Sometimes, in the Nicomachean Ethics (NE), Aristotle describes virtuous actions as the sorts of actions that are ends; it is important for Aristotle to do so if he wants to maintain, as he seems to at least until NE 10.7-8, that virtuous actions are a constituent of eudaimonia. At other times, he claims that virtuous actions are the sorts of actions that are for the sake of ends beyond themselves; after all, no one would choose to go into battle or (...) give away a significant portion of their wealth if it did not realize some good end. In this paper, I review the familiar problem raised by Aristotle's discussion of the nature of virtuous actions, propose a solution to this problem by appealing to a distinction between virtuous actions and 'acting virtuously', and sketch the significance of this solution for understanding the relationship between virtue and human happiness. (shrink)

Everyday moral thought uses the concepts of virtue and vice at two different levels. At what I will call a global level it applies these concepts to persons or to stable character traits or dispositions. Thus we may say that a person is brave or has a standing trait of generosity or malice. But we also apply these concepts more locally, to specific acts or mental states such as occurrent desires or feelings. Thus we may say that a particular act (...) was brave or that a desire or pleasure felt at a particular moment was malicious. Even when they concern acts, these last judgements are of virtuousness rather than of moral rightness. They therefore turn essentially on a person’s motives; while he can act rightly from a bad motive, he cannot act virtuously from a bad motive. But they assess the virtue or vice of particular acts and mental states rather than of persons or traits of character. These global and local uses of the virtue-concepts are clearly connected, in that we expect virtuous persons to perform and have, and virtuous traits to issue in, particular virtuous acts, desires, and feelings. A philosophical account of virtue should explain this connection, but there are two different ways of doing so. Each takes one of the two uses to be primary and treats the other as derivative, but they disagree about which is the primary use. A dispositional view takes the global use to be primary and identifies virtuous acts, desires, and feelings in part as ones that issue from virtuous.. (shrink)

The concepts of right action and virtuous motivation are clearly connected, in that we expect people with virtuous motives to at least often act rightly. Two well-known views explain this connection by defining one of the concepts in terms of the other. Instrumentalists about virtue identify virtuous motives as those that lead to right acts; virtue-ethicists identify right acts as those that are or would be done from virtuous motives. This paper outlines a rival explanation, based on the “higher-level” account (...) of virtue defended in the author’s Virtue, Vice, and Value and by earlier philosophers such as Rashdall, Moore, and Ross. On this account rightness and virtue go together because each is defined by a (different) relation to some other, more basic moral concept. Their frequent coincidence is therefore like a correlation between A and B based not on either’s causing the other but on their being joint effects of a single common cause C. (shrink)

Abstract: The concepts of virtue and right action are closely connected, in that we expect people with virtuous motives to at least often act rightly. Two well-known views explain this connection by defining one of the concepts in terms of the other. Instrumentalists about virtue identify virtuous motives as those that lead to right acts; virtue-ethicists identify right acts as those that are or would be done from virtuous motives. This essay outlines a rival explanation, based on the "higher-level" account (...) of virtue defended in the author's Virtue, Vice, and Value . On this account rightness and virtue go together because each is defined by a (different) relation to some other, more basic moral concept. Their frequent coincidence is therefore like a correlation between A and B based not on either's causing the other but on their being joint effects of a single common cause. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Higher‐Level Account: Consequentialist Virtues The Higher‐Level Account: Deontological Virtues References.

Do famous athletes have special obligations to act virtuously? A number of philosophers have investigated this question by examining whether famous athletes are subject to special role model obligations (Wellman 2003; Feezel 2005; Spurgin 2012). In this paper we will take a different approach and give a positive response to this question by arguing for the position that sport and gaming celebrities are ‘ambassadors of the game’: moral agents whose vocations as rule-followers have unique implications for their non-lusory lives. (...) According to this idea, the actions of a game’s players and other stakeholders—especially the actions of its stars—directly affect the value of the game itself, a fact which generates additional moral reasons to behave in a virtuous manner. We will begin by explaining the three main positions one may take with respect to the question: moral exceptionalism, moral generalism, and moral exemplarism. We will argue that no convincing case for moral exemplarism has thus far been made, which gives us reason to look for new ways to defend this position. We then provide our own ‘ambassadors of the game’ account and argue that it gives us good reason to think that sport and game celebrities are subject to special obligations to act virtuously. (shrink)

How can agents act virtuously out of habit? Virtuous actions are done for the right reasons, and acting for (right) reasons seems to involve deliberation. Yet, deliberation is absent if an agent’s action is habitual. That implies that the relationship between reasons and actions should be characterized in such a way that deliberation is unnecessary. In this paper, I examine three possible solutions: radical externalism, unconscious psychologism, and unconscious factualism. I argue that these proposals all fail to cast (...) reasons in their proper role. In light of that, I propose an alternative view of how to account for habitual virtuous actions, based on the work of G. E. M. Anscombe. I maintain that if we focus on the inherently rational structure of actions, the tension between acting habitually and acting for the right reason dissolves. (shrink)

