The default position in Western ethics is that survivor’s guilt is either irrational or not rational, i.e., that while survivor’s guilt might be understandable, it is not justified in the sense of there being good reason for a person to exhibit it. From a widely held perspective, for example, one ought to feel guilty only for having done wrong, and in a culpable way, which, by hypothesis, a mere survivor has not done. Typical is the following: ‘Strictly speaking, survivor guilt (...) is not rational guilt, for surviving the Holocaust, or surviving battle….is not typically because a person has deliberately let another take his place in harm’ (N Sherman, ‘Guilt in War’). However, I find in the African tradition resources that promise to entail and plausibly explain why it would be reasonable, and specifically morally desirable, for a person to feel survivor’s guilt. The core idea that I take from this tradition is that a person is virtuous insofar as she is communal in her actions and attitudes. In my contribution I develop the hypothesis that feeling guilty upon the dumb luck of survival can be apt as a virtuous form of one’s attitudes being positively bound up with others. (shrink)

This essay first analyzes the concept of survivor’s guilt, distinguishing various manifestations of it and considering whether any truly counts as a form of guilt. Then, it addresses arguments for thinking that survivor’s guilt is unreasonable to exhibit, after which it takes up arguments for thinking that it is reasonable. The aim is not to come to some firm conclusion about these conceptual and evaluative matters, but instead to acquaint the reader with the debates about them among contemporary English-speaking philosophers.

This paper argues against the unity of the virtues, while trying to salvage some of its attractive aspects. I focus on the strongest argument for the unity thesis, which begins from the premise that true virtue cannot lead its possessor morally astray. I suggest that this premise presupposes the possibility of completely insulating an agent’s set of virtues from any liability to moral error. I then distinguish three conditions that separately foreclose this possibility, concentrating on the proposition that there is (...) more to morality than virtue alone—that is, not all moral considerations are ones to which some virtue is characteristically sensitive. If the virtues are not unified, the situationist critique of virtue ethics also turns out to be more difficult to establish than some have supposed. (shrink)

One of the most pressing challenges facing virtue theorists is the conflation problem. This problem concerns the difficulty of explaining the distinction between different types of virtue, such as the distinction between moral virtues and intellectual virtues. Julia Driver has argued that only an outcomes-based understanding of virtue can provide an adequate solution to the conflation problem. In this paper, I argue against Driver’s outcomes-based account, and propose an alternative motivations-based solution. According to this proposal, intellectual virtues can be identified (...) by the shared motivation for cognitive contact with reality, while moral virtues are identified by appeal to the characteristic motivations of kindness and justice. I defend the proposal by demonstrating that it produces plausible verdicts concerning the virtue status of candidate moral and intellectual virtues. (shrink)

According to situationists, the available empirical psychological data show that prevalent conceptions of virtue are ‘empirically inadequate.’ The charge is ambiguous. I begin by differentiating four families of empirical inadequacy charges, explaining the conceptual connections among the families, and showing how different situationists press different versions of the charges from each family. Then I explain how the empirical psychological model known as the ‘cognitive affective personality system,’ or ‘CAPS model,’ enables distinct responses to these varied charges. The CAPS response has (...) come under fire, though, and I close by responding to the five main challenges raised against it. (shrink)

I develop an account of the nature and value of being supportive in interpersonal relationships. In particular, I argue that the virtue of being supportive, construed as a modally demanding value, facilitates the autonomy of one's intimate and promotes a sense of unity in one's relationship. Moreover, the practice of being supportive plays an important role with regard to the familiar need to reconcile the normative demands of one's own projects with one's responsibilities to intimates.

Conceived of as a contender to other theories in substantive ethics, virtue ethics is often associated with, in essence, the following account or criterion of right action: VR: An action A is right for S in circumstances C if and only if a fully virtuous agent would characteristically do A in C. There are serious objections to VR, which take the form of counter-examples. They present us with different scenarios in which less than fully virtuous persons would be acting rightly (...) in doing what no fully virtuous agent would characteristically do in the circumstances. In this paper, various proposals for how to revise VR in order to avoid these counter-examples are considered. I will argue that in so far as the revised accounts really do manage to steer clear of the counter-examples to VR, something which it turns out is not quite true for all of them, they instead fall prey to other damaging objections. I end by discussing the future of virtue ethics, given what has come to light in the previous sections of the paper. In particular, I sketch the outlines of a virtue ethical account of rightness that is structurally different from VR. This account also faces important problems. Still, I suggest that further scrutiny is required before we are in a position to make a definitive decision about its fate. (shrink)

