This paper concerns the prospects for an internal validation of the Aristotelian virtues of character. With respect to the more contentious trait of patriotism, this approach for validating some specific trait of character as a virtue of character provides a plausible and nuanced Aristotelian position that does not fall neatly into any of the categories provided by a recent mapping of the terrain surrounding the issue of patriotism. According to the approach advocated here, patriotism can plausibly, though qualifiedly, (...) be defended as a virtue, by stressing its similarities to another loyalty-exhibiting trait about which Aristotle has quite a bit to say: the virtue of friendship. (shrink)

Both Kant and Sidgwick recognize a deep tension between moral and prudential reasons. On the basis of what we can observe, both agree that fulfilling one’s moral obligation is not always prudentially optimal. And, both agree, if acting morally must sometimes come at the cost of one’s own happiness, then we should be skeptical about the possibility of having a completely rationalized — that is, a completely systematic and coherent — account of practical reason. Both suggest that, the empirical world (...) being thus, the only way that practical reason can be rendered coherent is if we assume the existence of God, as the being who will ensure that acting morally is always conducive to one’s happiness, through a system of divine rewards and punishments. -/- Ancient eudaimonism might seem to offer a solution to the dualism of practical reason, and without any theological assumptions. Eudaimonism holds that there is indeed a single ultimate rational aim that can accommodate all of our ethical concerns, namely, the pursuit of an agent’s own happiness. Kant and Sidgwick, however, are pessimistic about the possibility of eudaimonist theories successfully reconciling both ethical and moral concerns under a single system of practical reason. -/- In this paper, I review the challenges that Kant and Sidgwick pose to eudaimonism, and argue that there are resources within ancient theories — and with Aristotle in particular — to potentially resolve at least some of their concerns. Much turns on how exactly we understand ancient eudaimonist theories, and I argue here that this question is far from settled. (shrink)

The prelims comprise: I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX Notes Reference Further reading.

This paper considers whether eudaimonism is necessarily an idealizing approach to ethics. I argue, contrary to what is implied by Christine Swanton, that it is not, and I suggest that a non-ideal eudaimonistic virtue ethics can be useful for feminist and critical race theorists. For eudaimonist theorists in the Aristotelian tradition, the claim that one should aim to live virtuously assumes that there will typically be good enough background conditions so that an exercise of the virtues, in conjunction (...) with these favorable external conditions, will suffice for someone to flourish both in the sense of living virtuously and in the sense of living well or living the good life. However, under some forms of oppression the background conditions will not be good enough, and thus an exercise of the virtues will often be insufficient to constitute a flourishing life. It may seem that eudaimonism, with its foregrounding of the concept of flourishing and its assumption of a tight connection between living virtuously and living well, may function as a form of ideology that elides the ways in which non-ideal and oppressive conditions can separate virtue from well-being and can make the state of flourishing (in its dual senses) unattainable. I point out that eudaimonism can be revised to incorporate the claim that virtue and flourishing may typically be unlinked, and I advocate retaining flourishing as an unattainable end, exercising the virtues even with a sense of their absurdity, and confronting the existential states of frustration and disappointment that may result. (shrink)

This article explores the prospects for a eudaimonist moral theory that is both feminist and Aristotelian. Making the moral philosophy developed by Aristotle compatible with a feminist moral perspective presents a number of philosophical challenges. Lisa Tessman offers one of the most sustained feminist engagements with Aristotelian eudaimonism. However, in arguing for the account of flourishing that her eudaimonist theory invokes, Tessman avoids taking a stand either for or against the role Aristotle assigned to human nature. She (...) draws her account of flourishing instead from the beliefs about flourishing implicit in the feminist and black freedom movements. I examine the implicit conception of flourishing in the writings of two prominent leaders of the black freedom movement—Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X—and argue that Tessman's attempt to avoid the “sticky issue” of human nature is not successful. Tessman's defense of the burdened virtues depends on a particular reading of human nature as does a eudaimonist account of the virtues more generally. (shrink)

In contemporary discussions of human well-being, well-being is typically understood in secular terms. Analogously, most contemporary discussions of eudaimonistic virtue ethics, influenced by Aristotle, take human flourishing to be a matter of living virtuously, where flourishing and virtue are both secular notions. For many religious believers, however, well-being and virtuous activity involve not just ethical dispositions and actions, but primarily relationship to God. In this paper, I present an alternative eudaimonistic account of well-being that is theological in nature. This view, (...) which I call Thomistic eudaimonism, makes a strong connection between flourishing, virtuous activity, and relationship with God. What is worth considering about this account is that it is able to avoid one of the worst problems for secular, Aristotelian eudaimonism, namely that flourishing and virtue seem to come apart. This is a major strength of Thomistic eudaimonism and a reason to consider it as a theory of well-being. (shrink)

