Although several important methodologies implicitly assume the truth of epistemic conservatism, the view that holding a belief confers some measure of justification on the belief, recent criticisms have led some to conclude that epistemic conservatism is an implausible view. That conclusion is mistaken. In this article, I propose a new formulation of epistemic conservatism that is not susceptible to the criticisms leveled at earlier formulations of epistemic conservatism. In addition to withstanding these criticisms, this formulation of epistemic conservatism has several (...) benefits. First, this formulation has the benefits of earlier formulations of epistemic conservatism, that is to say it makes sense of our intuitions about justification in regard to both memory beliefs and beliefs for which we have forgotten our evidence. Second, it provides a good way of responding to the skeptic’s challenge concerning the possibility of possessing knowledge of the external world posed by the Alternative Hypotheses argument. Third, it provides responses to both forms of a new skeptical problem plaguing basic knowledge structure theories, the Problem of Easy Knowledge formulated by Stewart Cohen. I argue that given the many benefits of this formulation of epistemic conservatism and the fact that it is not vulnerable to the criticisms that undermine earlier formulations of epistemic conservatism, this formulation of epistemic conservatism is a plausible view to maintain. (shrink)

In the limited literature on gender and climate change, two themes predominate – women as vulnerable or virtuous in relation to the environment. Two viewpoints become obvious: women in the South will be affected more by climate change than men in those countries and that men in the North pollute more than women. The debates are structured in specific ways in the North and the South and the discussion in the article focuses largely on examples from Sweden and India. The (...) article traces the lineage of the arguments to the women, environment and development discussions, examining how they recur in new forms in climate debates. Questioning assumptions about women's vulnerability and virtuousness, it highlights how a focus on women's vulnerability or virtuousness can deflect attention from inequalities in decision-making. By reiterating statements about poor women in the South and the pro-environmental women of the North, these assumptions reinforce North–South biases. Generalizations about women's vulnerability and virtuousness can lead to an increase in women's responsibility without corresponding rewards. There is need to contextualise debates on climate change to enable action and to respond effectively to its adverse effects in particular places. -/- . (shrink)

Does the fact that humans are vulnerable, needy and dependent beings play an important role in Kantian ethics? It is sometimes claimed that it cannot and does not. I argue that it can and does. I distinguish between broad (all persons are vulnerable) and narrow (only some persons are vulnerable) senses of vulnerability, and explain the role of vulnerability in both senses in Kantian ethics. The basis of this argument is to show that the core normative focus of (...) Kantian ethics is on the dignity that human beings have in virtue of their capacity for rational agency. This implies that the empirical conditions under which human beings can acquire, sustain, exercise, and develop their rational capacities are of core moral importance in Kantian ethics. This explains why human vulnerabilities, including the vulnerability of human bodies, are important in Kantian ethics, since rational capacities in human agents (and the bodies those rational capacities depend upon) are highly vulnerable in all persons (vulnerability in the broad sense) and especially vulnerable in some sub-groups of persons (vulnerability in the narrow sense). (shrink)

Canada is six years into a new era of legalized medical assistance in dying (MAiD). The law continues to evolve, following a pattern in which Canadian courts rule that legal restrictions on eligibility for MAiD are unconstitutional and Parliament responds by gradually expanding eligibility for MAiD. The central tension underlying this dialogue between courts and government has focused on two conceptions of how to best promote and protect the interests of people who are vulnerable by virtue of intolerable and irremediable (...) suffering due to an illness, disease, or disability. Do we, as a society, have a duty to protect vulnerable people from seeking certain medical procedures that are contrary to their interests, as those are perceived by others? Or do we have a duty to uphold their rights to autonomy, including the right to make choices within a range that may be constrained by many factors, some of which may be socially unjust? This is a recurrent problem in bioethics and medical law, which we explore through the lens of how Canadian courts and Parliament have grappled with defining eligibility for MAiD. (shrink)

