Review of Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski, Exemplarist Moral Theory [Book Review]

Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2017 (10) (2017)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski believes that a comprehensive moral theory can be constructed by identifying moral exemplars and by investigating (to put it very roughly) what it is that makes them tick. We identify moral exemplars by direct reference to persons we admire "upon reflection." Moral exemplars are persons like that. Two emotions will play a central role in this type of moral theory: admiration, and its opposite, contempt. Zagzebski's theory proceeds by rough analogy with a physical theory that identifies instances of water and then goes on to investigate the physical make-up of the natural kind, water. But an even better comparison, as she says, is to a community of linguistic users which identifies various instances of tigers, say, and then goes on to investigate the (possibly evolving) referent of the species-term "tiger." Zagzebski provides an engaging, illuminating, and deeply human discussion of how the details of this exemplarist approach, with its investigation into the psychological make up of moral exemplars, might be developed.

Links

PhilArchive

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Exemplarist virtue theory.Linda Zagzebski - 1996 - Metaphilosophy 41 (1-2):41-57.
Virtue Theory and Exemplars.Linda Zagzebski - 2012 - Philosophical News 4.
Spiritual exemplars.Ian James Kidd - 2018 - International Journal of Philosophy and Theology 79 (4):410-424.
Moral judgment and emotions.Kyle Swan - 2004 - Journal of Value Inquiry 38 (3):375-381.
Divine Motivation Theory and Exemplarism.Linda Zagzebski - 2016 - European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 8 (3):109-121.
Divine Motivation Theory.Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski - 2004 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
Virtue epistemology and moral luck.Mark Silcox - 2006 - Journal of Moral Philosophy 3 (2):179--192.
Natural Kinds.Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski - 1979 - Dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles
The Dilemma of Freedom and Foreknowledge.Timothy O'Connor - 1993 - Philosophical Review 102 (1):139.

Analytics

Added to PP
2017-11-12

Downloads
289 (#64,063)

6 months
60 (#63,740)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Noell Birondo
University of Texas at El Paso

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references