Recent scholarship has steadily been opening up for philosophical study an increasingly wide range of the philosophical literature of antiquity. We no longer think only of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, and their pre-Socratic forebears, when someone refers to the views of the ancient philosophers. Julia Annas has been one of the philosophers most closely engaged in the renewed study of Hellenistic philosophy over the past fifteen years, enabling herself and other scholars to acquire the necessary ground-level knowledge of the widely-dispersed (...) texts and the problems of interpretation—both historical and philosophical—that they present. In her new book she takes the next step. She presents to the general philosophical public of today an extended reconstruction of the systems of moral philosophy that were developed and pitted in competition with one another during the period when refinement and professionalism were at their height in Greek philosophy—between the end of the 4th and the middle of the 1st centuries B.C. These include the moral philosophies of Epicurus and his followers, several generations of Stoics, sceptical philosophers both Academic and Pyrrhonian, and the “hybrid” theories put together by Antiochus of Ascalon and other Stoic-influenced philosophers as part of the modernizing revival of Aristotelian ethical thought that took place in the 1st century B.C. She finds significant commonalities among these otherwise very disparate theories, and much of the book is devoted to examining these and showing how the conception of ethics and morality that is common to the ancient theorists compares with and differs from what we are familiar with in modern and contemporary theory. She traces these commonalities back to Aristotle in his ethical treatises, and accordingly includes Aristotle’s theory as one among those to be examined—indeed, in a significant sense as the intellectual father or grandfather of the rest of them. She leaves Plato’s dialogues out of account, and she has nothing to say about ethics and moral philosophy in the revived Platonism that gradually came to dominate philosophical thought in later antiquity. Her book, then, is a book about the structure and content of ancient ethical theory during the Hellenistic period, the period when Greek philosophy was at its high-point in professionalism and sophistication. (shrink)

My aim in this essay is to reorient our understanding of the Kantian ethical project, especially in relation to its assumed rivals. I do this by considering Kant's relation to eudaimonism, especially in its Aristotelian form. I argue for two points. First, once we understand what Kant and Aristotle mean by happiness, we can see that not only is it the case that, by Kant's lights, Aristotle is not a eudaimonist. We can also see that, by Aristotle's lights, (...) Kant is a eudaimonist. Second, we can see that this agreement on eudaimonism actually reflects a deeper, more fundamental agreement on the nature of ethics as a distinctively practical philosophy. This is an important result, not just for the history of moral philosophy but for moral philosophy as well. For it suggests that both Kantians and Aristotelians may well have more argumentative resources available to them than is commonly thought. (shrink)

In “Virtue Ethics and Deontic Constraints,” Mark LeBar claims to have discovered a two-level eudaimonist position that coheres with the claim that moral obligations are “real” and have “nonderivative normative authority.” In this article, I raise worries about how “real” second-personal reasons are on LeBar’s account, and then argue that second-personal reasons ramify up from the first to the second level in a way that LeBar denies. My argument is meant to encourage philosophers in the Aristotelian tradition to question (...) the existence of second-personal reasons of the sort Darwall elucidates. (shrink)

One of the longest standing objections levied against virtue ethics is the Self-Absorption Objection. Proponents of this objection state that the main problem with neo-Aristotelian accounts is that the virtuous agent’s motive is to promote her own eudaimonia. In this paper, I examine Christopher Toner’s attempt to address this objection by arguing that we should understand the virtuous agent as acting virtuously because doing so is what it means to live well qua human. I then go on to defend (...) Toner’s view from two of Anne Baril’s criticisms: that his account is un-Aristotelian, and that his account does not take seriously the importance of the virtuous agent organizing her life in a way that is good for her. In doing so, I pave the way for neo-Aristotelian virtue ethicists to develop an adequate response to the self-absorption objection along Toner’s lines. (shrink)

One of the longest standing objections levied against virtue ethics is the Self-Absorption Objection. Proponents of this objection state that the main problem with neo-Aristotelian accounts is that the virtuous agent’s motive is to promote her own eudaimonia. In this paper, I examine Christopher Toner’s attempt to address this objection by arguing that we should understand the virtuous agent as acting virtuously because doing so is what it means to live well qua human. I then go on to defend (...) Toner’s view from two of Anne Baril’s criticisms: that his account is un-Aristotelian, and that his account does not take seriously the importance of the virtuous agent organizing her life in a way that is good for her. In doing so, I pave the way for neo-Aristotelian virtue ethicists to develop an adequate response to the self-absorption objection along Toner’s lines. (shrink)

Aristotle’s account of the virtue of justice has been regarded as one of the least successful aspects of his ethics. Among the most serious criticisms lodged against his views are (i) that he fails to identify the proper subject matter of justice (LeBar 2020), (ii) that he wrongly identifies the characteristic motives relevant for justice and injustice (Williams 1980), and (iii) that his account is parochial, i.e., that it fails to correctly recognize or characterize our obligations of justice to those (...) outside our community (Annas 1995; Curzer 2012, ch. 13). Indeed, Mark LeBar has recently argued that, although Aristotle’s eudaimonist framework remains the most promising metaethical strategy to ground justice as a virtue of individual human beings, the normative content of his theory is so flawed that neo-Aristotelians ought to adopt a Kantian theory of justice that centers on according respect to persons (LeBar 2020). My aim in this paper is to defend Aristotle’s views from these criticisms in order to show that it holds promise as an account of justice as a virtue. Notably, neo-Aristotelians have generally neglected the topic of justice, despite its centrality to Aristotle’s ethics and to our own social lives. I argue that they ought to take Aristotle’s account seriously as a starting point for their own theorizing, while recognizing that it needs modification on some points. (shrink)