To be self-compassionate is to show compassion not (only) for others but for yourself. Research in psychology suggests that self-compassion leads to improved well-being and functioning. With the psychological research in the background, we give a philosophical account of self-compassion and its ethical significance. We build a definition of self-compassion, suggesting that self-compassion is different from but closely analogous to compassion for others. Our definition departs from the most prominent definition in the psychological literature but is well-equipped to guide ongoing (...) empirical research. We then argue that self-compassion is a virtue. Self-compassion makes ordinary people happier and more likely to act well, and the self-compassionate person understands and values herself correctly; she sees herself accurately as a needy, vulnerable, limited human whose interests matter. If we are right, then the ethical relationship with self is more complicated than philosophical treatments have so far acknowledged. The virtuous person does not only meet moral duties to herself or exercise permissions to favor her own interests. She also has an emotional relationship with herself, which incorporates enlightened self-understanding and self-care. (shrink)

Prenatal screening can lead to the detection and diagnosis of significantly life-limiting conditions affecting the unborn child. Recognizing the difficulties facing parents who decide to continue the pregnancy, some have proposed perinatal hospice as a new modality of care. Although the medical literature has begun to devote significant attention to these practices, systematic philosophical reflection on perinatal hospice has been relatively limited. Drawing on Alasdair MacIntyre’s account of the virtues of acknowledged dependence, I contend that perinatal hospice manifests and (...) facilitates virtues essential to living well with human dependency and vulnerability. For this reason, perinatal hospice deserves broad support within society. (shrink)

Vulnerability: an ethical category. Vulnerability must not be considered as an equivalent for the weakness or for the precariousness, i.e. the state in which the most resourceless people are living -with regard to power, wealth and health -; the strong are also vulnerable and they are potentially likely to be weakened. We will try to give its chance to an ethical category which, unlike person, personality, dignity, benevolence, non-malevolence, focusses on pleasures and displeasures, no more on the (...) class='Hi'>virtues of nursing people. Moreover the category of vulnerability is quantity-sensitive. We will expose two mathematical models that highlight this last point of view. (shrink)

Although the importance of including vulnerable populations in medical research is widely accepted, identifying how to achieve such inclusion remains a challenge. Ensuring that the language of informed consent is comprehensible to this group is no less of a challenge. Although a variety of interventions show promise for increasing the comprehensibility of informed consent and increasing a climate of exchange, consensus is lacking on which interventions should be used in which situations and current regulations provide little guidance. We argue that (...) the notion of individual autonomy — a foundational principle of informed consent — may be too narrow for some vulnerable populations by virtue of its failure to acknowledge their unique histories and current circumstances. It has a different meaning for members of structured groups like American Indians than for unstructured groups, such as African Americans, whose complicated histories foster group identity. Ensuring broad participation in research and selecting appropriate methods for obtaining informed consent — namely, methods aligned with the source of vulnerability and level of risk — require new ways of thinking that might produce guidelines for matching informed consent models and processes with subpopulations. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question of whether there might be secular analogues of the theological virtues. Beginning with a Kierkegaardian account of the unity and structural underpinnings of Christian accounts of faith, hope and love as distinct from moral virtues more generally, it utilizes ideas from Stanley Cavell, John Stuart Mill and Jonathan Lear to develop a phenomenology of familiar moral experiences whose underlying logic points us in the direction of an essential role that might be served by (...) secular inflections of the theological virtues in living out a full awareness of our finitude. I argue that they help embody a perfectionist orientation to the world, one in which the experience of women is pivotal, and which places great emphasis on the moral value of a certain kind of vulnerability. (shrink)

This essay shows that a sharp distinction between ethics and aesthetics is unfruitful for thinking about how to live well with technologies, and in particular for understanding and evaluating how we cope with human existential vulnerability, which is crucially mediated by the development and use of technologies such as electronic ICTs. It is argued that vulnerability coping is a matter of ethics and art: it requires developing a kind of art and techne in the sense that it always (...) involves technologies and specific styles of experiencing and dealing with vulnerability, which depend on social and cultural context. It is suggested that we try to find better, perhaps less modern styles of coping with our vulnerability, recognize limits to our attempts to “design” our new forms, and explore what kinds of technologies we need for this project. (shrink)

