In Epistemic injustice, Miranda Fricker makes a tremendous contribution to theorizing the intersection of social epistemology with theories of justice. Theories of justice often take as their object of assessment either interpersonal transactions (specific exchanges between persons) or particular institutions. They may also take a more comprehensive perspective in assessing systems of institutions. This systemic perspective may enable control of the cumulative effects of millions of individual transactions that cannot be controlled at the individual or institutional levels. This (...) is true not only with respect to the overall distribution of such goods as income and wealth, but also with respect to the goods of testimonial and hermeneutical justice. Cognitive biases that may be difficult for even epistemically virtuous individuals to correct on their own may be more susceptible to correction if we focus on the principles that should govern our systems of testimonial gathering and assessment. Hence, while Fricker’s focus on individual epistemic virtue is important, we also need to consider what epistemic justice as a virtue of social systems would require. My paper will indicate some directions forward on this front, focusing on the need for integration of diverse institutions and persons engaged in inquiry. (shrink)

Aquinas, says Jean Porter, gets justice right. In this book she shows that Aquinas offers us a cogent and illuminating account of justice as a personal virtue rather than a virtue of social institutions. For Aquinas, justice is more about interpersonal morality than civic or social obligations, and Porter masterfully draws out the contemporary significance of Aquinas's perspective. - back of book.

The value turn in epistemology generated a particularly influential new position - virtue epistemology. It is an increasingly influential epistemological normative approach that opts for the intellectual virtues of the epistemic agent, rather than the truth-value of the proposition, as the central epistemic value. In the first part of this article we will attempt to briefly explain the value turn and outline the basic aspects of virtue epistemology, underlining the diversity of epistemic attitudes associated with this approach and (...) their positive impact on expanding epistemological horizons. The second part will be focused on the virtues of epistemic responsibility and epistemic justice as particularly appropriate for evaluating social processes such as, for example, testimony and conversational practices in general. In the third section we will show how the psychiatric and psychotherapeutic communicational act can be more efficiently analyzed and evaluated from the perspective of the virtue of epistemic justice, than from the traditional epistemic approach based on a monist concept of truth. The fourth and fifth section synthesize the discussion by introducing the concept of hermeneutic psychotherapy as a therapeutically and epistemically favorable framework for evaluating communicational acts in psychotherapy. nema. (shrink)

Jean Porter’s excellent study not only offers a clear and expansive picture of Aquinas on justice but also touches on nearly every other topic in Aquinas’s ethics. Of course, Aquinas himself thinks that no topic in philosophy or theology can be understood, or understood well, apart from its connection to multiple others, and Porter’s book is in this respect, as in so many others, deeply Thomistic. In the course of exploring justice—justice as a virtue, justice (...) as a moral ideal, and the special authority carried by the precepts of justice—Porter also reveals Aquinas’s thought on practical reason, moral inconsistency, virtue, eudaimonism, and normativity.“Aquinas gets justice right,” Porter asserts. Unlike most... (shrink)

People currently regard justice as the main principle of institutions and society, while in ancient Greek people took it as the virtue of citizens. This article analyzes Aristotle’s virtue of justice in his method of virtue ethics, discussing the nature of virtue, how justice is the virtue of citizens, what kind of virtue the justice of citizens is, and the prospect of the virtue of justice against a background (...) of institutional justice. Since virtue can be said to be a specific individual character, Aristotle also defines the virtue of justice as the character of justice, with which citizens act justly and desire to do what is just. The virtue of justice is also an individual ethical virtue, differing from others for it is at the same time a social ethic. We can call the virtue of justice a “non-individual individual ethical virtue.” It has been explained as between pure altruism and egoism, which is a wrong explanation. John Rawls regards justice as the first virtue of social institutions, challenging Aristotle’s virtue of justice, an assertion which also needs further deliberation. (shrink)

