Reasons Without Rationalism: A Virtue Theory of Phronesis

Dissertation, Princeton University (2002)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

An agent's character is often revealed in the contents of her practical reasoning, in the considerations to which she is sensitive and how she is moved by them, in the acts she considers, the ends she adopts, and in how she plans for the present and the future. According to an influential view, we can distinguish the assessment of practical thought as good or bad reasoning from its assessment as an expression of character. For instance, we might think that good reasoning is a matter of practical rationality, or that it is a matter of means-end efficiency, and that, while efficiency and rationality are virtues, they are independent of the virtues of character. Against this view, I argue that an agent has phronesis---the virtue of practical reason---just in case she has the virtues of character in her dispositions of practical thought. ;In Chapter One, I consider the view that phronesis consists in practical rationality. I argue that, even on the most charitable reading, this view is false. Once we set aside interpretations of "practical rationality" on which it would be trivial or absurd to claim that it constitutes phronesis, we are left with an interpretation on which practical irrationality is analogous to moral culpability. Practical irrationality involves a culpable failure of practical reasoning, and since not every instance of bad practical reasoning is culpable, practical rationality is necessary but not sufficient for phronesis. ;In Chapter Two, I argue against the instrumentalist view that phronesis consists in means-end efficiency, and I present a general argument for the "virtue theory," according to which the dispositions of practical reasoning involved in the virtues of character are essential to phronesis. The argument is that alternative views need to motivate their restrictions on the range of virtues that matter to phronesis, as something other than arbitrary, and that the relevant attempts at motivation fall. ;Chapter Three rebuts a number of objections to the view developed so far. I end with some tentative remarks about the status of moral reasons, and about the need for a substantive metaphysics of virtue.

Links

PhilArchive



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

External links

  • This entry has no external links. Add one.
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 Makes the Goal Right.Jessica Moss - 2011 - Phronesis 56 (3):204-261.
Aristotle on the Virtues of Rhetoric.Amélie Rorty - 2011 - Review of Metaphysics 64 (4):715-733.
The Ways of Reason.Juan Manuel Comesana - 2003 - Dissertation, Brown University
A Virtue Theory of Practical Reason.David Brian Silver - 1997 - Dissertation, The University of Arizona
Formation of character and practical reasoning.Julian Amaya & Ximena Alvarez - 2008 - Eidos: Revista de Filosofía de la Universidad Del Norte 8:10-65.
Practical Reasons and Internalism.Hans Vilhelm Hansen - 1990 - Dissertation, Wayne State University
Self-Knowledge and Moral Virtue.Kathleen Ann Poorman Dougherty - 2000 - Dissertation, The University of Oklahoma
Phronesis, poetics, and moral creativity.John Wall - 2003 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 6 (3):317-341.
Practical intelligence and the virtues.Daniel C. Russell - 2009 - New York: Oxford University Press.
How Bad Can Good People Be?Nancy E. Schauber - 2014 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 17 (4):731-745.

Analytics

Added to PP
2015-02-04

Downloads
2 (#1,635,221)

6 months
1 (#1,042,085)

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