Judith Butler's (2006) account of vulnerability, resonant with other accounts offered by feminist theorists of embodiment (such as Margrit Shildrick [2000] and Rosalyn Diprose [2002]), underscores a "conception of the human . . . in which we are, from the start, given over to the other, one in which we are, from the start, even prior to individuation itself and, by virtue of bodily requirements, given over to some set of primary others" (31). She is concerned with how this (...) state of being—"not only constituted by our relations but also dispossessed by them as well" (24)—becomes recognized, or not, in the political production and recognition of vulnerability, and the suffering that occurs in the violent .. (shrink)

On Aquinas’s account of this virtue, martyrdom fits best as its paradigm act. By this choice of paradigm, he underscores the way that the virtues of faith, hope, and charity inform courage, and the way grace infuses virtue and produces a joy that can overcome even the greatest fear and sorrow this world has to offer. Martyrdom, as the exemplar act of courage, is best suited to illustrate the features of this virtue so as to counter any mistaken conceptions (...) of courage—those relying solely on human power and control— that ancient and modern ideals alike might tempt us to hold. Aquinas’s choice ofmartyrdom as his paradigm introduces new dimensions of courage and redefines the standard elements of other portraits. His paradigm introduces a new understanding of power, one that resists the world’s eager use of force and offers grace-filled possibilities for human beings precisely in their vulnerability and weakness. Aquinas’s portrait of courage supplies new dimensions of love to counteract fear, and transforms the basis of hope and daring from human heroics to a relationship of humble dependence on divine assistance. In doing so, it also opens up this virtue to an entirely new range of practitioners. The infant in the baptismal waters is a fitting picture of human frailness and trust before the gift of divine grace and power, and captures the essential point of Aquinas’s baptismal transformation of courage. By modeling courage on the example of Christ’s own suffering and steadfast witness, Aquinas directs our moral gaze beyond the limits of human life and power to a life in which virtue and happiness are perfected by a power that is both beyond us and yet can become our own. (shrink)

Difficult relationships and challenging situations all come down to one thing: drama. In this groundbreaking book, Doreen Virtue guides you through the process of determining what your Drama Quotient is. You will learn how much you are unnecessarily tolerating and absorbing from other people and situations. Doreen highlights the difference between detaching from drama and being compassionate and helpful, and she shows you how to: Deal with relatives, friends, and co-workers who are addicted to drama Assess your own level of (...) drama addiction Stop attracting and creating negativity in your life Go on an overall Drama Detox to clear away negativity, and let your light shine through! (shrink)

In this paper, a rights-based argument for the impermissibility of abortion, infanticide and neglect of some pre-natal organisms and infants/children is advanced. I argue, in opposition to most rights-ethicists, that the potentiality for autonomous agency gives individuals negative rights. I also examine the conjecture that potential autonomous agents have positive rights in virtue of their vulnerability. According to this suggestion, once an individual obtains actual autonomous agency, he or she has merely negative rights. Possible solutions to conflicts of rights (...) between parents and their offspring are investigated. Finally, I discuss a lexical order between positive and negative rights, which may solve conflicts between the rights of potential autonomous agents and actual autonomous agents. (shrink)

In this paper, a rights-based argument for the impermissibility of abortion, infanticide and neglect of some pre-natal organisms and infants/children is advanced. I argue, in opposition to most rights-ethicists, that the potentiality for autonomous agency gives individuals negative rights. I also examine the conjecture that potential autonomous agents have positive rights in virtue of their vulnerability. According to this suggestion, once an individual obtains actual autonomous agency, he or she has merely negative rights. Possible solutions to conflicts of rights (...) between parents and their offspring are investigated. Finally, I discuss a lexical order between positive and negative rights, which may solve conflicts between the rights of potential autonomous agents and actual autonomous agents. (shrink)

