‘Virtue Makes the Goal Right

Phronesis 56 (3):204-261 (2011)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Aristotle repeatedly claims that character-virtue “makes the goal right“, while Phronesis is responsible for working out how to achieve the goal. Many argue that these claims are misleading: it must be intellect that tells us what ends to pursue. I argue that Aristotle means just what he seems to say: despite putative textual evidence to the contrary, virtue is (a) a wholly non-intellectual state, and (b) responsible for literally supplying the contents of our goals. Furthermore, there are no good textual or philosophical reasons to reject this straightforward interpretation. Contrary to widespread opinion, Aristotle does not characterize Phronesis as supplying ends. Instead, its ethical import lies wholly in its ability to “determine the mean“. Moreover, because character involves non-rational cognition of the end as good, Aristotle can restrict practical intellect to deliberation without abandoning his anti-Humean view that we desire our ends because we find them good

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 86,592

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

Virtue and Reason in Plato and Aristotle.A. W. Price - 2011 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Aristotle and the Virtues.Howard J. Curzer - 2012 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Character, reliability and virtue epistemology.Jason Baehr - 2006 - Philosophical Quarterly 56 (223):193–212.
Modesty without Illusion.Jason Brennan - 2007 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 75 (1):111-128.
Does Hume Have an Ethics of Virtue?Marcia L. Homiak - 2000 - The Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy 7:191-200.
Aristotle’s Divided Mind: Some Thoughts on Intellectual Virtue and Aristotle’s Occasional Dualism.Jonathan J. Sanford - 2006 - Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 80:77-90.
Kant's Conception of Virtue.Lara Denis - 2006 - In Paul Guyer (ed.), Cambridge Companion to Kant and Modern Philosophy. Cambridge University Press.
Aristotle on the Virtues of Rhetoric.Amélie Rorty - 2011 - Review of Metaphysics 64 (4):715-733.

Analytics

Added to PP
2011-07-07

Downloads
474 (#31,127)

6 months
26 (#87,848)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Jessica Moss
New York University

References found in this work

Internal and External Reasons.Bernard Williams - 1979 - In Ross Harrison (ed.), Rational Action. Cambridge University Press. pp. 101-113.
Aristotle on learning to be good.Myles F. Burnyeat - 1980 - In Amélie Oksenberg Rorty (ed.), Essays on Aristotle's Ethics. University of California Press. pp. 69--92.
Virtue Theory and Abortion.Rosalind Hursthouse - 1991 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 20 (3):223-246.
Virtue Theory and Abortion.Rosalind Hursthouse - 1997 - In Roger Crisp & Michael Slote (eds.), Virtue Ethics. Oxford University Press.
II*—Deliberation and Practical Reason.David Wiggins - 1976 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 76 (1):29-52.

View all 10 references / Add more references