A tragic dilemma is thought to arise when an agent, through no fault of her own, finds herself in a situation where she must choose between two courses of action, both of which it would be wrong to undertake. I focus on tragic dilemmas that are resolvable, that is, where a reason can be given in favour of one course of action over another, and my aim is to examine whether Hursthouse's virtue-ethical account of right action succeeds in avoiding two (...) problems presented by tragic dilemmas. The first of these is that they produce the seemingly contradictory conclusion that an agent, in doing what she ought to do, acts wrongly, making it appropriate for her to feel guilt. The second is the paradox of moral luck, which consists in the conflict between the intuition that an agent cannot be held responsible for actions that are not fully voluntary, and the fact that she may nevertheless believe that she has done something morally reprehensible. I argue that if we accept Hursthouse's separation of action guidance and action assessment, her account succeeds in solving the problem of contradiction. However, it does not completely avoid the problem of moral luck. I argue, against Hursthouse, that the virtuous agent can emerge from a tragic dilemma having acted well, and that this is the conclusion we must arrive at if we want to avoid the problem of contradiction and of moral luck. (shrink)

This article presents a new aesthetic of the improvised jazz solo, an aesthetic grounded in the premise that a solo is an act indivisible from the actor and the context. The solo's context includes the local and large-scale conventions of jazz performance as well as the soloist's other work. The theme on which a solo is based serves not as a “work,” but as part of the solo's stylistic context. Knowledge of this context inheres directly into proper apprehension of the (...) musical surface; it does not constitute a separate plane of appreciation. I begin by examining the improvisational error. This examination supports the position that the solo is an act, not a work. From this position, I detail a new aesthetic of the improvised solo, grounded in the soloist's virtues. In a successful solo, the soloist's actions display a balance of two aesthetic “virtues”: compositional skill and a commitment to the spirit of improvisation. Compositional skill manifests in a solo as coherence. The improvisational spirit manifests as courage, spontaneity, and related qualities. These virtues often come into conflict; each soloist negotiates this conflict differently. (shrink)

How can a collective pay attention virtuously? Imagine a group of scientists. It matters what topics they pay attention to, that is, which topics they draw to the foreground and take to be relevant, and which they leave in the background. It also matters which aspects of an investigated phenomenon they foreground, and which aspects they leave unnoticed in the background. If we want to understand not only how individuals pay attention of this kind virtuously, but also collectives, (...) we first need a framework to understand virtuous collective agency. A result of this article will be that virtuous collective action depends on the collective being institutionalized. At the same time, we have to think of the constituents of the collective in terms of practical identities (as opposed to individuals). This is what enables us to understand how a collective can acquire the stability required for virtue, and how we don’t end up with a summative account of group virtue, respectively. It will be argued that collectives only have the required stability in their actions when their commitments are habitualized in the form of institutionalized procedures. An Aristotelian understanding of virtue distinguishes between commitment, inclination, and action. Only when a subject’s inclination is fully lined up with her commitment, do we arrive at the required stability (of character) for virtuous action. In the case of individuals, to build up an appropriate inclination consists in an inscribing of the commitment into the feelings and body of the subject. If a commitment is fully ‘embodied’ in this sense, it has formed the individual’s inclination accordingly. How can one make sense of this in the case of collective subjects? This article tries to show that for collectives, the embodiment of commitment (the forming of the fitting inclinations) consists in creating policies, procedures, and rules that stabilize the acting according to the commitment, irrespective of the motivation of each individual involved in the collective. Hence, embodiment of commitment, in the case of collectives, is institutionalization. The article then explores what this requirement of institutionalization means for collective attention. The illustration will draw on a distinction between focused and open-minded attention. It will be shown that for either case – focused and open-minded – in order for a collective to pay attention virtuously, it needs to have its commitments institutionalized. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:The language of virtue is gaining wider appreciation in the philosophical, psychological, and management literatures. Ethicists and social scientists aim to integrate normative and empirical approaches into a new “science of virtue.” But, I submit, they are talking past each other; they hold radically different notions of what a virtue is. In this paper, I shall examine two conflicting conceptions of virtue, what I call the reductive and the non-reductive accounts of virtue. I shall critically study them and argue that (...) the non-reductive view is the best philosophical account of virtue and the only one that can account for the way we talk about virtue in business and in everyday life. We can only understand what it means to act virtuously through the examination of the attitudes, beliefs, desires, and inclinations of the virtuous agent. I shall illustrate the differences between the reductive and non-reductive accounts by considering the virtue of gratitude. (shrink)