Work with the Angels to Detox Your Body and Energy Detoxing with the help of your angels is a gentle way to release impurities from your body, fatigue, and addictions. Doreen Virtue and naturopath Robert Reeves teach yousimple steps to increase your energy and mental focus, banish bloating, feel and look more youthful, and regain your sense of personal power. Rid your life of physical toxins, as well as negative emotions and energies. Angel Detox guides you step-by-step on how to (...) detox your diet, lifestyle, and relationships. You'll learn how to reduce or eliminate cravings for unhealthful food and substances, feel motivated, and enjoy wellness in all areas of your life. This book also includes 7-Day Detox Plans for those wanting to quit smoking or drinking, or to flush out environmental pollution. (shrink)

McCoy examines how Greek epic, tragedy, and philosophy offer important insights into the nature of human vulnerability, especially how Greek thought extols the recognition and proper acceptance of vulnerability. Beginning with the literary works of Homer and Sophocles, she also expands her analysis to the philosophical works of Plato and Aristotle.

The nature and value of autonomy has long been debated in diverse philosophical traditions, including moral and political philosophy. Although the notion dates back to ancient Greek philosophy, it was during the Age of Enlightenment that autonomy drew much attention. Thus, as may be known, moral philosophers tended to emphasize self-regulation, particularly one’s own will to abide by universal moral laws, as the term “autonomy” originates from the Greek words “self” (auto) and “rule” (nomos). In parallel, modern epistemologists supposedly espoused (...) the idea of intellectual autonomy as self-reliance. In this classical view, an intellectually autonomous explorer of knowledge must not depend on a belief that is obtained from another’s testimony, until one can justify it to oneself. However, accompanying the growing focus on the importance of social dimensions of acquiring knowledge and understanding, recent epistemologists have doubted the classical view and have since reconsidered intellectual autonomy from distinct approaches such as social and virtue epistemology. This paper propounds an interpersonal-epistemic approach to intellectual autonomy. First, it is argued that thinking through questioning both individually and with other epistemic peers is an interpersonal-epistemic practice. Second, it is demonstrated that with particular cognitive features inherent within us, an intellectually autonomous person must think through questioning in necessary situations. This interpersonal account of intellectual autonomy can conceptually enrich intellectual autonomy by considering its relationship with not only responsibility but also with vulnerability. Specifically, regarding responsibility, an intellectually autonomous person must be responsible for his or her own actions throughout questioning processes. Regarding vulnerability, our intellectual autonomy lies in retaining autonomy with vulnerability in the plastic control of the questioning processes. (shrink)

Xunzi’s pessimistic understanding of human nature and his endorsement of the intrinsically valuable virtue of yi (義) put him in a vulnerable position. To defend this position, Xunzi needs to conquer what the essay calls “the compatibility problems,” the first of which concerns the compatibility between bad human nature and virtue, while the second is between Xunzi’s functional understanding of virtue and his understanding of virtue as possessing intrinsic value. If Xunzi’s moral philosophy were to fail to solve these two (...) problems, it would be guilty of inconsistency. In reconstructing a genealogy of Xunzi’s philosophy, I argue that he can successfully resolve the two compatibility problems, and his genealogy perspicuously shows that virtue can grow out of vicious human nature. (shrink)

If a rational argument is to be advanced for the existence of God, it must be some form of the cosmological, depending on the concept of causation, or the ontological, an elaboration of the concept of being. The metaphysical fertility of the axiological approach to theism consists in its reformulation of the ontological argument—viz., that the nature of existent reality itself is indicative of supra natural being.

If a rational argument is to be advanced for the existence of God, it must be some form of the cosmological, depending on the concept of causation, or the ontological, an elaboration of the concept of being. The metaphysical fertility of the axiological approach to theism consists in its reformulation of the ontological argument—viz., that the nature of existent reality itself is indicative of supra natural being.