The intersection between virtue and care ethics is underexplored in contemporary moral philosophy. This thesis approaches care ethics from a neo-Aristotelian virtue ethical perspective, comparing the two frameworks and drawing on recent work on care to develop a theory thereof. It is split into seven substantive chapters serving three major argumentative purposes, namely the establishment of significant intertheoretical agreement, the compilation and analysis of extant and new distinctions between the two theories, and the synthesis of care ethical insights with (...) neo-Aristotelianism to generate a virtue ethical theory of care. In the first two chapters, I outline virtue ethics and care ethics, and argue for considerable agreement over central premises. Chapter 2 summarises the foundational commitments of care ethics, focusing particularly on their relational ontology and its links to the other ethical claims care ethicists universally ascribe to, namely particularism, partialism, the moral salience of emotions, and the rejection of hard public/private distinctions. Chapter 3 lays out the central concepts in neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics, including eudaimonism, virtue, and character traits, and drawing a number of comparisons between virtue and care ethics specifically with regard to relational ontology and the meta-ethical commitments it underpins. In addition to doing the necessary expository work for the remainder of the thesis, Chapters 2 and 3 also argue that care ethics and virtue ethics have much more in common than is typically acknowledged – the first major contribution of this thesis to the literature. Chapters 2 and 3 to provide at least a prima facie justification for pursuit of the questions I confront in the remainder of the thesis. In Chapter 4, I ask what differentiates these two ethical theories. I survey some of the differences which philosophers in either camp have identified and offer some of my own. I suggest that several of those differences either rest on misunderstandings of one ethic or the other, or that in erecting a divide between virtue and care ethics they also disunify ethics of care. I do, however, identify two differences which seem defensible. Specifically, they are that virtue ethics seems to lack an account of care, which I define minimally as a response or responsiveness to need, and that virtue and care ethics organise their meta-ethical and normative concepts differently. This chapter thus presents a second contribution to the literature: a study of the differences between virtue ethics and care ethics. It also serves to set the trajectory for the remaining chapters, where I respond to the claim that virtue ethics lack an account of care. I spend the remainder of the thesis constructing what I take to be a satisfying foundation for a virtue ethical theory of care. In Chapter 5, I offer three initially viable means of incorporating care into virtue ethics, all of which treat care as a virtue. These are the analogical approach, according to which care is analogous to an existing virtue; the additive approach, according to which care is a novel virtue; and the bundling approach, according to which care is a bundle of virtues. I also offer and evaluate reasons to reject the claim that care is a virtue, concluding that the claim is indeed a viable one so long as the concept of care is sufficiently thick, and I contend that analogical approaches, and particularly analogies with charity, outperform the others. Chapter 5 therefore serves two ends. First, it proffers a novel meta-analysis of concepts of care as a virtue, and thus makes a third contribution to the literature. In doing so, it makes an inroad into the second: the development of a neo-Aristotelian theory of care. Chapter 6 continues this project. I attempt to show how care can be construed as an act-type and a practice. I argue in this chapter that practices are a subcategory of actions, and that care qualifies as an Anscombean act-type which aims at the meeting of needs relating to the care-recipient’s flourishing. I go on to consider the implications of this account for ethics which deploy care as a moral concept, maintaining that it not only offers a better account of consequences than theories of care which include success criteria, but also that it affords us interesting insights into the distinction between ‘caring about’ and ‘caring for’ which allow us to make sense of certain tenets of neo-Aristotelianism. This represents a contribution to both discourses, since neither care nor virtue ethicists working at the intersection of their respective normative theories have delved very deeply into the philosophy of action. Chapter 7 discusses caring relations, suggesting that a virtue ethical theory of caring relations can lean on the work care ethicists have done, and adding some necessary refinements, such as a distinction between ideal and non-ideal caring relations, and a theory of caring relations as reasons for action. This final chapter also draws these three concepts of care together by arguing that virtuous caregivers who are invested in the flourishing of those for whom they care are also sensitive to the relations those care-recipients bear to their institutional environment. I argue that because they are caring participants in caring relations, virtuous agents are characteristically motivated by states of need and dependency to engage in certain sorts of conventionally political practices. In other words, the virtue or virtues of caring characteristically manifest in certain sorts of political or social practices, relating specifically to those areas of moral life. This allows us to build upon recent work in feminist virtue ethics of the sort offered by Tessman and Friedman. I also offer a novel analysis of migration, suggesting that the account of care presenting here is analytically useful both when it comes to historical cases of migration such as the underground railroads and escapes from Nazi-occupied Europe, but also for contemporary issues such as the migrations occurring in the Southern United States and in much of Europe. I thus conclude not only that virtue ethicists ought to incorporate care into their normative framework, and that the theory of care presented here is a coherent one, but that this leads us naturally into applied topics such as virtue politics. I conclude the thesis by considering some its implications and by identifying some further avenues for research. (shrink)

