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Virtue Epistemology Naturalized
by Abrol FairweatherThis book presents four bridges connecting work in virtue epistemology and work in philosophy of science (broadly construed) that may serve as catalysts for the further development of naturalized virtue epistemology. These bridges are: empirically informed theories of epistemic virtue; virtue theoretic solutions to under determination; epistemic virtues in the history of science; and the value of understanding. Virtue epistemology has opened many new areas of inquiry in contemporary epistemology including: epistemic agency, the role of motivations and emotions in epistemology, the nature of abilities, skills and competences, wisdom and curiosity. Value driven epistemic inquiry has become quite complex and there is a need for a responsible and rigorous process of constructing naturalized theories of epistemic virtue. This volume makes the involvement of the sciences more explicit and looks at the empirical aspect of virtue epistemology. Concerns about virtue epistemology are considered in the essays contained here, including the question: can any virtue epistemology meet both the normativity constraint and the empirical constraint? The volume suggests that these worries should not be seen as impediments but rather as useful constraints and desiderata to guide the construction of naturalized theories of epistemic virtue.
Virtue Epistemology Naturalized: Bridges Between Virtue Epistemology and Philosophy of Science (Synthese Library #366)
by Abrol FairweatherThis book presents four bridges connecting work in virtue epistemology and work in philosophy of science (broadly construed) that may serve as catalysts for the further development of naturalized virtue epistemology. These bridges are: empirically informed theories of epistemic virtue; virtue theoretic solutions to under determination; epistemic virtues in the history of science; and the value of understanding.Virtue epistemology has opened many new areas of inquiry in contemporary epistemology including: epistemic agency, the role of motivations and emotions in epistemology, the nature of abilities, skills and competences, wisdom and curiosity.Value driven epistemic inquiry has become quite complex and there is a need for a responsible and rigorous process of constructing naturalized theories of epistemic virtue. This volume makes the involvement of the sciences more explicit and looks at the empirical aspect of virtue epistemology.Concerns about virtue epistemology are considered in the essays contained here, including the question: can any virtue epistemology meet both the normativity constraint and the empirical constraint? The volume suggests that these worries should not be seen as impediments but rather as useful constraints and desiderata to guide the construction of naturalized theories of epistemic virtue.
Virtue Ethics and Confucianism
by Stephen C. Angle Michael SloteThis volume presents the fruits of an extended dialogue among American and Chinese philosophers concerning the relations between virtue ethics and the Confucian tradition. Based on recent advances in English-language scholarship on and translation of Confucian philosophy, the book demonstrates that cross-tradition stimulus, challenge, and learning are now eminently possible. Anyone interested in the role of virtue in contemporary moral philosophy, in Chinese thought, or in the future possibilities for cross-tradition philosophizing will find much to engage with in the twenty essays collected here.
Virtue Ethics and Human Enhancement
by Barbro FrödingThis book shows how pressing issues in bioethics - e.g. the ownership of biological material and human cognitive enhancement - successfully can be discussed with in a virtue ethics framework. This is not intended as a complete or exegetic account of virtue ethics. Rather, the aim here is to discuss how some key ideas in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, when interpreted pragmatically, can be a productive way to approach some hot issues in bioethics. In spite of being a very promising theoretical perspective virtue ethics has so far been underdeveloped both in bioethics and neuroethics and most discussions have been conducted in consequentialist and/or deontological terms.
Virtue Ethics and Moral Knowledge: Philosophy of Language after MacIntyre and Hauerwas (Ashgate New Critical Thinking in Philosophy)
by R. Scott SmithWe live in a time of moral confusion: many believe there are no overarching moral norms, and we have lost an accepted body of moral knowledge. Alasdair MacIntyre addresses this problem in his much-heralded restatement of Aristotelian and Thomistic virtue ethics; Stanley Hauerwas does so through his highly influential work in Christian ethics. Both recast virtue ethics in light of their interpretations of the later Wittgenstein's views of language. This book systematically assesses the underlying presuppositions of MacIntyre and Hauerwas, finding that their attempts to secure moral knowledge and restate virtue ethics, both philosophical and theological, fail. Scott Smith proposes alternative indications as to how we can secure moral knowledge, and how we should proceed in virtue ethics.