In The Idea of Justice , Amartya Sen argues for an approach to justice that is comparative and realization-based rather than transcendental and institutional. While Sen’s arguments for such an approach may not be as convincing as he thought, there are additional arguments for it, and one is that it provides a unique and valuable platform on which an account of justice as a virtue of social and political actors (including institutions and social movements) can be (...) built. Hence new dimensions of comparison are opened up: some actors are better disposed and more successful than others at leading social change in the direction of greater justice. The main objective of this article is to use the capability approach to construct such an account. Six dimensions of acting justly are identified: (1) reducing capability shortfalls; (2) expanding capabilities for all; (3) saving the worst-off as a first step towards their full participation in economy and society, (4) which is also to be promoted by a system of entitlements protecting all from social exclusion; while (5) supporting the empowerment of those whose capabilities are to expand; and (6) respecting ethical values and legitimate procedures. I conclude by sketching some underlying moral psychology. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:39 HUME'S JUSTICE AS A COLLECTIVE GOOD David Hume would probably regard his 'system of morals' as the most important part of his treatise of human nature. Yet his moral theory, particularly his theory of justice, continues to baffle commentators. Many have found it difficult to follow his line of reasoning to the conclusions that it is an artificial virtue to obey the rules of (...) class='Hi'>justice, and that such rules command our respect even though we do not have any natural tendencies to respect them. The most troubling claim seems to be the claim that justice is ultimately based on self-interest, the motive that, on the surface at least, tends to induce people to ignore justice, particularly justice of the kind Hume is talking about. Jonathan Harrison, for instance, goes through a series of examples in an attempt to get close to Hume's meaning. In this paper I wish to argue that by justice Hume has in mind something very much like what modern economists call collective good. In the economic theory of public finance, which was born in the late Fifties, a distinction is made between collective goods and private goods. I wish to argue that this distinction can be employed to elucidate the nature of Hume's concept of justice, as well as to pinpoint the source of the moral force making justice a virtue rather than just a matter of prudence. I Most goods (and services) bought and sold in any economy have the following characteristics. First, as one person purchases (and consumes) a quantity of a particular good, there is less of it available for others to consume (that is, before more is produced). If the market is cleared (i.e. all that is produced is bought and sold), the total production or supply (X_, say) is the sum of individual purchases (X =X +X + etc.). 40 Second, the benefit of consumption is confined largely to the person who consumes the good. The overall benefit is said to be divisible among consumers. Third, the cost of production is also divisible and can be calculated for each unit of the good (which is not to say that such calculation can be easily or accurately carried out). Goods such as bread and butter, shoes and ships and sealing wax, cabbages, and so on, are of this nature. There are also certain goods and services which do not have these characteristics. John Stuart Mill was actually the first to notice the fact that a good such as a lighthouse, once provided, confers benefits equally on all "consumers" (i.e. ships that navigate by it). Unlike the goods in the class above, the amount of service generated by a lighthouse does not diminish as more of it is "consumed." The total X available is actually what is available for each and every consumer, so that X =X =X = etc. Once available, the benefit is not confined to any one user: to make it available to one user is to make it available to other users. The overall benefit is not divisible among consumers. Finally, it is often meaningless to speak of units of the good, hence meaningless to speak of cost per unit. Costs are also not divisible. In this class of goods we can include, in addition to the lighthouse, national defense, clean air, pleasant surroundings, etc. In the economic literature of public finance, these goods are referred to as 2 collective goods (and those above, private goods). The nature of collective goods poses a number of problems. One is that it is difficult to extract payments from consumers, once the good has been provided. Since it is difficult, if not impossible, to exclude those who refuse to pay from consuming the good or service, it is unrealistic to expect any payments, or full payments. This being so, no private entrepreneur would be willing to produce collective goods. Generally, 41 they will not be provided unless there is some collective effort, hence the name collective goods. The second problem, as economists see it, is to work out the optimum level of production. This turns out to be theoretically simple, assuming that potential consumers truly reveal their... (shrink)

This article argues that the civic virtue of tolerance has to be understood as a virtue of justice. Based on an analysis of the concept of toleration and its paradoxes, it shows that toleration is a 'normatively dependent concept' that needs to take recourse to a conception of justice in order to solve these paradoxes. At the center of this conception of justice lies a principle of reciprocal and general justification with the help of which (...) a distinction between moral norms and ethical values is possible. While the former are strictly binding and define the realm of the tolerable, the latter are subject to reasonable disagreement that calls for toleration. Essentially, the virtue of tolerance is the capacity and willingness to accept the principle and criteria of justification of generally binding norms in an ethically pluralist society.This virtue is analyzed with respect to its normative and epistemological components. Finally, the idea of a 'tolerant character' is discussed. (shrink)

It has been widely observed that virtue ethics, regarded as an ethics of the ancient, in contrast to deontology and consequentialism, seen as an ethics of the modern (Larmore 1996: 19–23), is experiencing an impressive revival and is becoming a strong rival to utilitarianism and deontology in the English-speaking world in the last a few decades. Despite this, it has been perceived as having an obvious weakness in comparison with its two major rivals. While both utilitarianism and deontology can (...) at the same time serve as an ethical theory, providing guidance for individual persons and a political philosophy, offering ways to structure social institutions, virtue ethics, as it is concerned with character traits of individual persons, seems to be ill-equipped to be politically useful. In recent years, some attempts have been made to develop the so-called virtue politics, but most of them, including my own (see Huang 2014: Chapter 5), are limited to arguing for the perfectionist view that the state has the obligation to do things to help its members develop their virtues, and so the focus is still on the character traits of individual persons. However important those attempts are, such a notion of virtue politics is clearly too narrow, unless one thinks that the only job the state is supposed to do is to cultivate its people’s virtues. Yet obviously the government has many other jobs to do such as making laws and social policies, many if not most of which are not for the purpose of making people virtuous. The question is then in what sense such laws and social policies are moral in general and just in particular. Utilitarianism and deontology have their ready answers in the light of utility or moral principles respectively. Can virtue ethics provide its own answer? This paper attempts to argue for an affirmative answer to this question from the Confucian point of view, as represented by Mencius. It does so with a focus on the virtue of justice, as it is a central concept in both virtue ethics and political philosophy. (shrink)