Abstract:Xunzi's pessimistic understanding of human nature and his endorsement of the intrinsically valuable virtue of yi 義 put him in a vulnerable position. To defend this position, Xunzi needs to conquer what the essay calls "the compatibility problems," the first of which concerns the compatibility between bad human nature and virtue, while the second is between Xunzi's functional understanding of virtue and his understanding of virtue as possessing intrinsic value. If Xunzi's moral philosophy were to fail to solve these two (...) problems, it would be guilty of inconsistency. In reconstructing a genealogy of Xunzi's philosophy, I argue that he can successfully resolve the two compatibility problems, and his genealogy perspicuously shows that virtue can grow out of vicious human nature. (shrink)

Educating students for emotional wellbeing is a vital task in schools. However, educating emotions is not straightforward. Emotional processes can be challenging to identify and control. How emotions are valued varies across societies, while individuals within societies face different emotional expectations. For example, girls face pressure to be happy and caring, while boys are often encouraged to be brave. This text analyses the best practices of educating emotions. The focus is not just on the psychological benefits of emotional regulation, but (...) also on how calls for educating emotions connect to the aims of society. The book explores psychology's understanding of emotions, 'the politics of emotions', and philosophy. It also discusses education for happiness, compassion, gratitude, resilience, mindfulness, courage, vulnerability, anger, sadness, and fear. (shrink)

Social, political, and economic environments play an active role in nurturing professional virtue. Yet, these environments can also lead to the erosion of virtue. As such, professional virtue is fragile and vulnerable to environmental shifts. While physicians are often considered to be among the most virtuous of professional groups, concern has also always existed about the impact of commercial arrangements on physicians’ willingness and capacity to enact their professional virtues. This article examines the ways in which commercial arrangements have (...) been negotiated to secure medical virtue from real or perceived threats of erosion. In particular, we focus on the concern surrounding conflicts of interest arising from commercial arrangements that have developed as a result of neoliberal economic and social policies. The deregulation of medical markets and privatization of services have produced new commercial relationships that are often misunderstood by patients, publics, and physicians themselves. ‘Conflicts of interest’ policies have been introduced in an attempt to safeguard ethical conduct and medical practice. However, a number of virtue ethicists have critiqued these policies as inadequate for securing virtue. We examine the ways in which commercial arrangements have been seen to impact upon medical virtue, both historically and in the context of modern medicine. We then describe and critique current efforts to restore clinical virtue through both conflict of interest policies and through virtue ethics. Finally, we suggest some possible ways of addressing the corrosive effects of neoliberalism on medical virtue. (shrink)

Following the revival of virtue theory, some moral theorists have argued that virtue ethics can provide the basis for a radical politics. Such a politics essentially departs from the liberal model of the moral agent as an autonomous reason-giver. It instead privileges an understanding of the agent as conditioned by her community, and in the case of social oppression and marginalization, communal virtues may become a vehicle for social change. This essay compares political appropriations of virtue theory by Christian (...) theologian Stanley Hauerwas and secular feminist thinkers Lisa Tessman and Margaret Urban Walker. Hauerwas and feminist theorists both embrace a kind of embodied vulnerability as a political virtue, arguing that it enables more genuine social recognition. The virtue feminist critique is more robust than Hauerwas's, however, insofar as it understands mutual recognition to involve acknowledgment of social difference and the concomitant pursuit of justice. (shrink)

Suffering, in one form or another, is present in all of our lives. But why do we suffer? On one reading, this is a question about the causes of physical and emotional suffering. But on another, it is a question about whether suffering has a point or purpose or value. In this ground-breaking book, Michael Brady argues that suffering is vital for the development of virtue, and hence for us to live happy or flourishing lives. After presenting a distinctive account (...) of suffering, and a novel account of its core element, unpleasantness, Brady proceeds to focus on three claims that are central to his picture. The first is that forms of suffering, like pain and remorse, can themselves constitute virtuous responses. The second is that suffering is essential for four important classes of virtue - virtues of strength, such as fortitude and courage; virtues of vulnerability, such as adaptability and humility; moral virtues, such as compassion; and the practical and epistemic excellences that make up wisdom. His final claim third is that suffering is vital for the social virtues of justice, love, and trust, and hence for the flourishing of social groups. (shrink)