Virtue Ethics and Professional Journalism
by Aaron QuinnThis book examines the moral role of news media practitioners and organizations, and applies a modified philosophical account of Virtue Ethics as a framework for the role of journalists—and journalism organizations—in public life. It shows how journalists and news organizations that adopt an aim towards professional excellence (virtue) by putting a premium on investigative journalism—with both large and small measures depending on the nature of the reporting—can achieve lofty professional goals under modern deadlines. The news media, both electronic and traditional, are imperative to an informed public, and an informed public is critical to a properly functioning cross-section of social, government and corporate domains. The book emphasizes the virtues of justice and integrity as foundational to professional practice. It examines the modern ethical challenges presented by organizations ranging from online upstarts to massive media conglomerates, each that have economic challenges that can inhibit professional excellence through corruption or corrosion. The author applies his account of virtue—bolstered by suggestions for complementary reforms in education and regulation—to improve an ethically challenged industry as it undergoes significant technological change.
Virtue Ethics and the Environment (Routledge Environmental Ethics)
by Dominika DzwonkowskaThis book addresses one of today’s most burning issues, namely the environmental crisis, by offering an insight into the problem from the perspective of virtue ethics.Virtue ethics is an approach to ethics that centralizes the concept of moral virtue, which can be extended to environmental ethics via environmental virtue ethics (EVE). Beginning with a comprehensive overview, the book explores the renaissance of contemporary virtue ethics and the beginnings of EVE in the second half of the 20th century and presents the main characteristics, proponents, and criticisms of EVE. The book then goes on to analyze its development by distinguishing the three most influential concepts: the classical; the naturalistic, teleological, and pluralistic; and the narrative conception of environmental virtue ethics. The author also discusses the most influential works on EVE, including a revision of Louke van Wensveen’s postulate to use virtue language in environmental ethics. By synthesizing such works on EVE alongside an analysis of the three most important concepts, the book offers a new concept that is universalistic, positive, and pragmatic.The book will be useful for students, scholars, and researchers studying environmental ethics, sustainable development, environmental psychology, moral philosophy, and philosophy of education.
Virtue Ethics for Women 1250-1500
by Karen Green Constant MewsThis book locates Christine de Pizan's argument that women are virtuous members of the political community within the context of earlier discussions of the relative virtues of men and women. It is the first to explore how women were represented and addressed within medieval discussions of the virtues. It introduces readers to the little studied Speculum Dominarum (Mirror of Ladies), a mirror for a princess, compiled for Jeanne of Navarre, which circulated in the courtly milieu that nurtured Christine. Throwing new light on the way in which Medieval women understood the virtues, and were represented by others as virtuous subjects, it positions the ethical ideas of Anne of France, Laura Cereta, Marguerite of Navarre and the Dames de la Roche within an evolving discourse on the virtues that is marked by the transition from Medieval to Renaissance thought. Virtue Ethics for Women 1250-1500 will be of interest to those studying virtue ethics, the history of women's ideas and Medieval and Renaissance thought in general.
Virtue Ethics for the Real World: Improving Character without Idealization
by Howard J. CurzerIn Virtue Ethics for the Real World: Improving Character without Idealization, Howard J. Curzer argues that character ideals seduce virtue ethicists into counterintuitive claims, mislead and psychologically harm people seeking to improve their characters, and sometimes become tools for exploitation. Curzer offers a theory of Aristotelian virtue ethics that eschews idealization and that harmonizes with common sense. To explain the many dilemmas of ordinary life, he allows that different virtues sometimes enjoin incompatible actions and even enjoin actions that conflict with duty. Curzer defends the doctrine of the mean, arguing that idealized traits such as unilateral forgiveness, universal civility, unconditional commitments, and unlimited generosity are not virtues. He shows that the reciprocity of virtues doctrine depends upon idealization and rejects it. When undergirding his theory, Curzer wears several hats. He is a eudaimonist when grounding virtue, a constructivist when grounding value, and a perspectivist (a la Nietzsche) when grounding virtuous action. How can people improve without aiming at an ideal? Curzer offers an individualized approach to character improvement modeled on contemporary medicine. First, diagnose each person’s character flaws. Then tailor treatment plans to each flaw. An important tool is a fine-grained table of the components of character, their failure modes, and corresponding therapies. Curzer provides the beginnings of such a table.