Many scholars have argued that the Protestant Reformation generally departed from virtue ethics, and this claim is often accepted by Protestant ethicists. This essay argues against such discontinuity by demonstrating John Calvin’s reception of ethical concepts from Augustine and Aristotle. Calvin drew on Augustine’s concept of eudaimonia and many aspects of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics , including concepts of choice, habit, virtue as a mean, and the specific virtues of justice and prudence. Calvin also evaluated the problem of pagan virtue in (...) light of traditional Augustinian texts discussed in the medieval period. He interpreted the Decalogue as teaching virtue, including the cardinal virtues of justice and temperance. Calvin was not the harbinger of an entirely new ethical paradigm, but rather a participant in the mainstream of Christian thinkers who maintained a dual interest in Aristotelian and Augustinian eudaimonist virtue ethics. (shrink)

This paper examines one of the central objections levied against neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics: the self-absorption objection. Proponents of this objection state that the main problem with neo-Aristotelian accounts of moral motivation is that they prescribe that our ultimate reason for acting virtuously is that doing so is for the sake of and/or is constitutive of our own eudaimonia. In this paper, I provide an overview of the various attempts made by neo-Aristotelian virtue ethicists to address the self-absorption (...) objection and argue that they all fall short for one reason or another. I contend that the way forward for neo-Aristotelian virtue ethicists is to reject the view that the virtuous agent ought to organize her life in a way that is ultimately good for her, and instead adopt a more expansive conception of her ultimate end, one in which no special preference is given to her own good. (shrink)

The ubiquity of online social networks has led to the phenomena of having friends that are known only through online interaction. In many cases, no physical interaction has taken place, but still people consider each other friends. This paper analyzes whether these friendships would satisfy the conditions of Aristotle’s highest level of friendship–what he calls perfect friendship. Since perfect friendship manifests through a shared love of virtue, physical proximity would seem to be unnecessary at first glance. However, I argue that (...) the nature of online interaction may preclude us from fully recognizing the virtues and vices in others to the degree necessary for perfect friendship to occur. As such, online friendships face significant obstacles against moving beyond utility or pleasure, and this has important repercussions for online interaction more generally. (shrink)

This chapter outlines the kind of virtue ethics the author attributes to Hume and Nietzsche. There are two major differences between Aristotelian eudaimonistic virtue ethics and that of Hume and Nietzsche, discussed in the chapter. First, though character plays an important, even central role in their theories, the notions of ideal character and character as a highly robust set of dispositions are not evident. Second, the chapter explicates the virtue ethics of Nietzsche and Hume in an empiricist naturalistic manner. (...) It addresses the question: What type of virtue ethics best suits Hume's and Nietzsche's views? The chapter summarizes the core features of the response dependent virtue ethics ascribed to Hume and Nietzsche. It also outlines the basic nature of the differing sensibilities which for Hume and Nietzsche bring the world of ethics as a world of normativity into being. (shrink)

Abstract: In The Evolution of Morality, Richard Joyce argues there is good reason to think that the “moral sense” is a biological adaptation, and that this provides a genealogy of the moral sense that has a debunking effect, driving us to the conclusion that “our moral beliefs are products of a process that is entirely independent of their truth, … we have no grounds one way or the other for maintaining these beliefs.” I argue that Joyce's skeptical conclusion is not (...) warranted. Even if the moral sense is a biological adaptation, developed moralities (such as Aristotelian eudaimonism) can “co-opt” it into new roles so that the moral judgments it makes possible can come to transcend the evolutionary process that is “entirely independent of their truth.” While evolutionary theory can shed much light on our shared human nature, moral theories must still be vindicated, or debunked, by moral arguments. (shrink)

In contemporary philosophy, the will is often regarded as a sheer philosophical fiction. In Will as Commitment and Resolve , Davenport argues not only that the will is the central power of human agency that makes decisions and forms intentions but also that it includes the capacity to generate new motivation different in structure from prepurposive desires. The concept of "projective motivation" is the central innovation in Davenport's existential account of the everyday notion of striving will. Beginning with the contrast (...) between "eastern" and "western" attitudes toward assertive willing, Davenport traces the lineage of the idea of projective motivation from NeoPlatonic and Christian conceptions of divine motivation to Scotus, Kant, Marx, Arendt, and Levinas. Rich with historical detail, this book includes an extended examination of Platonic and Aristotelian eudaimonist theories of human motivation. Drawing on contemporary critiques of egoism, Davenport argues that happiness is primarily a byproduct of activities and pursuits aimed at other agent-transcending goods for their own sake. In particular, the motives involved in virtue and in its practice as understood by Alasdair MacIntyre are projective rather than eudaimonist. This theory is supported by analyses of radical evil, accounts of intrinsic motivation in existential psychology, and contemporary theories of identity-forming commitment in analytic moral psychology. Following Viktor Frankl, Joseph Raz, and others, Davenport argues that Harry Frankfurt's conception of caring requires objective values worth caring about, which serve as rational grounds for projecting new final ends. The argument concludes with a taxonomy of values or goods, devotion to which can make life meaningful for us. (shrink)