There is a certain kind of tension in recent accounts of the role of reasons in virtue ethics between two plausible claims that pull in different directions. First, that virtues are the central normative notion in virtue ethics; and second, that virtue is a kind of responsiveness to reasons: that reasons explain both what it is to act from virtue, and what the virtues are. I argue that this is a serious tension and necessitates a different account of the relationship (...) between virtues and reasons; one that explains the distinctive normative contribution of virtue, central to virtue ethics, and that also captures the ways in which virtues structure practical reason itself and provide normative reasons for thinking, feeling, and acting. I develop a view, which I call virtues as reasons structure, that achieves these aims by drawing a theoretical and practical distinction between reasons from virtue and reasons for virtue. On this view, character traits explain what reasons a person has. A generous person, for example, is one who characteristically takes certain facts to be reasons for action; these are reasons from the virtue. Reasons for the virtues have a different role in theoretical and practical reflection in grounding claims with respect to which character traits to develop. I conclude by arguing that this view does not lead to a problematic kind of relativism and suggest further lines of inquiry. (shrink)

According to one tradition, the virtues and vices should be understood in terms of their relation to value. But inside this tradition, there are three distinct proposals: virtues are intrinsically valuable; virtues are instrumentally valuable; or a hybrid proposal on which virtues are either intrinsically or instrumentally valuable. In this paper, I offer an alternative proposal inside this tradition. I propose that virtues and vices should be understood in terms of the degreed properties of being virtuous and being vicious, which (...) I analyze in terms of the value and disvalue of actions and attitudes. I defend my proposal as the best inside this tradition by showing how it is immune from standard problems the other three proposals face. (shrink)

Across time and cultures, envy is widely regarded as a vice. This paper provides a theory of viciousness that explains why envy is a vice. First, it sketches an account of the trait of envy, utilizing some of the social psychology literature on social comparisons. Second, it considers some theories of vices—including Neo-Aristotelian, Kant’s, and Driver’s consequentialism—and briefly argues that they are not adequate in general or with regard to envy. Lastly it articulates a theory of viciousness on which a (...) trait’s degree of viciousness is determined by its disposition to produce actions and attitudes that are of disvalue; it then applies this theory to envy. (shrink)

Ordinary and philosophical thought suggests recognizing a distinction between two ways something can be of final value. Something can be of final value in virtue of its connection to other things of value (“non-basic final value”) or something can be of final value regardless of its connection to other things of value (“basic final value”). The primary aim of this paper is to provide an account of this distinction. I argue that we have reason to draw this distinction as it (...) helps avoid certain problems. I criticize accounts of this distinction due to Warren Quinn, Fred Feldman, and Michael Zimmerman. I then provide my own positive account which incorporates several of the insights of those accounts while avoiding their pitfalls. I conclude by relating my account to issues concerning partiality and appropriate attitudes. (shrink)

This paper critically examines Michael Zimmerman’s account of basic final value in The Nature of Intrinsic Value. Zimmerman’s account has several positive features. Unfortunately, as I argue, given one plausible assumption about value his account derives a contradiction. I argue that rejecting that assumption has several implausible results and that we should instead reject Zimmerman’s account. I then sketch an alternative account of basic final value, showing how it retains some of the positive features of Zimmerman’s account while avoiding its (...) pitfalls. (shrink)

The claim that ordinary ethical discourse is typically true and that ethical facts are typically knowable seems in tension with the claim that ordinary ethical discourse is about features of reality friendly to a scientific worldview. Cornell Realism attempts to dispel this tension by claiming that ordinary ethical discourse is, in fact, discourse about the same kinds of things that scientific discourse is about: natural properties. We offer two novel arguments in reply. First, we identify a key assumption that we (...) find unlikely to be true. Second, we identify two features of typical natural properties that ethical properties lack. We conclude that Cornell Realism falls short of dispelling the tension between ethical conservativism and ethical naturalism. (shrink)

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

I argue that hope is a virtue insofar as it leads to a more realistic view of the future than dispositions like optimism and pessimism, promotes courage, and encourages an important kind of solidarity with others. In light of this proposal, I consider the relationship between hope and our beliefs about what is good as well as the conditions under which hope may fail to be a virtue.

Journal Name: Apeiron Issue: Ahead of print.

