research on moral, civic, and epistemic virtues to issues involving post-truth culture. The spread of post-truth communication affects ordinary citizens' commitment to truth and attitudes toward information sources, thereby threatening the promotion of democratic ideals in public debate. The chapters in this volume investigate the importance of helping citizens improve the quality of their online agency and raise awareness of the (...) risks social media poses to democratic values. The book moves from two initial chapters that provide historical background and overview of the present post-truth malaise, through a series of chapters that feature mainly diagnostic accounts of the epistemic and ethical issues we face, to the complexities of virtue-theoretic analyses of specific virtues and vices. Virtues, Democracy, and Online Media will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in virtue ethics, epistemology, political philosophy, and media studies. (shrink)

Schelling's 1806 polemic against Fichte, and his last major work on the philosophy of nature. The heat of anger can concentrate the mind. Convinced that he had been betrayed by his former collaborator and colleague, Schelling attempts in this polemic to reach a final reckoning with Fichte. Employing the format of a book review, Schelling directs withering scorn at three of Fichte’s recent publications, at one point likening them to the hell, purgatory, and would-be paradise of Fichtean philosophy. The central (...) bone of contention is the understanding of nature: Fichte sees it as lifeless matter in motion, sheer opposition to be overcome, while Schelling waxes poetic in his defense of a living, organic nature of which humanity is a vital part. Indeed, we do not know ourselves without understanding our connection to nature, argues Schelling, anticipating many thinkers in contemporary environmental ethics. Dale E. Snow’s introduction sets the stage and explains the larger context of the conflict, which was already visible in the correspondence of the two philosophers, which broke off by 1802. Notes are included throughout the text, providing background information and identifying the many references to Fichte. Dale E. Snow is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University of Maryland and the author of Schelling and the End of Idealism, also published by SUNY Press. (shrink)

Against the backdrop of the recent emergence of disturbing currents of populism in several countries, including the United States, this article argues for a conception of hope as a democratic civic virtue. In section 1, it offers a general overview of hope and sketches an initial conception of hope as a democratic civic virtue. In section 2, the stage is set for further theorizing of this conception in the present American context. Drawing on the work of Ghassan Hage, the article (...) makes the point that the United States is in the process of becoming a nation of worriers in part because of the failure of the government to distribute social hope. Section 3 fleshes out what hope as a democratic civic virtue could look like in the United States today. Section 4 concludes with brief comments about theorizing civic hope in the context of a modified pragmatism. (shrink)

The late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have seen a renaissance in the study of virtue -- a topic that has prevailed in philosophical work since the time of Aristotle. Several major developments have conspired to mark this new age. Foremost among them, some argue, is the birth of virtue ethics, an approach to ethics that focuses on virtue in place of consequentialism or deontology. The emergence of new virtue theories also marks this new wave of work on virtue. Put (...) simply, these are theories about what virtue is, and they include Kantian and utilitarian virtue theories. Concurrently, virtue ethics is being applied to other fields where it hasn't been used before, including bioethics and education. In addition to these developments, the study of virtue in epistemological theories has become increasingly widespread to the point that it has spawned a subfield known as 'virtue epistemology.' This volume therefore provides a representative overview of philosophical work on virtue. It is divided into seven parts: conceptualizations of virtue, historical and religious accounts, contemporary virtue ethics and theories of virtue, central concepts and issues, critical examinations, applied virtue ethics, and virtue epistemology. Forty-two chapters by distinguished scholars offer insights and directions for further research. In addition to philosophy, authors also deal with virtues in non-western philosophical traditions, religion, and psychological perspectives on virtue. (shrink)