Given that artificial moral agents—such as autonomous vehicles, lethal autonomous weapons, and automated financial trading systems—are now part of the socio-ethical equation, we should morally evaluate their behavior. How should artificial moral agents make decisions? Is one moral theory better suited than others for machine ethics? After briefly overviewing the dominant ethical approaches for building morality into machines, this paper discusses a recent proposal, put forward by Don Howard and Ioan Muntean (2016, 2017), for an artificial moral agent based on (...) virtue theory. While the virtuous artificial moral agent has various strengths, this paper argues that a rule-based utilitarian approach (in contrast to a strict act-utilitarian approach) is superior because it can capture the most important features of the virtue-theoretic approach while realizing additional significant benefits. Specifically, a 2-level utilitarian artificial moral agent incorporating both established moral rules and a utility calculator is especially well-suited for machine ethics. (shrink)

Virtuous actions seem to be both habitual and rational. But if we combine an intuitive understanding of habituality with the currently predominant paradigm of rational action, these two features of virtuous actions are hard to reconcile. Intuitively, acting habitually is acting as one has before in similar contexts, and automatically, that is, without thinking about it. Meanwhile, contemporary philosophers tend to assume the truth of what I call the reasons theory of rational action, which states that all rational (...) actions are actions for reasons. Whilst interpretations of this phrase are disputed, I argue that neither of the two leading views – which I call reasons internalism and reasons externalism – makes room for habitual actions to count as actions for reasons; by the reasons theory, they cannot be rational either. I suggest one way of effecting the reconciliation which, whilst it allows us to keep the reasons theory, requires us to conceive of reasons as even more radically external than current externalists believe them to be. (shrink)

How can we reconcile the fact that in order to act virtuously we appear to need to refer to the concept of a free will, while, at the same time, there are convincing philosophical arguments (aligned with a contemporary scientific understanding of natural causation) discrediting any viable notion of an unconstrained or uncaused will? Taking its cue from this important question, this chapter will proceed along the following lines. First, I aim to substantiate the link between contemporary character education (...) and the concept of the free will so as to illustrate the interdependency between the two. Next, I will scrutinize the concept of a free will, raising some philosophical concerns about its validity in a contemporary educational context. This involves looking at the philosophical stakes involved in proposing a unique capacity to intervene with the causal order of nature. At this point, I will suggest that there is a way out of this conundrum, and I will continue by proposing a radically different understanding of the will, offered by the seventeenth-century rationalist Spinoza. The chapter will close by looking at some of the practical consequences of grounding contemporary character education in a Spinozistic conception of the will. (shrink)

Is there any reason not to spy on other people as necessary to get the facts straight, especially if you can put the facts you uncover to good use? To “spy” is secretly to monitor or investigate another's beliefs, intentions, actions, omissions, or capacities, especially as revealed in otherwise concealed or confidential conduct, communications and documents. By definition, spying involves secret, covert activity, though not necessarily lies, fraud or dishonesty. Nor does spying necessarily involve the use of special equipment, such (...) as a tape recorder or high-powered binoculars. Use of a third party agent, such as a “private eye” or Central Intelligence Agency operative is not necessary for surveillance to count as spying. Spying is morally troublesome both because it violates privacy norms and because it relies on secrecy and, perhaps, nefarious deception. Contemporary technologies of data collection make secret, privacy-invading surveillance easy and nearly irresistible. For every technology of confidential personal communication - telephone, mobile phone, computer email - there are one or more counter-technologies of eavesdropping. But covert surveillance conducted by amateur and professional spies still includes old-fashioned techniques of stealth, trickery and deception known a half century ago: shadowing by car, peeking at letters and diaries, donning disguises, breaking and entering, taking photographs, and tape recording conversations. The ethical examination of spying cannot be reduced to a conversation about reigning in the mischief potential of twenty-first century technology. We do need to concern ourselves with what tomorrow's spies will do with nanotechnology, but plenty of spying is possible with the time-tested techniques of the Baby Boomers, or even, for that matter, the Victorians. The philosophical problem I wish to consider here is the ethical limits of spying on others, when the reasons for spying are good. I explore the plausibility of three interrelated ideas. The first idea is one I will call the anti-spying principle: spying on other adults is prima facie unethical. The second idea is an exception to the anti-spying principle: spying on others is ethically permissible, even mandatory, in certain situations, where the ends are good. The third and final idea is a constraint on exceptions to the anti-spying principle: where spying is ethically permitted or required, there are ethical limits on the methods of spying. The virtuous spy will violate privacy and transparency norms, of course; but he or she will, to the extent possible, continue to act with respect for the moral autonomy and for the moral and legal interests of the investigative target. (shrink)