The present article sets out to defend the thesis that among the more or less familiar enemies or challenges an adequate theory of virtue has to cope with is another, less obvious one – virtue ethics itself. The project of establishing virtue ethics as a third paradigm of normative ethics at eye level with consequentialism and deontological approaches to ethics threatens to distort not just our ethical thinking but the theory of virtue itself. A theory of virtue that is able (...) to meet the demands of a full-blown virtue ethics necessarily has to face three fundamental dilemmas and thus seems to fail as an adequate theory of virtue. And vice versa: An ontologically and normatively viable theory of virtue will be unsuited to provide a promising starting point for virtue ethics as the “third kid on the block” among the options of self-standing paradigms of normative ethics. (shrink)

The paper opens with an account of moral ambition which, it argues, is both a coherent ideal and an admirable trait. It closes with a discussion of some of the ways in which this trait might differ from traditional virtues such as temperance, courage, or benevolence.

I sketch and respond to Ryan Byerly’s distinction between a Value-Based Approach to assessing proposed accounts of a virtue-here, humility-and what he calls a Counterexample Based Approach. My first section, on method, argues that, though distinct, the two approaches are not mutually exclusive and answer different questions. Engaging his claim that the former approach is superior to the latter, I suggest that we apply Byerly’s own idea that there are different kinds of value to show, contra Byerly, each approach may (...) be better than the other in different ways, and for different purposes. Adapting and applying a point from Aristotle and Aquinas, I suggest that Byerly’s core question--what kind of values a virtue has--may rely on a mistake, that of misunderstanding a virtue’s work of making people and things good as its possessing goodness itself. My latter section, on results, points out difficulties for Byerly's altruistic conception of humility and defends my own view, developed in an earlier “Philosophia” article, that humility is essentially a matter of remaining unimpressed with oneself. I conclude by engaging and rebutting Byerly’s contention that his analysis of humility best captures a certain religious view. (shrink)

Discussions about the permissibility of students using enhancements in education are often framed by the question, “Is a student who uses cognitive-enhancing drugs cheating?” While the question of cheating is interesting, it is but only one question concerning the permissibility of enhancement in education. Another interesting question is, “What kinds of students do we want in our academic institutions?” I suggest that one plausible answer to this question concerns the ideals of human excellence or virtues. The students we want in (...) our academic institutions are virtuous or, at least minimally, possess certain virtues. I argue that a virtuous student may choose to use cognitive-enhancing drugs for reasons of self-improvement. That a virtuous student may choose to use cognitive-enhancing drugs for reasons of self-improvement illustrates that under certain conditions motivation can determine the permissibility of using enhancements. Building upon this I suggest a virtues-based institutional rule for governing and guiding student-use of cognitive enhancers in an academic institution to be for the right reasons. This ideals of human excellence or virtues approach offers interesting and unique insights for issues of enhancement in education, as it might turn out, that uneasiness many people have about students using cognitive-enhancing drugs has less to do with issues of enhancement and more to do with the motivations and character of students. (shrink)

Which traits are beautiful? And is their beauty perceptual? It is argued that moral virtues are partly beautiful to the extent that they tend to give rise to a certain emotion— ecstasy—and that compassion tends to be more beautiful than fair-mindedness because it tends to give rise to this emotion to a greater extent. It is then argued, on the basis that emotions are best thought of as a special, evaluative, kind of perception, that this argument suggests that moral virtues (...) are partly beautiful to the extent that they tend to give rise to a certain kind of evaluative perceptual experience. (shrink)

This article discusses the encounter between virtue ethics and environmental ethics and the ways in which environmental virtue ethics confronts nonhuman axiology and the controversial theme of moral anthropocentrism. It provides a reasoned review of the relevant literature and a historical–conceptual rendition of how environmental and virtue ethics came to converge as well as the ways in which they diverge. It explains that contrary to important worries voiced by some non-anthropocentric environmental ethicists, environmental virtue ethics enables and requires a rich (...) and nuanced engagement with nonhuman values of all sorts—intrinsic as well as extrinsic, moral as well as nonmoral, anthropocentric as well as non-anthropocentric—and neither presupposes nor implies moral anthropocentrism in its normativity. Finally, the article considers the fortunes of, and some challenges for, environmental virtue ethics in its application to the ethics of climate change, an increasingly central topic in environmental ethics. This article proceeds as follows: the first section introduces virtue ethics; the second section looks at axiological and normative themes in environmental ethics; the third section discusses environmental virtue ethics; and the fourth section considers its application to climate change. The fifth section draws some conclusions. (shrink)

Post-traumatic growth (PTG) has been a key topic of research by psychologists over the last 25 years. But the idea that a person can benefit from adversity has been around for much longer, and is a stable in many mainstream cultures, and in theological and recent philosophical thinking. However, there has been, to date, little overlap between psychological research into PTG, and philosophical thinking about similar ideas. This is unfortunate, both because philosophers are not taking up potential sources of empirical (...) support, and because psychological research into PTG is subject to a range of criticisms and concerns. In this paper, we aim to show how philosophical thinking can address some of these, and as a result put psychological research into PTG on a firmer theoretical footing. (shrink)