In this significant new addition to moral theory, George Harris challenges a view of the dignity and worth of persons that goes back through Kant and Christianity to the Stoics. He argues that we do not, in fact, believe this view, which traces any breakdowns of character to failures of strength. When it comes to what we actually value in ourselves and others, he says, we are far more Greek than Christian. At the most profound level, we value ourselves as (...) natural organisms, as animals, rather than as godlike beings who transcend nature. The Kantian-Christian-Stoic tradition holds that if we were fully able to realize our dignity as Kantians, Christians, or Stoics, we would be better, stronger people, and therefore less vulnerable to character breakdown. _Dignity and Vulnerability_ offers an opposing view, that sometimes character breaks down not because of some shortcoming in it but because of what is good about it, because of the very virtues and features of character that give us our dignity. If dignity can make us fragile and vulnerable to breakdown, then breakdown can be benign as well as harmful, and thus the conceptions of human dignity embedded in the tradition leading up to Kant are deeply mistaken. Harris proposes a foundation for our belief in human dignity in what we can actually know about ourselves, rather than in metaphysical or theological fantasy. Having gained this knowledge, we can understand the source of real strength. (shrink)

Neo‐Aristotelian virtue ethics makes essential reference to the notion of a stable, robust character‐trait. It also claims to be constrained by at least a minimal degree of psychological realism. Recent developments in empirical psychology have drawn into question the evidence for the existence of such robust traits, arguing that it rests on what has been called a ‘fundamental attribution error’. Virtue ethics has thus seemingly been made vulnerable to criticisms that it is essentially dependent on an erroneous, folk‐psychological, notion of (...) character and, so, must either abandon their characteristic notion of virtue or forego any pretensions to psychological realism. I develop a two‐pronged response to this objection. First, I argue that there is reason to question much of the empirical evidence and that such evidence as does exist can easily be accommodated by virtue ethics. Next, I argue that even if we allow that neo‐Aristotelian virtue ethical theories does sometimes presuppose a stronger conception of character‐traits than is warranted by the evidence, this does not significantly undermine the virtue ethicist's project. (shrink)

The story of Judah and Tamar in Genesis 38 is one of the most intriguing stories in the Hebrew Bible. While it yields many useful insights into the character of God, the nature of sin and the aspiration of our redemption, it is equally offensive when one looks at it from a human rights perspective, considering, in particular, the vulnerable and defenceless woman, Tamar. Her being returned to her father’s house is portrayed as acting in accordance with the law for (...) a childless widow. However, using the critical hermeneutical lens, it becomes apparent that the real motive that drove Judah to send her away was his fear lest his only surviving son Shelah should share the fate of Er and Onan, whose deaths he plainly attributed to Tamar’s doing. As such, Tamar was deprived of the right to marry Shelah as provided for in the levirate marriage law. Using feministic hermeneutics and the comparative approach, this article foregrounds the vulnerability experienced by women, especially when their husbands mysteriously or suddenly pass away. Because of the patriarchal hegemony of African and Israelite societies, childless widows often find themselves ostracised from the same families which they thought they were now part and parcel of by virtue of having married into that family. Much of the ostracism emanates from the fact that they are usually fingered as the prime suspects responsible for having played a part in their husbands’ deaths. Hence, the crux of this article is to present the interface between the Israelite and African worldviews, highlighting the parallels between the plight of widows in the Israelite and Shona societies. (shrink)