It has been widely observed that virtue ethics, regarded as an ethics of the ancient, in contrast to deontology and consequentialism, seen as an ethics of the modern (Larmore 1996: 19–23), is experiencing an impressive revival and is becoming a strong rival to utilitarianism and deontology in the English-speaking world in the last a few decades. Despite this, it has been perceived as having an obvious weakness in comparison with its two major rivals. While both utilitarianism and deontology can (...) at the same time serve as an ethical theory, providing guidance for individual persons and a political philosophy, offering ways to structure social institutions, virtue ethics, as it is concerned with character traits of individual persons, seems to be ill-equipped to be politically useful. In recent years, some attempts have been made to develop the so-called virtue politics, but most of them, including my own (see Huang 2014: Chapter 5), are limited to arguing for the perfectionist view that the state has the obligation to do things to help its members develop their virtues, and so the focus is still on the character traits of individual persons. However important those attempts are, such a notion of virtue politics is clearly too narrow, unless one thinks that the only job the state is supposed to do is to cultivate its people’s virtues. Yet obviously the government has many other jobs to do such as making laws and social policies, many if not most of which are not for the purpose of making people virtuous. The question is then in what sense such laws and social policies are moral in general and just in particular. Utilitarianism and deontology have their ready answers in the light of utility or moral principles respectively. Can virtue ethics provide its own answer? This paper attempts to argue for an affirmative answer to this question from the Confucian point of view, as represented by Mencius. It does so with a focus on the virtue of justice, as it is a central concept in both virtue ethics and political philosophy. (shrink)

This paper has two goals: 1) to understand justice as a cardinal virtue, according to Aquinas; and 2) to use his conception of justice as a cardinal virtue to understand how one engages in acts of “general” justice. The argument proceeds in four stages: 1) how Aquinas understands the virtues by looking to their “objects”; 2) the two distinct “modes” of the four cardinal virtues, as “general” and “specific” virtues; 3) the triangle of three kinds (...) of justice, seen in terms of their “objects”; 4) Aquinas’s doctrine of justice as a “general” virtue shows that we can perform operations of “general” justice in two ways, as do the ruler and his minsters, and as ordinary folk do. Surprisingly, it is the latter mode of acting for “general” justice that is primary, not the former. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Leibniz's ethics is a kind of virtue ethics where virtues of the agent are explanatorily primary. I first examine how Leibniz obtained his conception of justice as a kind of love in an early text, Elements of Natural Law. I show that in this text Leibniz's goal was to find a satisfactory definition of justice that could reconcile egoism with altruism, and that this was achieved through the Aristotelian virtue of (...) friendship where friends treat each other as “other selves.” Following this decisive moment, Leibniz adopted an Aristotle‐inspired ethical framework where the virtuous agent is central for moral evaluations. I then show that, despite certain developments, Leibniz's ethics retained this essential feature throughout his career. In Leibniz's later writings, God constitutes the foundation of the moral realm, and the fundamental moral endeavor of human beings consists in the imitation of God. (shrink)

Usually a relational approach, such as one appealing to care or love, is contrasted with an account of justice. In this chapter, however, I argue that distributive justice is well conceived as itself a matter of honouring people in virtue of their capacity to love and to be loved. After spelling out a familiar conception of love, I explain how treating people with respect in light of this capacity provides a plausible basis for human rights, one that (...) rivals influential individualist foundations such as Kantian respect for autonomy and Catholic honor of human life. I also articulate an egalitarian conception of how to allocate wealth that I argue is also a function of treating people's ability to love as special and that can compete against views salient in Anglo-American political philosophy such as cost-benefit analysis and John Rawls’ difference principle. (shrink)