This essay offers a working analysis of the trait of intellectual perseverance. It argues that intellectual perseverance is a disposition to overcome obstacles, so as to continue to perform intellectual actions, in pursuit of one’s intellectual goals. The trait of intellectual perseverance is not always an intellectual virtue. This essay provides a pluralist analysis of what makes it an intellectual virtue, when it is one. Along the way, it argues that the virtue of intellectual perseverance can be contrasted with both (...) a vice of deficiency and a vice of excess. It also suggests that the virtues of intellectual courage and intellectual self-control are types of intellectual perseverance. The essay ends with several open questions about the virtue of intellectual perseverance. My hope is that this essay will stimulate further interest in, and analysis of, this important intellectual trait. (shrink)

Abstract: This introduction to the collection Virtue and Vice, Moral and Epistemic addresses three main questions: (1) What is a virtue theory in ethics or epistemology? (2) What is a virtue? and (3) What is a vice? (1) It suggests that a virtue theory takes the virtues and vices of agents to be more fundamental than evaluations of acts or beliefs, and defines right acts or justified beliefs in terms of the virtues. (2) It argues that there are two important (...) but different concepts of virtue: virtues are qualities that attain good ends, and virtues are qualities that involve good motives. (3) Accordingly, vices are qualities that either fail to attain good ends or involve bad motives. Finally, the introduction summarizes the eleven essays in the collection, which are divided into four sections: the Structure of Virtue Ethics and Virtue Epistemology; Virtue and Context; Virtue and Emotion; and Virtues and Vices. (shrink)

Quassim Cassam (Cassam, Extremism, Routledge, 2022a) and Paul Katsafanas (Katsafanas, Philosopher’s Imprint 19:1–20, 2019) have argued that fanaticism and extremism are morally and epistemically vicious. I suggest an alternative approach that: (i) explains what makes fanaticism and extremism vicious in the very many cases in which they are; but also (ii) allows for cases in which fanaticism and extremism aren’t vices and may even be liberatory-virtues. My hope is that this approach might serve as a resource for those in liberatory (...) struggles. (shrink)

The recent literature on ad hominem argument contends that the speaker’s character is sometimes relevant to evaluating what she says. This effort to redeem ad hominems requires an analysis of character that explains why and how character is relevant. I argue that virtue epistemology supplies this analysis. Three sorts of ad hominems that attack the speaker’s intellectual character are legitimate. They attack a speaker’s: (1) possession of reliabilist vices; or (2) possession of responsibilist vices; or (3) failure to perform intellectually (...) virtuous acts. Legitimate ad hominems conclude that we should not believe what a speaker says solely on her say-so. (shrink)

The concept of wisdom is largely ignored by contemporary philosophers. But given recent movements in the fields of ethics and epistemology, the time is ripe for a return to this concept. This article lays some groundwork for further philosophical work in ethics and epistemology on wisdom. Its focus is the distinction between practical wisdom and theoretical wisdom or between phronesis and sophia . Several accounts of this distinction are considered and rejected. A more plausible, but also considerably more complex, account (...) is offered. The discussion sheds light on the relation between practical wisdom and theoretical wisdom, and on the positive character of each. (shrink)

Abstract: Against the background of a great deal of structural symmetry between intellectual and moral virtue and vice, it is a surprising fact that what is arguably the central or paradigm moral vice—that is, moral malevolence or malevolence proper—has no obvious or well-known counterpart among the intellectual vices. The notion of "epistemic malevolence" makes no appearance on any standard list of intellectual vices; nor is it central to our ordinary ways of thinking about intellectual vice. In this essay, I argue (...) that there is such a thing as epistemic malevolence and offer an account of its basic character and structure. Doing so requires a good deal of attention to malevolence simpliciter . In the final section of the essay, I offer an explanation of our relative unfamiliarity with this trait. (shrink)

Virtue ethics has been challenged on empirical grounds by philosophical interpreters of situationist social psychology. Challenges are necessarily challenges to something or other, so it’s only possible to understand the situationist challenge to virtue ethics if we have an antecedent grasp on virtue ethics itself. To this end, I first identify the non-negotiable “hard core” of virtue ethics with the conjunction of nine claims, arguing that virtue ethics does make substantive empirical assumptions about human conduct. Next, I rearticulate the situationist (...) challenge in light of these nine claims. I then turn to a discussion of specifications of several responses typically made by defenders of virtue ethics against the situationist challenge, arguing that most of them either are unsound or give up one of the elements in the hard core. A few, however, survive this criticism, and so I conclude by suggesting ways in which the situationist challenge might be not so much resisted as co-opted. Situational influences can be used to help people simulate virtue, a phenomenon I call factitious virtue. (shrink)