Virtue Ethics in Social Work Practice
by Manohar Pawar Richard Hugman A. W. Anscombe Amelia WheelerUsing evidence from research with practitioners, integrated with wider material about virtue ethics in the helping professions, this book explores important types of virtue that are central to developing and sustaining excellence in social work. Comprised of ten chapters and drawing on extensive research with social workers as well as wider debates and analysis, the discussion carefully concentrates on everyday experiences and achievements. This approach enables the book to avoid an idealized and prescriptive approach by making clear that virtues vary between contexts and individuals, while at the same time clearly marking out qualities and characteristics of social work that are foundational to the development of practitioners and of the profession as a whole. It will be required reading for students on all BSc/BSW and MSc/MSW courses on professional ethics or preparation for practice. It will also be of interest to practitioners in other professions, including human services, health, education and social development or development studies.
Virtue Ethics: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge Contemporary Introductions to Philosophy)
by Liezl Van ZylThis volume provides a clear and accessible overview of central concepts, positions, and arguments in virtue ethics today. While it focuses primarily on Aristotelian virtue ethics, it also includes discussion of alternative forms of virtue ethics (sentimentalism and pluralism) and competing normative theories (consequentialism and deontology). The first six chapters are organized around central questions in normative ethics that are of particular concern to virtue ethicists and their critics: What is virtue ethics? What makes a trait a virtue? Is there a link between virtue and happiness? What is involved in being well-motivated? What is practical wisdom? What makes an action right? The last four chapters focus on important challenges or objections to virtue ethics: Can virtue ethics be applied to particular moral problems? Does virtue ethics ultimately rely on moral principles? Can it withstand the situationist critique? What are the prospects for an environmental virtue ethics? ?
Virtue Ethics: A Pluralistic View
by Christine SwantonChristine Swanton offers a new, comprehensive theory of virtue ethics which addresses the major concerns of modern ethical theory from a character-based perspective. Discussion of many problems in moral theory, such as moral constraints, rightness of action, the good life, the demandingness of ethics, the role of the subjective, and the practicality of ethics, has been dominated by Kantian and Consequentialist theories, with their own distinctive conceptual apparatus. Virtue Ethics shows how a different framework can shed new light on these intractable issues. Swanton's approach is distinctive in departing in significant ways from classical versions of virtue ethics derived primarily from Aristotle. Employing insights from Nietzsche and other sources, she argues against both eudaimonistic virtue ethics and traditional virtue ethical conceptions of rightness. In developing a pluralistic view, she shows how different modes of moral acknowledgement' such as love, respect, appreciation, and creativity, are embedded in the very fabric of virtue, the moral life, and the good life.
Virtue Ethics: Retrospect and Prospect
by Elisa GrimiThe rise of the phenomenon of virtue ethics in recent years has increased at a rapid pace. Such an explosion carries with it a number of great possibilities, as well as risks. This volume has been written to contribute a multi-faceted perspective to the current conversation about virtue. Among many other thought-provoking questions, the collection addresses the following: What are the virtues, and how are they enumerated? What are the internal problems among ethicists, and what are the objections and replies to contemporary virtue ethics? Additionally, the practical implications following from the answers to these questions are discussed in new and fascinating research. Fundamental concepts such as teleology and eudaimonism are addressed from both a historical and dialectical approach. This tome will contribute not only to providing further clarity to the current horizons in virtue ethics, but also to the practical conclusion following from the study: to challenge the reader toward a greater pursuit of the virtuous life.
Virtue Is Knowledge: The Moral Foundations of Socratic Political Philosophy
by Lorraine Smith PangleThe relation between virtue and knowledge is at the heart of the Socratic view of human excellence, but it also points to a central puzzle of the Platonic dialogues: Can Socrates be serious in his claims that human excellence is constituted by one virtue, that vice is merely the result of ignorance, and that the correct response to crime is therefore not punishment but education? Or are these assertions mere rhetorical ploys by a notoriously complex thinker? Lorraine Smith Pangle traces the argument for the primacy of virtue and the power of knowledge throughout the five dialogues that feature them most prominently—the Apology, Gorgias, Protagoras, Meno, and Laws—and reveals the truth at the core of these seemingly strange claims. She argues that Socrates was more aware of the complex causes of human action and of the power of irrational passions than a cursory reading might suggest. Pangle’s perceptive analyses reveal that many of Socrates’s teachings in fact explore the factors that make it difficult for humans to be the rational creatures that he at first seems to claim. Also critical to Pangle’s reading is her emphasis on the political dimensions of the dialogues. Underlying many of the paradoxes, she shows, is a distinction between philosophic and civic virtue that is critical to understanding them. Ultimately, Pangle offers a radically unconventional way of reading Socrates’s views of human excellence: Virtue is not knowledge in any ordinary sense, but true virtue is nothing other than wisdom.