Despite the fact that the High-Church Tory, Mary Astell, held political views diametrically opposed to the Whiggish Catharine Trotter Cockburn and Catharine Macaulay, it is here argued that their metaethical views were surprisingly similar. All were influenced by a blend of Christian universalism and Aristotelian eudaimonism, which accepted the existence of a law of nature, that we strive for happiness, and that happiness results from living in accord with our God-given nature. They differed with regard to epistemological issues; (...) the means by which we can know the law of nature, and with regard to the characterization of that nature; our telos. Traces of the ethical theories developed by these women can also be seen in the works of the philosophically informed novelists, Sarah Fielding, Jane Collier, Sarah Scott, and Hannah More. (shrink)

In this paper I argue for five theses. The first thesis is that ethicists should think about happiness and unhappiness together, with as much detail and particularity as possible. Thinking about unhappiness will help us get clear about happiness, and distinguish the different things that come under that name. The second is that happiness and unhappiness can both be important positively valuable features of a worthwhile life. The third thesis is that Modern Eudaimonism, the claim that every reason to (...) act is a reason either to promote or facilitate happiness, or to decrease or prevent unhappiness, is false. The fourth thesis is thatAristotle is not a Modern Eudaimonist. Aristotelian Eudaimonism says that every reason to act is a reason that derives from what Aristotle calls eudaimonia. But “derives from” is a different connective from “either to promote or facilitate X, or to decrease or prevent not-X”; and eudaimonia is not happiness. So AE ≠ ME. Finally, the fifth thesis is that AE is false too. (shrink)

This paper is a discussion of some themes from Justice: Rights and Wrongs, by Nicholas Wolterstorff. The paper begins with a discussion of Wolterstorff’s distinction between justice as inherent rights and justice as inherent worth. It is suggested that what especially distinguishes Wolterstorff’s position is his grounding of rights in divine love. An elucidation and defence of an Aristotelian eudaimonist grounding for rights is offered. The paper ends with a critique of the ideas that human well-being can be understood (...) in terms of what God desires for us and that our worth depends on God’s love. (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)

Daniel Haybron’s recent book, The Pursuit of Unhappiness, includes a defense of a normative notion of well-being. Haybron’s main contribution is to argue that a central component of well-being is the fulfillment of one’s “emotional nature,” that is, fulfillment as a unique individual who is such as to find happiness in some things rather than others. We argue that the contrast he draws between his view and “Aristotelian” views of well-being is problematic in two ways. First, Haybron says that (...) unlike the self-fulfillment theory, Aristotelian theories of well-being are “perfectionist” theories; we argue that Haybron’s concerns about “perfectionism” should be distinguished from Aristotelian eudaimonist theory. Second, Haybron’s self-fulfillment theory makes an individual’s well-being wholly dependent on that individual’s make-up, and we argue that that is a bad fit with our considered convictions about well-being. (shrink)