Though virtue ethics is enjoying a resurgence, the topic of virtue cultivation has been largely neglected by philosophers. This volume remedies this gap, featuring mostly new essays, commissioned for this collection, by philosophers, theologians, and psychologists at the forefront of research into virtue. Each contribution focuses on some aspect of virtue development, either by highlighting virtue cultivation within distinctive traditions of ethical or religious thought, or by taking a developmental perspective to yield fresh insights into criticisms of virtue ethics, or (...) by examining the science that explains virtue development. The essays by Russell and Driver investigate virtue cultivation or problems associated with it from Aristotelian and utilitarian perspectives. Slote addresses virtue development from the sentimentalist standpoint. Swanton and Cureton and Hill explore self-improvement, the former with an eye to offering solutions to critiques of virtue ethics, the latter from a Kantian ethical vantage point. Slingerland examines contemporary psychology as well as virtue development in the Confucian tradition to counter situationist criticisms of virtue ethics. Flanagan, Bucar, and Herdt examine how virtue is cultivated in the Buddhist, Islamic, and Christian traditions, respectively. Narvaez, Thompson, and McAdams offer descriptive insights from psychology into virtue development. The result is a collection of extremely creative essays that not only fills the current gap but also promises to stimulate new work on a philosophically neglected yet vital topic. (shrink)

Academic research is increasingly centering on interdisciplinary work. Strong interdisciplinary research (SIR), involving researchers from very different fields, such as scientists and humanists, is often encouraged, if not required, by funding agencies. I argue that two intellectual virtues, open-mindedness and intellectual humility, are crucial for overcoming obstacles to SIR and achieving success. In part I, I provide a primer on intellectual virtue and the two virtues in question. In part II, I distinguish SIR from weak interdisciplinary research (WIR), which involves (...) research teams from neighboring fields, such as physics and chemistry, and from disciplinary research (DR), which involves researchers from the same discipline. I also outline what counts as success in SIR, and explain why it’s more challenging to attain than in WIR and DR. In part III, I explain how both intellectual virtues are essential for achieving success in SIR and for overcoming obstacles that can arise in its pursuit. (shrink)

Abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq confront us with the question of how seemingly ordinary soldiers could have perpetrated harms against prisoners. In this essay I argue that a Stoic approach to the virtues can provide a bulwark against the social and personal forces that can lead to abusive behavior. In part one, I discuss Abu Ghraib. In two, I examine social psychological explanations of how ordinary, apparently decent people are able to commit atrocities. In three, I address a (...) series of questions: why should we turn to ethics for help with these problems, and why, in particular, to Stoicism instead of other ethical theories, such as utilitarianism or Kantianism? Given the power of situations in influencing behavior, is a turn to character ethics a viable response to problems such as those at Abu Ghraib? I argue in part four that character formation drawing on Stoic values can provide soldiers with the inner resilience to resist the situational factors that press them to unwarranted aggression. (shrink)

This Element provides an overview of the central components of recent work in virtue ethics. The first section explores central themes in neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics, while the second turns the discussion to major alternative theoretical perspectives. The third section focuses on two challenges to virtue ethics. The first challenge is the self-centeredness or egoism objection, which is the notion that certain kinds of virtue ethics are inadequate because they advocate a focus on the person's own virtue and flourishing at the (...) expense of, or at least without due regard for, the concerns of others. The second is situationist challenges to the ideas that there are indeed virtues and that personality is integrated enough to support virtues. (shrink)

Virtue ethics enjoys a resurgence, yet the topic of virtue cultivation has been largely neglected. This volume remedies this gap, featuring mostly new essays, commissioned for this collection, by philosophers, theologians, and psychologists at the forefront of research into virtue.

Hope is a ubiquitous feature of human experience, but there has been relatively little scholarship within contemporary analytic philosophy devoted to the systematic analysis of its nature and value. In the last decade, however, there has been a resurgence of interest in the study of hope and, in particular, its role in human agency. This scholarly attention reflects an ambivalence about hope's effects. While the possession of hope can have salutary consequences, it can also make the agent vulnerable to certain (...) kinds of personal risk. The pervasiveness of hope is not a sign of its quality; only a well-tuned hope can be a virtue. Recently, Nancy Snow has argued that hope can be an intellectual virtue. Framing her account as a contribution to regulative epistemology, she contends that the intellectual virtue of hope can (i) motivate the pursuit of important epistemic ends, (ii) create dispositions that enable the successful pursuit of these aims, and (iii) generate a method for enduring intellectual projects. In this paper, I provide a critical appraisal of Snow's account of hope as an intellectual virtue. One important implication of this critique is that hope can function as an intellectual virtue only to the extent that it has benefitted from the correcting and perfecting influence of other cognitive excellences. (shrink)