Virtues, Rules, and Good Reasons

The Monist 47 (4):545-562 (1963)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

There seems now to be a wide agreement among contemporary philosophers that one can give good reasons why one ought to adhere to certain rules, but it is not so widely agreed that one ought to cultivate certain virtues which cannot be said to consist merely in the habit of adhering to rules—as probably can be said of justice, truthfulness, honesty and many others. The difference between these points of view may be described as the difference between a legalistic and an idealistic ethics. In the one the moral life is conceived as a careful adherence to correct rules of conduct; in the other it is conceived as a striving toward an ideal of perfection. In the latter the virtues of keeping rules are a part but not the whole of moral virtue.. But in legalism the keeping of rules is the whole of moral virtue. There is no duty to cultivate any virtues beyond those involved in moral laws. The other virtues are praiseworthy but they are not obligatory, not duties; it is not wrong to neglect them, though they may be the occasions for citations, awards and honors for “conduct above and beyond the call of duty.”

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

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

The Virtues of Stewardship.Jennifer Welchman - 1999 - Environmental Ethics 21 (4):411-423.
No rules without virtues: No virtues without rules.David Braybrooke - 1991 - Social Theory and Practice 17 (2):139-156.
Virtue Ethics as a Resource in Business.Robert Audi - 2012 - Business Ethics Quarterly 22 (2):273-291.
Reasons for belief, reasoning, virtues.Christopher Hookway - 2006 - Philosophical Studies 130 (1):47--70.
Solidarity and Social Moral Rules.Adam Cureton - 2012 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 15 (5):691-706.
Reasons, rules and virtues in moral education.C. Wringe - 1998 - Journal of Philosophy of Education 32 (2):225–237.
The good engineer: Giving virtue its due in engineering ethics.Charles E. Harris - 2008 - Science and Engineering Ethics 14 (2):153-164.
The social virtues: Two accounts. [REVIEW]S. Goldberg - 2009 - Acta Analytica 24 (4):237-248.
Aquinas and the Pagan Virtues.Angela McKay Knobel - 2011 - International Philosophical Quarterly 51 (3):339-354.

Analytics

Added to PP
2011-01-09

Downloads
66 (#222,838)

6 months
3 (#447,120)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references