This article addresses the question whether we can know on the basis of folk intuitions that we have character traits. I answer in the negative, arguing that on any of the primary theories of knowledge, our intuitions about traits do not amount to knowledge. For instance, because we would attribute traits to one another regardless of whether we actually possessed such metaphysically robust dispositions, Nozickian sensitivity theory disqualifies our intuitions about traits from being knowledge. Yet we do think we know (...) that we have traits, so I am advancing an error theory, which means that I owe an account of why we fall into error. Why do we feel so comfortable navigating the language of traits if we lack knowledge of them? To answer this question, I refer to a slew of heuristics and biases. Some, like the fundamental attribution error, the false consensus effect, and the power of construal, pertain directly to trait attributions. Others are more general cognitive heuristics and biases whose relevance to trait attributions requires explanation and can be classed under the headings of input heuristics and biases and processing heuristics and biases. Input heuristics and biases include selection bias, availability bias, availability cascade, and anchoring. Processing heuristics and biases include disregard of base rates, disregard of regression to the mean, and confirmation bias. (shrink)

Virtues are standardly characterized as stable dispositions. A stable disposition implies that the virtuous actor must be disposed to act well in any domain required of them. For example, a politician is not virtuous if s/he is friendly in debate with an opponent, but hostile at home with a partner or children. Some recent virtue theoretic accounts focus on specific domains in which virtues can be exercised. I call these domain-variant accounts of virtue. This paper examines two such accounts: Randall (...) Curren and Charles Dorn’s (2018) discussion of virtue in the civic sphere, and Michael Brady’s (2018) account of virtues of vulnerability. I argue that being consistent with the standard characterization of virtue requires generalizing beyond a domain. I suggest four actions the authors could take to preserve their accounts while remaining consistent with the standard characterization. I also discuss how virtue education could be enhanced by domain-variant accounts. (shrink)

This chapter argues for an interpretation of Kant's psychology of moral evil that accommodates the so-called excluded middle cases and allows for variations in the magnitude of evil. The strategy involves distinguishing Kant's transcendental psychology from his empirical psychology and arguing that Kant's character rigorism is restricted to the transcendental level. The chapter also explains how Kant's theory of moral evil accommodates 'the badass'; someone who does evil for evil's sake.

This paper offers a critical analysis of the current debate in vice theory. Its main aim is to provide the reader with the conceptual and methodological tools to navigate the discussion among reliabilist, responsibilist, and obstructivist approaches to moral and epistemic vices. After a brief exploration of the reasons underlying the recent flourishing of vice theories (§2), the responsibilist account is introduced (§3) and several critical remarks are offered to ensure that this view can accommodate the cases of malevolent and (...) indifferent individuals (§4). The two following sections are devoted to a critical discussion of vice-reliabilism (§5) and Quassim Cassam’s obstructivism (§6). The conclusive section (§7) provides reasons to favor vice-responsibilism over vice-reliabilism and Heather Battaly’s pluralist approach, and sheds light on the innovative features of an obstructivist reading. (shrink)

Forgiveness seems especially apt in cases where the wrongdoer first performs some act of reparation. Suppose Valerie betrays Madison's trust out of careerist self-interest. The betrayal is serious, no excusing or exempting conditions obtain, and Madison responds with justified resentment. In one world, Valerie never acknowledges the impropriety of her past act and continues on as before. In another world, Valerie apologizes and sends Madison a beautiful bouquet of flowers. All else being equal, forgiveness seems called for or apt in (...) the second case in a way that it does not in the first. Reparative activities have a certain power, and forgiving in response to the wrongdoer's reparation strikes many as especially apt. (shrink)

The use of the term "applied ethics" to denote a particular field of moral inquiry (distinct from but related to both normative ethics and meta-ethics) is a relatively new phenomenon. The individuation of applied ethics as a special division of moral investigation gathered momentum in the 1970s and 1980s, largely as a response to early twentieth- century moral philosophy's overwhelming concentration on moral semantics and its apparent inattention to practical moral problems that arose in the wake of significant social and (...) technological transformations. The field of applied ethics is now a well established, professional domain sustained by institutional research centers, professional academic appointments, and devoted journals. As the field of applied ethics grew and developed, its contributors predominantly advocated consequentialist and deontological approaches to the problems they address; but lately a significant number of moral philosophers have begun to bring the resources of virtue ethics to bear upon the ever-evolving subject matters of applied ethics. (shrink)