I argue along the following lines: For Wollstonecraft, liberty is independence in two different spheres, one presupposing the other. On the one hand, liberty is independence in relation to others, in the sense of not being vulnerable to their whim or arbitrary will. Call this social, or political, liberty. For liberty understood in this way, infringements do not require individual instances of interfering. Liberty is lost in unequal relationships, through dependence on the goodwill of a master. In addition, liberty is (...) independence of mind, a state I am in when I trust my own reasoned judgement above any other authority. Call this moral liberty. Moral liberty needs social liberty. In other words, to the extent I am subject to the whim of others, I am not in a position to be guided by my own judgement. Moral liberty is one of two aspects of virtue: a disposition to independent deliberation according to reason. As such, virtue is a habit of mind. The second aspect of virtue is universal benevolence as its action guiding principle. This is how liberty, equality, and virtue fit together. Social liberty, understood as independence in relation to others, necessarily coexist with equality, and is necessary for moral liberty, the habit of mind that makes up one aspect of virtue, as well as for universal benevolence as virtue’s action guiding principle. This triad explains her views on property, on sex equality, and also on legitimate government. My second line of argument is that according to Wollstonecraft, we have a duty to be virtuous. Virtue is the main object of human life. But since virtue, in both its aspects, needs social liberty and since liberty is the birthright of man, the duty is conditioned on the right. The foundation for the triad of liberty, equality, and virtue is a theory of rights. The basis for the discussion of virtue is the right to the conditions necessary for its realization. The duty is conditioned on the right to liberty. (shrink)

George Harris argues that human frailty, indeed vulnerability to utter and complete psychological breakdown in the form “a loss of the will to live, deep clinical depression, insanity, hysteria, debilitating shame, [and] pervasive self-deception,” is a source of our special dignity as persons. This type of fragility is a sign of a higher quality of character, he argues; a quality that is lacking in anyone who has the inner strength to survive the worst of life’s hardships without suffering “a (...) form of personal disintegration that renders the person dysfunctional as an agent”. This is a striking and extreme thesis. It is not the less controversial and more plausible thesis that virtue involves a capacity to experience, in the right way and at the right time, a broad range of feelings and emotions. An investigation of the psychological traits and vulnerabilities that are connected to virtue is a very interesting topic worthy of extensive discussion. Although this book contributes to this worthwhile discussion, the argument for the book’s controversial thesis is not convincing. (shrink)

In this paper I present criticism of Rosalind Hursthouse’s neo-Aristotelian naturalistic virtue ethics as elaborated in her book On Virtue Ethics. I argue that her theory is vulnerable to the charge of partially collapsing into a form of consequentialism that falls prey to a powerful objection to that theory: the problem of instrumentally successful action (or, in Hursthouse’s case, the problem of instrumentally successful vice). I consider several possible responses from Hursthouse, and argue that they are inadequate. As a result, (...) Hursthouse must either accept the likelihood that highly morally counterintuitive traits can, for some persons or circumstances, be virtues; or she must defend the implausible notions that human nature and flourishing are more or less invariable. As both of these options are undesirable, it may be best to reject Hursthouse’s form of neo-Aristotelianism altogether. (shrink)