Dual process theorists in psychology maintain that the mind’s workings can be explained in terms of conscious or controlled processes and automatic processes. Automatic processes are largely nonconscious, that is, triggered by environmental stimuli without the agent’s conscious awareness or deliberation. Automaticity researchers contend that even higher level habitual social behaviors can be nonconsciously primed. This article brings work on automaticity to bear on our understanding of habitual virtuous actions. After examining a recent intuitive account of habitual actions and habitual (...) virtuous actions, the author offers her own explanation in terms of goal-dependent automaticity. This form of automaticity provides an account of habitual virtuous actions that explains the sense in which these actions are rational, that is, done for reasons. Habitual virtuous actions are rational in the sense of being purposive or goal-directed and are essentially linked with the agent’s psychological states. Unlike deliberative virtuous actions, the agent’s reasons for habitual virtuous actions are not present to her conscious awareness at the time of acting. (shrink)

Do we have a unified pre-theoretical concept of morality? This paper makes a start on the larger argument that we do not, by countering criticisms of virtue ethics on the ground that it does not adequately capture such a pre-theoretical concept. One criticism is discussed and met, namely that the reasons on which virtuous people act fail to have the special force of moral reasons.

This chapter contains sections titled: References Further reading.

The notion of faith has been variously understood throughout the course of Christian intellectual history. It has been common to construe faith in epistemological terms, especially by critics of religious faith. In this paper, I argue that faith, especially faith that is had in the context of relationships, should be understood as an act of ventured trust. This is not to say that beliefs and the evidence for the truth of those beliefs are unimportant. Indeed, I argue that acting (...) on the basis of good evidence is what makes faith virtuous. (shrink)

Moral philosophers have mostly condemned the condonation of a bad act as being close to complicity in wrongdoing or, at best, as indicative of a lax moral conscience. I argue, in contrast, that condoning a wrongful act is sometimes not only permissible but positively virtuous. After considering the nature of condonation, I describe a range of circumstances in which it may be an appropriate response to wrongdoing, expressing such virtues as compassion and mercifulness, tolerance of human frailty, a love of (...) amity, and a proper respectfulness for others’ autonomy as moral agents. (shrink)

In this paper we draw on the munāẓara tradition to intervene in the debate on whether argument assessment should be agent- or act-based. We introduce and deploy the notion of _sequencing_ – the ordering of the antagonist’s critical moves – to make explicit an ambiguity between the _agent_ and the _act_ of arguing. We show that sequencing is a component of argumentation that inextricably involves the procedure as well as the agent and, therefore, its assessment cannot be adequately undertaken if (...) either agent- or act-based norms are ignored or demoted. We present our intervention through a challenge that virtue argumentation needs to address for it to be considered an alternative to existing theories of argument assessment (Section 2 ). We then briefly introduce munāẓara and focus on its notion of sequencing to explicate the interdependence between the agent and the procedure (Section 3 ). Next, we address the challenge by offering an account of the virtuous arguer as a virtuous sequencer (Section 4 ). In conclusion, we reflect on the implications of sequencing on virtue argumentation and the norms of argumentation. (shrink)

In this paper I outline a motive-based virtue account of right action, according to which an action is right if it expresses or exhibits virtuous motive, and which defines virtue in terms of human flourishing. I indicate how this account allows us to deal with the problem of consequential luck. By applying this account to the question of whether it is ever morally right or accept able to assist in someone's death, I demonstrate how it also allows us to deal (...) with the problem of circumstantial luck, which arises when an agent finds himself in a situation where he is forced to choose between two reprehensible acts. S. Afr. J. Philos. Vol.23(1) 2004: 20–33. (shrink)

In this essay, I shall assume that at least some groups are moral agents, a view successfully argued for by Peter French (1972, 1979, 1981). To that view I add only the following two refinements: (a) The reality of group or organizational agents depends on the existence of rules that constitute them. Because a moral agent acts in a community of moral agents, it is important that the rules that give a group agent its identity be accepted not only by (...) persons in the group but also by the persons and groups with which that group can reasonably be expected to interact. (b) The rule structure of groups provides a basis for claims about the (in)-voluntariness of group action. This is especially important in moral contexts. My primary concern in the essay will be to lay a conceptual foundation for certain normative questions about group moral agency. The questions with which I shall be concerned have to do most directly with the structure of the organization itself and only indirectly with its interactions with others. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