The most long-standing criticism of virtue ethics in its traditional, eudaimonistic variety centers on its apparently foundational appeal to nature in order to provide a source of normativity. This paper argues that a failure to appreciate both the giving and taking of reasons in sustaining an ethical outlook can distort a proper understanding of the available options for this traditional version of virtue ethics. To insist only on giving reasons, without also taking (maybe even considering) the reasons provided by others, (...) displays a sadly illiberal form of prejudice. The paper finds and criticizes such a distortion in Jesse Prinz’s recent discussion of the ‘Normativity Challenge’ to Aristotelian virtue ethics, thus highlighting a common tendency that we can helpfully move beyond. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Aquinas’s Theory of Natural Law: An Analytic Reconstruction by Anthony J. LisskaV. Bradley LewisAnthony J. Lisska. Aquinas’s Theory of Natural Law: An Analytic Reconstruction. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996. Pp. xv + 320. Paper, $24.95.This volume aims to provide an explication of the natural law theory of St. Thomas Aquinas “consistent with the expectation of philosophers in the analytic tradition” (10–11, 17). Accordingly, the author begins, in the first (...) three chapters, by reviewing the recent history of Anglo-American metaethics, aligning himself broadly with those critics of analytic ethics like G. E. M. Anscombe, Alasdair MacIntyre, John Finnis, Martha Nussbaum, and Henry Veatch, who have argued for a recovery of Aristotelian moral theory, against varieties of intuitionism, non-cognitivism, and neo-Kantianism. Lisska’s principal objective is to present a reconstructed natural law theory based primarily on Aquinas’s discussion in questions 90–97 of the prima secundae of the Summa theologiae (a translation of these questions is appended to the book). This he offers mostly in the fourth, fifth and eighth chapters of the book. The sixth chapter is a critique of John Finnis’s account of natural law and the seventh is an exposition of the views of Henry [End Page 526] Veatch. The ninth chapter presents some suggestions on how the author’s account can illuminate controversies over the grounding of human rights, and the tenth is a brief conclusion.The three introductory chapters consist mainly of a review and endorsement of the critics of academic ethics since Moore’s Prıncipia Ethıca. Having accepted arguments for the inadequacy of modern ethics, Lisska argues for the recovery of Aquinas’s views which he sees as in fundamental continuity with Aristotelian ethics (84, 89, 100, 102–105, 108, 134–36). His central thesis is that natural law is a “second-order inquiry” based on a realist metaphysics of the human person as defined by a set of dispositional properties, the realization of which constitutes Aristotelian eudaimonia and Thomistic beatitudo (17, 104–106, 131–37, 152–55, 186, 195–201). Moreover, Lisska contends that Aristotelian “eudaimonism” constitutes an adequate account of moral obligation: what he calls, after Veatch, “obligatory teleology” (107–109, 121, 202–205, 235).At the core of Lisska’s account, then, is a metaphysical dispute that pits Aristotelian essentialism against modern reductionist ontology. This metaphysical core is separated from any theological implications in the fifth chapter (especially 119–23, 137) and Lisska reinforces his metaphysical thesis by appealing to Saul Kripke’s discussion of natural kinds and the early work of Hilary Putnam (97–99, 125, 206–209). Given the centrality of metaphysical argument, a critique of Finnis’s theory goes without saying, and Lisska devotes a chapter to it, adding another to expound Henry Veatch’s contrary view.While this book undertakes an important effort to recover a workable natural law theory—especially in its commendable stress on metaphysical questions—it is, as a whole, less satisfactory than it might have been. A good part of this owes to the book’s abstraction from historical questions. No sustained attention is devoted to the problems that accompanied the reception of Aristotle by Christian theologians, nor to the place of natural law in Aquinas’s overall understanding of morality. The former point is not so surprising, given the book’s analytic concerns; the latter, however, carries more serious theoretical implications. Why is it, for example, that natural law takes up so little space compared to the questions on happiness, human acts, and the habits and virtues in the prima secundae, not to mention the detailed treatments of the virtues and vices in the secunda secundae? Similarly, where Aquinas stresses that natural law as law is directed to the common good (Iallae 90.2), Lisska treats it mostly as a guide to “self-realization.”This issue suggests the tensions between Aristotle and Aquinas, tensions that seem to show themselves precisely in Aquinas’s discussion of the very notion of natural law, a notion that has no equivalent in Aristotle. This question hangs over Lisska’s brief treatment of obligation, in particular, since that concept is also lacking explicit treatment in... (shrink)

We do not generally take the Hobbesian project to be one that encourages human flourishing. I will argue that it is; indeed, I will propose that Hobbes attempts the first modern project to provide for the possibility of the diversity of human flourishing in the civil state. To do so, I will draw on the recent work of Donald Rutherford, who takes Hobbes to be a eudaimonist in the Aristotelian tradition.

I demonstrate here that St. Anselm”s understanding of free will fits neatly into an Aristotelian conceptual framework. Aristotle”s four causes are first aligned with Anselm”s four senses of “will”. The volitional hierarchy Anselm”s definition of free will entails is then detailed, culminating in its reconciliation with Eudaimonism. The summum bonum turns out to be the apex of that series of actualizations or perfections. I conclude by explicating Anselm’s teleological understanding of sin by reference to his analog of Aristotle’s (...) essence-accident distinction. (shrink)

Aristotelian ethics is still very promising, mainly because of its meta-ethical naturalism. As in medicine, what’s good versus bad is based on knowledge of the nature of something. With the addition of a strong doctrine of voluntary action, the morally good life is one within which one pursues one’s human flourishing . An obstacle is Aristotle’s essentialism whereby he stresses what is distinctive about human beings, not what is a matter of their nature, as the standard of right versus (...) wrong conduct. If this is amended in Aristotle what emerges is what some have called a genuine naturalist, biocentric ethical eudaimonism. Here I sketch the case for this amended Aristotelian ethical view. (shrink)

Aristotelian naturalism is a good vantage point from which to consider the moral implications of evolution. Sociobiologists err in arguing that evolution is the basis for morality: not all or only moral features and institutions are selected for. Nor does the longevity of an institution argue for its moral status. On the other hand, facts about human capacities can have implications concerning human obligations, as Aristotle suggests. Aristotle’s eudaimonistic approach to ethics suggests that the notion of interests is far (...) subtler than many have realized, and leaves open the possibility that cooperativeness may be adaptive, virtuous, and a good thing for the agent. Lawrence and Nohria argue along remarkably similar lines, and they provide evidence against those who would question the existence of character. But promising as the Aristotelian approach is, it seems to give an inadequate account of our moral responsibility to those who are not members of our community. (shrink)