Virtue Politics: Soulcraft and Statecraft in Renaissance Italy
by James HankinsJames Hankins challenges the view that the Renaissance was the seedbed of modern republicanism, with Machiavelli as exemplary thinker. What most concerned Renaissance political theorists, Hankins contends, was not reforming laws but shaping citizens. To secure the social good, they fostered virtue through a new program of education: the humanities.
Virtue and Knowledge: An Introduction to Ancient Greek Ethics (Routledge Library Editions: Ancient Philosophy #6)
by William J. PriorOriginally published in 1991, this book focuses on the concept of virtue, and in particular on the virtue of wisdom or knowledge, as it is found in the epic poems of Homer, some tragedies of Sophocles, selected writings of Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers. The key questions discussed are the nature of the virtues, their relation to each other, and the relation between the virtues and happiness or well-being. This book provides the background and interpretative framework to make classical works on Ethics, such as Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, accessible to readers with no training in the classics.
Virtue and Knowledge: An Introduction to Ancient Greek Ethics (Routledge Library Editions: Ancient Philosophy)
by William J. PriorOriginally published in 1991, this book focuses on the concept of virtue, and in particular on the virtue of wisdom or knowledge, as it is found in the epic poems of Homer, some tragedies of Sophocles, selected writings of Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers. The key questions discussed are the nature of the virtues, their relation to each other, and the relation between the virtues and happiness or well-being. This book provides the background and interpretative framework to make classical works on Ethics, such as Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, accessible to readers with no training in the classics.
Virtue and Meaning: A Neo-Aristotelian Perspective
by David McPhersonThe revival of Aristotelian virtue ethics can be seen as a response to the modern problem of disenchantment, that is, the perceived loss of meaning in modernity. However, in Virtue and Meaning, David McPherson contends that the dominant approach still embraces an overly disenchanted view. In a wide-ranging discussion, McPherson argues for a more fully re-enchanted perspective that gives better recognition to the meanings by which we live and after which we seek, and to the fact that human beings are the meaning-seeking animal. In doing so, he defends distinctive accounts of the relationship between virtue and happiness, other-regarding demands, and the significance of linking neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics with a view of the meaning of life and a spiritual life where contemplation has a central role. This book will be valuable for philosophers and other readers who are interested in virtue ethics and the perennial question of the meaning of life.
Virtue and Terror
by Maximilien Robespierre John Howe Slavoj Zizek Jean DucangeRobespierre’s justification of the Terror in the French RevolutionRobespierre’s defence of the French Revolution remains one of the most powerful and unnerving justifications for political violence ever written. It has an extraordinary resonance in a world obsessed with terrorism and appalled by the language of its proponents. Yet today the French Revolution is celebrated as the event which gave birth to a nation built on the principles of Enlightenment. So how should a contemporary audience approach Robespierre’s vindication of revolutionary terror? i ek’s introduction analyzes these contradictions with a prodigious breadth of analogy and reference.
Virtue and Vice in Popular Film (Routledge Focus on Film Studies)
by Joseph H. KupferThis book addresses a prominent group of virtues and vices as portrayed in popular films to further our understanding of these moral character traits. The discussions emphasize the interplay between the philosophical conception of the virtues and vices and the cinematic representations of character. Joseph H. Kupfer explores how fictional characters possessing certain moral strengths and weaknesses concretize our abstract understanding of them. Because the actions that flow from these traits occur in cinematic contexts mirroring real world conditions, the narrative portrayals of these moral characteristics can further our appreciation of their import. Humility, integrity, and perseverance, for example, are depicted in Chariots of Fire, The Fabulous Baker Boys, and Billy Elliot, while the vices of envy, arrogance and vanity are captured in Amadeus, Whiplash, and Young Adult. This interdisciplinary work in philosophy and film criticism will be of great interest to scholars and students of film studies, philosophy of film, ethics, aesthetics, and popular culture.