The medieval Church's concern with moral reform contributed to the emergence of a genre of literature in the thirteenth century dedicated to the vices and virtues. Inspired by monastic and scholastic traditions, treatises such as Laurent d'Orléans's Somme le roi encouraged the avoidance of sin and provided the faithful with a moral taxonomy that ultimately ensured their access to heaven. Marguerite Porete's Mirror of Simple Souls and Meister Eckhart's Discourses of Instruction challenge this virtue-centered approach to salvation. Relying on their (...) shared claim that the fall of the just man is in fact a virtue, this essay argues that their moral theology is grounded not on the a posteriori act of penance needed for salvation, but on the a priori consent of the will. This alternative view of moral life finds support in previous strands of the Christian tradition, and in particular in Peter Abelard's theory of intentionalism. (shrink)

Despite the bad press that revenge has received from moral philosophers and legal theorists, it can be a legitimate way to forge a link between wrongful behavior and penalties that karmic moral theories can only postulate. It can be especially effectual in commonplace cases that are under the radar of formal systems of justice. In such cases it can play a positive role in strengthening the moral foundations of a community. In those cases acts of revenge can provide a morally (...) valuable antidote to the negative participant reactive attitudes of community members. They can be an expression of morality in and for itself while exorcizing such pent up emotions as resentment, hatred, indignation, anger, antipathy, annoyance, umbrage, and ire. I maintain that responding in morally appropriate ways to insults, derisions, disparagements, and other forms of perceived wrongful disrespect and ill will is elemental in sustaining equitable human relations. To reiterate and paraphrase a point Robert Nozick made, the only power that morality has to affect human affairs resides in the critical responses moral people feel obliged to make upon recognizing the wrongful quality of another person’s acts or will. In this paper I apply the four criteria I defended in the book The Virtues of Vengeance to rather mundane cases of perceived maltreatment, exploitation, oppression, and/or neglect, and I deal with the issue of regulating multiple avengers who are bent on dealing out revenge to offenders in such commonplace cases. (shrink)

Perhaps one of the most pervasive behaviours in organisations is individual silence. Although individual silence may be triggered by various motives, prior research has predominantly discussed individual silence from the dark side. Thus, individual silence has been viewed as a dysfunctional and antisocial workplace behaviour. In this article, we take a bright perspective by incorporating virtues into the discussion of individual silence. Specifically, we propose the concept of virtuous silence to capture individuals' inclination to remain silent in order to feel, (...) think, and act in ways that contribute to the common good within the organisation. Additionally, virtuous silence contains the following key characteristics: 1) it is driven by an individual's natural propensity for righteousness and collective prosperity; 2) it is a dyadic behaviour; 3) it is a communicative behaviour that focuses on engaging oneself and others in deeper thinking and reasoning. Theoretical contributions and managerial implications are discussed. (shrink)

In the Nicomachean Ethics, one of Aristotle’s most frequent characterizations of the virtuous agent is that she acts for the sake of the fine (to kalon). In IX.8, this pursuit of the fine receives a more specific description; virtuous agents maximally assign the fine to themselves. In this paper, I answer the question of how we are to understand the fine as individually and maximally acquirable. I analyze Nicomachean Ethics IX.7, where Aristotle highlights virtuous activity (energeia) as central to the (...) fine, and argue that when virtuous agents pursue the fine, what they are pursuing is virtuous activity. I then address various problems, like how virtuous people can maximize virtuous activity yet sacrifice their lives, which would seem to amount to sacrificing future opportunities to virtuous activity and therefore not maximizing it. I also eliminate alternative interpretations that do not take virtuous activity as necessary to the fine, for example the common good interpretation, whereby virtuous agents pursuing the fine amounts to their pursuing the common good. (shrink)

Modern approaches to engineering ethics typically involve the systematic application of universal abstract principles, reflecting the culturally dominant paradigm of technical rationality (techne). By contrast, virtue ethics recognizes that sensitivity to context and practical judgment (phronesis) are indispensable in particular concrete situations, and therefore focuses on the person who acts, rather than the action itself. Virtues are identified within a specific social practice in accordance with its proper purpose, its societal role and associated responsibilities, and the internal goods that are (...) unique to it. As a result, ethics is recognized as something integral to engineering, rather than supplemental to it. This is necessary and appropriate, since engineers are often the decision-makers in contexts where the potential beneficiaries and harm-bearers are not the same; even their routine technical choices have ethical ramifications. The reasoning process commonly employed by engineers is similar in structure to that of scientists as articulated by Charles Sanders Peirce, the founder of philosophical pragmatism. As a "logic of ingenuity," it requires retroductively creating a diagrammatic model of a problem and its proposed solution, and then deductively working out the consequences, such that this serves as an adequate substitute for inductively evaluating the actual situation, which does not yet exist. As with ethical deliberation more generally, the key to success is having the ability to discern the significant aspects of reality and consistently capture them, before definitively selecting a way forward from among multiple viable options. This requires a carefully cultivated habit of imagining possibilities, assessing alternatives, and selecting one of them to bring about. (shrink)