Aristotelian naturalism is a good vantage point from which to consider the moral implications of evolution. Sociobiologists err in arguing that evolution is the basis for morality: not all or only moral features and institutions are selected for. Nor does the longevity of an institution argue for its moral status. On the other hand, facts about human capacities can have implications concerning human obligations, as Aristotle suggests. Aristotle’s eudaimonistic approach to ethics suggests that the notion of interests is far (...) subtler than many have realized, and leaves open the possibility that cooperativeness may be adaptive, virtuous, and a good thing for the agent. Lawrence and Nohria argue along remarkably similar lines, and they provide evidence against those who would question the existence of character. But promising as the Aristotelian approach is, it seems to give an inadequate account of our moral responsibility to those who are not members of our community. (shrink)

I defend a neo-Aristotelian ethical theory I call "naturalized virtue ethics," or NVE. This is a naturalistic, teleological theory. Human beings are a species of social animal for whom there is a characteristic form of life. An individual human being may be evaluated as a good or bad specimen according to how well that individual realizes the human form of life. To be a good human being, one must possess those traits of character that reliably enable one to achieve (...) the ends of creatures like us. ;In Chapter 1, I present reasons for why we should prefer ethical naturalism. ;In Chapter 2, I discuss what to many is still a contentious issue: natural teleology. NVE is teleological. Teleology, both in ethics and in science, has often been looked upon with suspicion. I argue that the teleology operative in NVE is natural, or naturalizable. NVE is on a metaphysically sound foundation. ;In Chapter 3, I further explicate NVE and show how several of the standard virtues are justified by the lights of NVE. I also show the further applications of the theory to issues of distributive justice and law. These examples provide tests of the descriptive and explanatory adequacy of NVE, a test the theory passes. ;In Chapter 4, I consider the charge that ethical naturalism commits some one or other egregious metaethical mistake. This sort of mistake has been associated variously with the fact/value gap, the is/ought gap, and the naturalistic fallacy. I discuss these issues in their general form and relative to NVE, showing that there are no problems here for NVE. ;In Chapter 5, I place NVE is the space of contemporary virtue theories and also contrast it with eudaimonistic or welfare-based ethics and with evolutionary ethics. NVE is a good-based virtue theory, but it is neither a kind of eudaimonism nor an evolutionary ethics. Considerations of evolution lead us to certain criticisms of ethical theories like NVE. Contra the critics, I show NVE's compatibility with neo-Darwinism. I then suggest further research. (shrink)

The paper outlines Aristotelian and Aquinian eudaimonistic conception of hap_piness and its criticism in modern ethics in the context of the rehabilitation of this concept in contemporary moral philosophy. On the background of the modern discussion it presents the objectivist theory of happiness in the frame of Neoaristotelian ethics of virtues. In its description the author introduces the inclusive concept of happiness. He defines the true happiness as an optimal relationship between the subject and the world, making a difference (...) between an apparent and a true hap_piness and stressing the function of practical reason in reaching the latter.The principle of the true happiness is true love, which is made possible by the moral virtues considered as good dispositions, supporting the operative human skills. The ideal of happiness works as an regulative idea, which directs the human behavior and gives it its meaning. (shrink)

In this profound and yet accessible book, John Kekes discusses moral wisdom: a virtue essential to living a morally good and personally satisfying life. He advances a broad, nontechnical argument that considers the adversities inherent in the human condition and assists in the achievement of good lives. The possession of moral wisdom, Kekes asserts, is a matter of degree: more of it makes lives better, less makes them worse. Exactly what is moral wisdom, however, and how should it be sought? (...) Ancient Greek and medieval Christian philosophers were centrally concerned with it. By contrast, modern Western sensibility doubts the existence of a moral order in reality; and because we doubt it, and have developed no alternatives, we have grown dubious about the traditional idea of wisdom. Kekes returns to the classical Greek sources of Western philosophy to argue for the contemporary significance of moral wisdom. He develops a proposal that is eudaimonistic—secular, anthropocentric, pluralistic, individualistic, and agonistic. He understands moral wisdom as focusing on the human effort to create many different forms of good lives. Although the approach is Aristotelian, the author concentrates on formulating and defending a contemporary moral ideal. The importance of this ideal, he shows, lies in increasing our ability to cope with life's adversities by improving our judgment. In chapters on moral imagination, self-knowledge, and moral depth, Kekes calls attention to aspects of our inner life that have been neglected because of our cultural inattention to moral wisdom. He discusses these inner processes through the tragedies of Sophocles, which can inspire us with their enduring moral significance and help us to understand the importance of moral wisdom to living a good life. (shrink)

This volume provides a clear and accessible overview of central concepts, positions, and arguments in virtue ethics. While it focuses primarily on Aristotelian virtue ethics, it also includes discussion of alternative forms of virtue ethics and competing normative theories. 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? -/- With useful Summaries and Further Reading sections at the end of each chapter, the book is written for advanced undergraduates, but should also be useful to graduate students, professional philosophers, and anyone interested in normative ethics, applied ethics, moral psychology, or moral education. (shrink)