In this paper I explore the ethical responsibility of agents who find themselves in situations characterized by what I call the Individual Ethical Gap (IEG). Individual Ethical Gap situations are structured so as to rule out holding individuals responsible for their actions and omissions by virtue of the intentions behind or the consequences of their actions. I argue that, in IEG situations, individuals can nevertheless, depending on the circumstances, be held ethically responsible for their actions and omissions by virtue of (...) the conditions in which they find themselves operating. Individual Ethical Gap situations therefore give rise to what I call conditioned responsibility: responsibility stemming from the conditions in which one finds oneself enmeshed. This notion of an ethics stemming from conditions (rather than from consequences or intentions) gives rise to a particular form of vulnerability to error in our self- and other-ascriptions of ethical responsibility: a vulnerability in our ethical understanding. In the final section of the paper I use Pamela Sue Anderson’s discussion of vulnerability and of Kantian autonomy to show that this vulnerability arising from the conditioned aspect of our ethical responsibility need not be regarded as a threat to ethics but, on the contrary, as an element of belonging and of understanding that renders possible a more honest encounter with others and with the world. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Seductiveness of Virtue: Abraham Joshua Heschel and John Paul II on Morality and Personal Fulfillment by John J. FitzgeraldMatthew R. PetrusekThe Seductiveness of Virtue: Abraham Joshua Heschel and John Paul II on Morality and Personal Fulfillment John J. Fitzgerald new york: bloomsbury t&t clark, 2017. 240 pp. $114The Seductiveness of Virtue offers a close study of the twentieth-century Polish-American rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, and the first Polish (...) pope, St. John Paul II, on the relationship between being good and being happy. Overall the book advances the conversation on the meaning and continued relevance of virtue in contemporary ethics, though its eagerness to build bridges across competing religious and philosophical traditions opens the argument to both methodological and substantive criticisms. [End Page 206]Fitzgerald divides the book into an introduction and four chapters. Chapter 1, "The Meaning of Our Question," establishes the definitions of concepts that Fitzgerald addresses throughout the rest his argument, including "happiness," "meaning," "freedom," "personal fulfillment," "good and evil," and "doing." Fitzgerald locates each term within the theologies of Heschel and John Paul II and provides his own definitions. Chapter 2, "Heschel and the 'Joys of Mitsvah,'" enters more deeply into Heschel's theology, arguing that, despite some ambiguity about whether morality will always lead to personal fulfillment, Heschel establishes a firm theological and practical connection between following the law (mitzvah) and being happy. Chapter 3, "John Paul II and the Good We Must Do to Have Eternal Life," engages in a similar analysis of John Paul's thought (including his writings before becoming pope) and, despite using different theological categories (chief among them "Christ"), arrives at a similar conclusion: there is a necessary connection between being good and being happy. Chapter 4, which also functions as a conclusion, places the comparison between Heschel and John Paul into a wider comparative context, examining how their respective conclusions on morality and the good relate to insights from other contemporary perspectives, including the Dalai Lama, Peter Singer, and present-day "positive psychology." Fitzgerald concludes by offering five reasons why it is important to continue, in his words, an "interworldview" and "interdisciplinary" dialogue on how virtue relates to happiness.The book is richly sourced—containing 199 footnotes, bibliography, and detailed index—and serves as a good addition to the libraries of those working on John Paul II, Abraham Heschel, virtue theory, or comparative ethics more broadly. Yet its breadth on the comparative front also highlights its vulnerabilities, particularly on the question of what defines the relationship between virtue and happiness from a normative perspective. While providing lucid descriptive accounts of different conceptions of God and the good, for example, Fitzgerald acknowledges near the book's conclusion, "whether one finds [any] author persuasive will depend in large part on one's prior conclusions about the existence and nature of God and the afterlife" (184) and notes that this topic "cannot be resolved or even explored here" (185). However, these "prior conclusions" themselves are ultimately most meaningful for answering the book's central question.This reticence to engage in meta-ethical questions also leads the text to a problematic epistemological and ethical equalizing of each perspective, one that allows Fitzgerald to claim, for example, "while there is much common ground between Heschel, John Paul II, and [Peter] Singer on the relationship between morality and fulfillment, there are also key differences" (174). Here Fitzgerald understates the contrast: one of the "key" differences between Singer's utilitarian materialism and John Paul II's gospel of life is that Singer's position could serve as a paradigmatic representation of the "culture of death" [End Page 207] that John Paul spent his papacy resisting. Thus, while providing an excellent analysis of each thinker individually, the book's argument would benefit from establishing a firmer and more transparent standard for evaluating ethical claims across traditions.Matthew R. PetrusekLoyola Marymount UniversityCopyright © 2018 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Bullying often results in negative coping in victims, including an increased consumption of alcohol. Recently, however, an increase in alcohol use has also been reported among perpetrators of bullying. The factors triggering this pattern are still unclear. We investigated the role of empathy in the interaction between bullying and alcohol use in an adolescent sample (IMAGEN) at age 13.97 (±0.53) years (baseline (BL), N = 2165, 50.9% female) and age 16.51 (±0.61) years (follow-up 1 (FU1), N = 1185, 54.9% female). (...) General empathic distress served as a significant moderator of alcohol use in perpetrators (F9, 493 = 17.978, p < 0.01), which was specific for males and FU1. Male perpetrators, who are generally less sensitive to distress, might thus be more vulnerable to alcohol abuse. (shrink)