Plutarch, at De Stoicorum repugnantiis 1038e–1039a , quotes and briefly discusses a fragment from Chrysippus' On Zeus . This quotation is to some extent paralleled by the scrap, taken from Chrysippus' On the Gods , which immediately follows at SR 1039a . Both quotations are again referred to by Plutarch at De communibus notitiis 1061a . Although the correct constitution of the text is controversial, it is at least clear that the fragment from the On Zeus deals with the fact (...) that not all virtuous acts are ipso facto also praiseworthy. Plutarch characteristically creates a first and more general contradiction between the On Zeus text and other passages in which Chrysippus argued that virtue and vice do not admit of gradations. In addition, he creates a specific contradiction between it and another quotation, this time from the On the Honourable , in which Chrysippus seems to draw the conclusion that the good is praiseworthy. (shrink)

Plutarch, at De Stoicorum repugnantiis 1038e–1039a, quotes and briefly discusses a fragment from Chrysippus' On Zeus. This quotation is to some extent paralleled by the scrap, taken from Chrysippus' On the Gods, which immediately follows at SR 1039a. Both quotations are again referred to by Plutarch at De communibus notitiis 1061a. Although the correct constitution of the text is controversial, it is at least clear that the fragment from the On Zeus deals with the fact that not all virtuous acts (...) are ipso facto also praiseworthy. Plutarch characteristically creates a first and more general contradiction between the On Zeus text and other passages in which Chrysippus argued that virtue and vice do not admit of gradations. In addition, he creates a specific contradiction between it and another quotation, this time from the On the Honourable, in which Chrysippus seems to draw the conclusion that the good is praiseworthy. (shrink)

While it is often supposed that Spinoza understood a life of virtue as one of pure activity, with as few passions as possible, this paper aims to make explicit how the passions for Spinoza contribute positively to our virtue. This requires, first, explaining how a passion can increase our power, given Spinoza’s view on the passions generally, which, in turn, requires coming to terms with the problem of passive pleasure, that is, the problem of explaining how being passive can cause (...) an increase in our power. In brief, this paper will argue that, for Spinoza, even when we are passive, we are somewhat active or, in Spinoza’s language, “adequate” to varying degrees. The passions represent activity because they exercise our understanding by providing us with intelligence about external bodies and our own bodies, in particular, the degree of our bodies’ perfection. It follows that a passion can be sufficiently adequate to bring about an increase in one’s power; in this sense, they can be virtuous. Moreover, this paper will show that the passions can also be virtuous in a moral sense. The view goes roughly as follows: according to Spinoza, the passions serve as a measure of our perfection. Consequently, they play a necessary role in moral reasoning, by indicating which activities increase or hinder our virtue. On this view, a truly virtuous person would require the passions in order to engage consistently in the sorts of activities which increase her power, in particular, following reason. Since this sort of consistency in behavior is necessary for a virtuous character, the passions can be virtuous in the sense that they are necessary aspects of the sort of character which disposes us to act according to reason. (shrink)

This article discusses Aristotle’s description of the virtuous person as inclined to superiority and to contempt. The issue is about superiority in the act, which is expressed in leading the origin of the act upwards to oneself, that is, about the superiority of the moral subject’s being. Contempt is not an estimation but something like a gesture removing any obstacle to being oneself. Aristotle creates a unified image to personify the idea of the moral subject and to answer the question (...) of being human. (shrink)

According to the traditional interpretation, Aristotle’s ethics, and ancient virtue ethics more generally, is fundamentally grounded in self-interest, and so in some sense egoistic. Most contemporary ethical theorists regard egoism as morally repellent, and so dismiss Aristotle’s approach. But recent traditional interpreters have argued that Aristotle’s egoism is not vulnerable to this criticism. Indeed, they claim that Aristotle’s egoism actually accommodates morality. For, they say, Aristotle’s view is that an agent’s best interests are partially constituted by acting morally, so (...) that the virtuous person sees morality as essential to her happiness. (Call this, ‘the Constitutive Thesis’.) In this paper, I argue that the constitutive thesis is unpersuasive, both from a theoretical standpoint and (for similar reasons) as an interpretation of Aristotle. It is unpersuasive because it is much more demanding in both respects than several nonegoist alternatives. My argument builds on an objection originally offered by John McDowell. McDowell claimed (1) that the Constitutive Thesis requires that there are independent standards of self-interest that can be agreed upon in advance by all parties to the dispute, both virtuous and nonvirtuous; and (2) that there are no such standards. I argue that McDowell is mistaken. The orthodox position requires much less than McDowell claims if it makes an appeal to the distinctiveness of the virtuous person’s point of view. However, unfortunately for traditionalists, the price of this point of view defence is high. First, to be even remotely plausible, the revised orthodox view must be almost frighteningly complex. Second, once this complexity is exposed, the orthodox view is much less plausible than its major rivals, in particular those which appeal directly to moral reasons. (shrink)