Virtue ethical theories typically follow a neo-Aristotelian or quasi-Aristotelian model, making use of various combinations of key features of the Aristotelian model including eudaimonism, perfectionism, an account of practical wisdom, and the thesis of the unity of the virtues. In this paper I motivate what I call a Humean virtue ethic, which is a deeply particularist account of virtue that rejects all of these central tenets, at least in their traditional forms. Focusing on three factors by (...) which Hume determines virtue, I show that this view of virtue resonates with the aims of the moral particularist, who holds that there are no general moral principles and that right action is determined only with reference to context and on a case-by-case basis. I use Hume’s texts to introduce and motivate three claims, which I find plausible, and which I will show can be read together as entailing an interesting and underappreciated picture of virtue that is also able to solve an important dilemma for particularist virtue ethics. (shrink)

The first part of this project deals with the more recent historical discussions of the topic, Most of which focus on the views of aristotle and j s mill. These two authors turn out to be the focus of attention of most writers who wish to consider the major historical reflections on happiness, Ones that have shaped our thinking on the topic. The second part of this project deals with contemporary original thinking about happiness. Yet here, Too, The major themes (...) on the topic tend to hark back to either the aristotelian or the millian line of analysis. In this section various putative components of happiness or philosophical topics and methods related to understanding happiness are discussed one by one. The paper concludes with some reflections of the authors about the merits of a eudaimonistic conception of happiness. (shrink)

The author argues that Rand’s ethical theory is much closer in essence to the eudaimonist, self-perfectionist perspectives of Aristotle and the neo-Aristotelians, Douglas Den Uyl and Douglas Rasmussen, than to the “selfish,” egoistic ethics many assume to be her basic position. He discusses Rand’s anti-hedonist and pro-rational selfishness positions as corollaries of man’s life as the standard of moral value, as well as Rand’s point that treating either happiness or personal benefit as the standard of moral value is a reversal (...) of cause and effect. He also identifies the oppressive negativism in Rand’s discussion of the seven canonical Objectivist virtues. (shrink)

Harris develops a neo-Aristotelian account of practical and moral reasoning that does account for such decisions of good people. On this account moral reasoning is part of a larger practice of practical reasoning and is viable only if it integrates smoothly into this larger practice. Good people, on Harris’s view of them, have a number of kinds of concerns that are integrated in their practical reasoning dispositions. Persons with “integrity in the thick sense” care about their family members, their (...) friends, about less intimate members of their communities and about “respectable” strangers from outside the community; they also care about having interesting things to do and meaningful work, and about doing some things in an excellent way. Insofar as people really care about any of these things, the satisfaction of the concerns produces a satisfying and meaningful life for the agent. So Harris’s theory is a kind of eudaimonism, though he points out that what people are seeking in pursuing these ends is the ends themselves—say, the well-being of friends or of respectable strangers or the well-turned musical phrase—and not something in addition called “happiness” to which these ends are means. (shrink)

According to the ethical system of eudaimonism, a philosophy that predates Aristotle, individuals have a responsibility to recognize and live in accordance with their daimon or "true self." The daimon refers to the potentialities of each person, the realization of which represents the greatest fulfillment in living of which each is capable. The daimon is an ideal in the sense of being an excellence, a perfection toward which one strives and, hence, it can give meaning and direction to one's (...) life. Eudaimonia, then, is activity in accordance with one's daimon. This is what is considered worth having in life. Since Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics is concerned with the proper ends of human functioning, he rejects the view of eudaimonia as a subjective state equivalent to, or similar to, hedonic enjoyment. But if psychologists are to be able to make productive use of the Aristotle's conception of eudaimonia, it must be rendered in a form more congenial to the field. In pursuing this goal, I have found it necessary to take several significant departures from the Aristotelian perspective, while I have endeavored to remain true to Aristotle's ethical objectives. The most important of these departures is to consider eudaimonia to have a subjective component embodying the experiences that flow from efforts to live in truth to one's daimon by striving to develop one's aptitudes and talents for purposes deemed worth having in life. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Classical presentations of the Buddhist path prescribe the cultivation of various good qualities that are necessary for spiritual progress, from mindfulness and loving-kindness to faith and wisdom. Examining the way in which such qualities are described and classified in early Buddhism—with special reference to their treatment in the Visuddhimagga by the fifth-century Buddhist thinker Buddhaghosa—the present article employs a comparative method in order to identify the Buddhist catalog of virtues. The first part sketches the characteristics of virtue as analyzed by (...) neo-Aristotelian theories. Relying on these accounts, the second part considers three lists from early Buddhism as possible catalogs of virtue: the components of ethical conduct, the 37 factors that contribute to awakening, and the wholesome or beautiful mental factors. I then raise the question of why the Buddhist tradition developed several classifications of virtue, whereas the Western tradition of virtue ethics used a single category. Appealing to the connection between the virtues and living well in the eudaimonistic version of virtue ethics, I propose that one of the reasons why Buddhism developed multiple lists of virtues is its pluralistic acceptance of different modalities of living well and associated practices, in MacIntyre’s sense of the term. These modalities and practices are not equal, but are ordered hierarchically. Accordingly, I conclude that Buddhist ethics ought to be seen as a pluralist-gradualist system rather than a universalist theory. (shrink)