Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

In several articles, Peter Goldie argues that artistic production and appreciation should enjoy the status of full-fledged virtues. In this paper, I draw on the Summa Theologiae of Thomas Aquinas to provide a more nuanced account of artistic or aesthetic virtue. First, I raise some objections to Goldie’s account. Next, I show that, unlike Goldie, Aquinas distinguishes between virtue “properly so called” and virtue in a more restricted sense, and he calls art a virtue only in the restricted sense. In (...) other words, art is a true human excellence, but is not intimately connected to human flourishing in the way that the moral virtues are. Next, I show that there is room in Aquinas’s account for Goldie’s claims that art is done not as a means to another end but rather “under the guise of the good.” Finally, I consider some other ways to understand Goldie’s intuition and affirm that there might be an intimate connection between artistic practice and some kinds of moral virtue. (shrink)

J. S. Mill’s harm principle rules out, among other things, the criminalization of purely self-regarding conduct. I argue that Aristotle’s ideas, especially his claims about the interpersonal nature of justice and the importance of the “common good,” provide support for this antipaternalistic principle. I consider whether Aristotelians who are also theists can defend paternalistic and moralistic laws on the grounds that private wrongdoing is an injustice against God. I conclude that they cannot. Finally, I argue that antipaternalists have good reasons (...) to reject individualism about the common good. (shrink)