Our cultural situation is to seek a moral form of self-constitution, rather than an ontological or epistemological foundation. Such a moral ground lies in the paradox of willing surrender of the will to do wrong or dysfunctional acts in order to enter temporally-extended processes of moral change. But the paradox of willing surrender of the will requires analysis. The propositional form of it cannot be sustained and must instead give way to willingness as an ongoing choice. The self-reflexivity of the (...) will with which we accomplish this turns out to be a core activity of human activity that seeks openness to moral growth through humility. The paper suggests that self-constitution in this manner this is what freedom is for us and is therefore the source of our hope. (shrink)

On a view derived from Plato and Aristotle, being virtuous involves entrenched, wide-ranging dispositions not only to reason and act, but also to respond and feel. Because affective responses are crucial to being virtuous, Plato and Aristotle thought that it made all the difference how we are brought up. For Aristotle, this is matter of habituation: we learn by doing. What is it that we do when we learn by doing? There is no specific act associated with any virtue, so (...) the answer cannot be that we perform the same kind of action countless times. Moreover, being virtuous involves caring sufficiently about someone or something such that we want to be virtuous. These remarks suggest that habituation is not a straightforward matter. I argue that we become virtuous not by performing actions stereotypically associated with the virtues, but by engaging in activities that give rise to the right loves and attachments. These attachments are the psychological grounding of virtue; without them, having a virtuous character is not possible. (shrink)

Patients and families are increasingly turning to crowdfunding to help them cover the cost of medical care. The ethics of crowdfunding has garnered some attention in the bioethical literature. In this paper I examine an ethical aspect of medical crowdfunding (MCF) that has received limited attention: the role of donors. I defend a virtue ethical approach to analyzing the role of donors in MCF. Vicious donation, where donors do not exercise the relevant virtues, can compound some of the ethical risks (...) associated with MCF, as seen in the several recent, high‐profile cases. My primary contention in this paper is that encouraging donors to think about how donating to a particular campaign would measure against the virtues I outline could help to discourage acts of ethically problematic donation to MCF campaigns. (shrink)

In Morals from Motives, Michael Slote proposed an agent-based approach to virtue ethics in which the morality of an action derives solely from the agent’s motives. Among the many objections that have been raised against Slote’s account, this article addresses two problems associated with the Kantian principle that ought implies can. These are the problems of “deficient” and “inferior” motivation. These problems arise because people cannot freely choose their motives. We cannot always choose to act from good motives; nor can (...) we always avoid acting from bad ones. Given this, Slote’s account implies that we sometimes cannot do what we ought to do, contrary to Kant’s principle. In this article, I propose an alternative agent-based account which, I argue, circumvents these problems. While people cannot choose their motives, they can choose their intentions. By characterizing virtuous action, as I do, in terms of good intentions rather than in terms of good motives, the conflict between what people can do and what they ought to do is resolved. (shrink)

*Runner-up for the 2021 Royal Institute for Philosophy Essay Prize*: What should we think about ‘acts of conscience’, viz., cases where our personal judgments and public authority come into conflict such that principled resistance to the latter seems necessary? Philosophers mainly debate two issues: the Accommodation Question, i.e., ‘When, if ever, should public authority accommodate claims of conscience?’ and the Justification Question, i.e., ‘When, if ever, are we justified in engaging in acts of conscience – and why?’. By contrast, a (...) third important topic – the Conduct Question, i.e., ‘How should we act, morally speaking, when engaging in acts of conscience?’ – has been mostly neglected. This paper aims to offer concrete guidance for persons wishing to engage in acts of conscience in morally virtuous ways. I argue that such agents are subject to two basic prima facie duties: duties to oneself related to demands of integrity and duties to others related to demands of civility. I explain both duties in detail, arguing with regard to, that in light of what I call ‘the paradox of conscience’, we need to rethink our views about both ‘conscience’ and ‘integrity’; and with regard to, that, building upon Rawls’ ‘duty of civility’, we should embrace at least seven general principles for undertaking acts of conscience in a morally conscientious manner. (shrink)

Objective The President's Council on Bioethics in 2008 reaffirmed the necessity of the dead donor rule and the legitimacy of the current criteria for diagnosing both neurological and cardiac death. In spite of this report, many have continued to express concerns about the ethics of donation after circulatory death, the validity of determining death using neurological criteria and the necessity for maintaining the dead donor rule for organ donation. I analysed the dead donor rule for its effect on the virtuous (...) practice of medicine by physicians caring for potential organ donors.Results The dead donor rule consistently impedes physicians in fulfilling their primary duty to act for the good of their prospective donor patients. This compromises the virtue of fidelity. It also weakens many other virtues necessary for physicians to provide excellent end-of-life care.Conclusions The dead donor rule, while ethically powerful in theory, loses its force during translation to the bedside. This is so because the rule mandates simultaneous life and death within the same body for organ donation, a biological status that is inherently contradictory. The rule should be rejected as an ethical norm governing vital organ transplantation at the end of life. Its elimination will strengthen the doctor–patient relationship and foster trustworthiness in organ procurement. (shrink)