Virtue and Vice, Moral and Epistemic (Metaphilosophy #13)
by Heather BattalyVirtue and Vice, Moral and Epistemic presents a series of essays by leading ethicists and epistemologists who offer the latest thinking on the moral and intellectual virtues and vices, the structure of virtue theory, and the connections between virtue and emotion. Cuts across two fields of philosophical inquiry by featuring a dual focus on ethics and epistemology Features cutting-edge work on the moral and intellectual virtues and vices, the structure of virtue theory, and the connections between virtue and emotion Presents a radical new moral theory that makes exemplars the foundation of ethics; and new theories of epistemic vices such as epistemic malevolence and epistemic self-indulgence Represents one of the few collections to address both the moral virtues and the epistemic virtues Explores a new approach in epistemology - virtue epistemology - which emphasizes the importance of intellectual character traits
Virtue and the Making of Modern Liberalism (New Forum Books #23)
by Peter BerkowitzVirtue has been rediscovered in the United States as a subject of public debate and of philosophical inquiry. Politicians from both parties, leading intellectuals, and concerned citizens from diverse backgrounds are addressing questions about the content of our character. William Bennett's moral guide for children, A Book of Virtues, was a national bestseller. Yet many continue to associate virtue with a prudish, Victorian morality or with crude attempts by government to legislate morals. Peter Berkowitz clarifies the fundamental issues, arguing that a certain ambivalence toward virtue reflects the liberal spirit at its best. Drawing on recent scholarship as well as classical political philosophy, he makes his case with penetrating analyses of four central figures in the making of modern liberalism: Hobbes, Locke, Kant, and Mill. These thinkers are usually understood to have neglected or disparaged virtue. Yet Berkowitz shows that they all believed that government resting on the fundamental premise of liberalism--the natural freedom and equality of all human beings--could not work unless citizens and officeholders possess particular qualities of mind and character. These virtues, which include reflective judgment, sympathetic imagination, self-restraint, the ability to cooperate, and toleration do not arise spontaneously but must be cultivated. Berkowitz explores the various strategies the thinkers employ as they seek to give virtue its due while respecting individual liberty. Liberals, he argues, must combine energy and forbearance, finding public and private ways to support such nongovernmental institutions as the family and voluntary associations. For these institutions, the liberal tradition powerfully suggests, play an indispensable role not only in forming the virtues on which liberal democracy depends but in overcoming the vices that it tends to engender. Clearly written and vigorously argued, this is a provocative work of political theory that speaks directly to complex issues at the heart of contemporary philosophy and public discussion. New Forum Books makes available to general readers outstanding, original, interdisciplinary scholarship with a special focus on the juncture of culture, law, and politics. New Forum Books is guided by the conviction that law and politics not only reflect culture, but help to shape it. Authors include leading political scientists, sociologists, legal scholars, philosophers, theologians, historians, and economists writing for nonspecialist readers and scholars across a range of fields. Looking at questions such as political equality, the concept of rights, the problem of virtue in liberal politics, crime and punishment, population, poverty, economic development, and the international legal and political order, New Forum Books seeks to explain--not explain away--the difficult issues we face today.
Virtue as Social Intelligence: An Empirically Grounded Theory
by Nancy E. SnowVirtue 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.
Virtue in Being: Towards an Ethics of the Unconditioned (SUNY series in Contemporary Continental Philosophy)
by Andrew BenjaminIn his last book, Towards a Relational Ontology, Andrew Benjamin provided a philosophical account of what he terms anoriginal relationality, demonstrating how this concept can be seen to be at work throughout the history of philosophy. In Virtue in Being, he builds on that project to argue for a new way of understanding the relationship between ontology and ethics through insightful readings of texts by Immanuel Kant, Hannah Arendt, and Jacques Derrida. Structuring the book around the themes of violence, evil, and pardon, Benjamin builds a convincing case for the connections he draws between thinkers not commonly associated with one another.
Virtue in Business
by Edwin M. HartmanThe virtue approach to business ethics is a topic of increasing importance within the business world. Focusing on Aristotle's theory that the virtues of character, rather than actions, are central to ethics, Edwin Hartman introduces readers of this book to the value of applying Aristotle's virtue approach to business. Using numerous real-world examples, he argues that business leaders have good reason to take character seriously when explaining and evaluating individuals in organisations. He demonstrates how the virtue approach can deepen our understanding of business ethics, and how it can contribute to contemporary discussions of character, rationality, corporate culture, ethics education and global ethics. Written by one of the foremost Aristotelian scholars working in the field today, this authoritative introduction to the role of virtue ethics in business is a valuable primer for graduate students and academic researchers in business ethics, applied ethics and philosophy.