Given current studies in moral psychology and following recent cases of wrong behaviour occurred in elite sporting events ? e.g. the racist chants scandals in the English Premier League or the events following Mourinho's poke in the eye scandal ? I shall analyse the extent to which supporters' brain make-up is determining them to behave in an ?unfair way?. Yet this paper is not just a work on descriptive ethics, but a normative ethics work. Therefore, once I have developed the (...) ?psycho-biological account of sports supporters?, I shall explore whether or not a more virtuous account of sports supporting can be drawn. In order to fulfil this normative task I shall appeal to the concept of ?fair play?. The common view of fair play defines it as ?the act of abiding by the rules?. However, my account of fair play is more complex and it is based on the moral principle of respecting others. This is the reason why fair play is not just something related to athletes but to supporters as well. To conclude, I shall sketch the boundaries of fair-play-based supporting behaviour in order to propose some policies or strategies that can help us to promote a ?healthy? and virtuous behaviour among fans. (shrink)

Today, dramatically increasing economic inequality, imminent climatological calamity, and a global pandemic now place the timeless debate over capitalism into stark relief. Though many seek to pin the blame on capitalism’s excesses, they would do well to recall the historical record of socialism’s deficiencies, namely, stifling innovation, lumbering inefficiency, and stagnation. Fortunately, our moral psychology affords a middle way between these two extremes. For while economic incentives have a tendency to let our civic and prosocial impulses atrophy from disuse, these (...) can also be rekindled when we are faced with highly compelling reasons to think and act for the greater good of all concerned. The coronavirus pandemic now unfolding might well offer us an opportunity to instill a culture of heightened moral self-awareness spurring a more virtuous form of capitalism. (shrink)

Aristotle famously distinguishes between merely doing a virtuous action and acting in the way in which a virtuous person would. Against an interpretation prominent in recent scholarship, I argue that ‘acting virtuously,’ in the sense of exercising a virtue actually possessed, is prior to ‘virtuous action,’ understood generically. I propose that the latter notion is best understood as a derivative abstraction from the former, building upon a reading of a neglected distinction between per se and coincidentally just (...) action in Nicomachean Ethics 5, and thus shed light on the meaning and philosophical significance of the priority of acting from virtue. (shrink)

Virtues are standardly characterized as stable dispositions. A stable disposition implies that the virtuous actor must be disposed to act well in any domain required of them. For example, a politician is not virtuous if s/he is friendly in debate with an opponent, but hostile at home with a partner or children. Some recent virtue theoretic accounts focus on specific domains in which virtues can be exercised. I call these domain-variant accounts of virtue. This paper examines two such accounts: Randall (...) Curren and Charles Dorn’s (2018) discussion of virtue in the civic sphere, and Michael Brady’s (2018) account of virtues of vulnerability. I argue that being consistent with the standard characterization of virtue requires generalizing beyond a domain. I suggest four actions the authors could take to preserve their accounts while remaining consistent with the standard characterization. I also discuss how virtue education could be enhanced by domain-variant accounts. (shrink)

Thomas Aquinas situates virtues of character in the noncognitive appetite. He also claims that virtues of character provide the ends in practical matters. Since providing proper ends seems to be a cognitive act, it is unclear how virtues of character, qua perfections of the noncognitive appetite, provide ends. After criticizing three approaches to this interpretive challenge, we suggest that Aquinas provides us with a theory of practical identity. We argue that that on Aquinas's view a practical identity is constituted both (...) by a virtuous disposition in the appetitive power and by a rational commitment to proximate ends, a rational commitment that results from acquiring the virtuous disposition. With this account of practical identity in mind, we explain how Aquinas can consistently claim that virtues, qua perfections of the appetite, provide ends. (shrink)

There is a long tradition in moral philosophy which maintains that a necessary condition for moral goodness is that one act from a sense of duty. Kant is perhaps the best known and most discussed representative of this view, but one finds others prior to Kant, such as Butler and Price, and Kant's contemporaries, such as Reid, expressing similar ideas. Price, for example writes, ". . . what I have chiefly insisted on, is, that we characterize as virtuous no actions (...) flowing merely from instinctive desires, or from any principle except a regard to virtue itself.'' In this paper, I shall defend a version of this thesis. (shrink)