Today’s globalized economy cannot be governed by legal strictures alone. A combination of self-interest and regulation is not enough to avoid the recurrence of its systemic crises. We also need virtues and a sense of corporate responsibility in order to assure the sustained success of the global economy. Yet whose virtues shall prevail in a pluralistic world? The moral theory of Thomas Aquinas meets the present need for a business ethics that transcends the legal realm by linking the ideas of (...) justice and virtue in an ingenious way. While allowing for, and incorporating, the specificities of region and religion, industry and culture, Thomas’s virtue theory coordinates private and public activities through a set of context-invariant, justice-oriented norms with conceptual appeal to contemporary questions of global business ethics.In our article, we first sketch how Aquinas’s theory can be also of relevance to a non-confessional audience through its appeal to the ‘natural light of reason.’ Then we explain how his theory of ‘natural law’ aligns his ideas of virtue and justice. From this vantage point, we address the tension between cultural diversity and moral uniformity in the economic sphere in general and in today’s globalized business world in particular. Throughout the article, we aim to show that by interpreting the virtue-dimension of business in light of the idea of social justice, Aquinas’s conception of virtuous business conduct gains inter-personal and inter-cultural validity that establishes social justice as the global virtue of business. (shrink)

Thomas Reid’s positive account of justice as a natural virtue must be extracted from his polemic on Hume’s theory that justice is an artificial virtue. For Hume, the conceptual analysis of justice is in terms of agreement and hence, it is absurd to suppose that any act is unjust prior to Humean agreement. Hume maintains that no man is obliged to obey the rules of justice unless others agree to do likewise; by implication, there (...) can be no injustices in the state of nature. Reid categorically denies this, and presents sharp criticism of Hume’s account. To refute Hume’s account, Reid must show that there is a conceptual priority of the notion of justice—prior to any convention or artifice of society. In other words, he must show that we have a conception of justice which is not dependent on the conventions of society. Reid, I will show, is successful in showing this. His success in showing that justice is a natural virtue depends not only on his conceptual analysis, but on his arguments from human nature as well. The argument of Reid’s that is the central focus of this paper rests upon the following claim: “As soon as men have any rational conception of a favour and an injury, they must have the conception of justice and perceive its obligation.”. (shrink)

The “motive of justice” is ambiguous between three quite different categories of motivation. These are: the motive to perform a particular just act; the motive to set up institutions of justice, most particularly the conventions or “artifices” which regulate and establish property; and a motivational disposition, or essential part of a complex of motivational dispositions, that is characteristic of a person with the virtue of justice. The question now arises: Can justice as a basic (...) class='Hi'>virtue be understood as having at its core a natural motive which is expressed in its various differentiated forms? More particularly, could Hume find such a motive? This chapter argues that compassion can be seen as just that natural motive. It considers two problems for the understanding of compassion as the natural motive for justice in sense, in relation to Hume's theory of the passions. (shrink)

I shall first briefly revisit the broad idea of ‘epistemic injustice’, explaining how it can take either distributive or discriminatory form, in order to put the concepts of ‘testimonial injustice’ and ‘hermeneutical injustice’ in place. In previous work I have explored how the wrong of both kinds of epistemic injustice has both an ethical and an epistemic significance—someone is wronged in their capacity as a knower. But my present aim is to show that this wrong can also have a political (...) significance in relation to non-domination, and so to freedom. While it is only the republican conception of political freedom that presents nondomination as constitutive of freedom, I shall argue that non-domination is best understood as a thoroughly generic liberal ideal of freedom to which even negative libertarians are implicitly committed, for non-domination is negative liberty as of right—secured non-interference. Crucially on this conception, non-domination requires that the citizen can contest interferences. Pettit specifies three conditions of contestation, each of which protects against a salient risk of the would-be contester not getting a ‘proper hearing’. But I shall argue that missing from this list is anything to protect against a fourth salient threat: the threat that either kind of epistemic injustice might disable contestation by way of an unjust deflation of either credibility or intelligibility. Thus we see that both testimonial and hermeneutical injustice can render a would-be contester dominated. Epistemic justice is thereby revealed as a constitutive condition of non-domination, and thus of a central liberal political ideal of freedom. (shrink)

In her groundbreaking book, Epistemic Injustice, renowned moral philosopher and social epistemologist Miranda Fricker coined the term epistemic injustice to draw attention to the pervasive impact of epistemic oppression on marginalized social groups. Fricker’s account spurred a flurry of scholarship regarding the discriminatory impact of epistemic injustice and gave birth to a domain of philosophical inquiry that has extended far beyond the disciplinary boundaries of philosophy. In this interview, Fricker responds to questions posed by A. C. Nikolaidis and Winston C. (...) Thompson that address the ways in which epistemic injustice intersects with education as a human endeavour and social institution. In doing so, Fricker reflects on her motivations in writing her book more than fifteen years ago and explicitly addresses some of the most significant contributions of the concept of epistemic injustice as a tool for analysing issues in education. She also offers insights on the purpose of education, outlines educational manifestations of epistemic injustice, and discusses the virtues that educators must exhibit and inculcate in their students in order for epistemic justice to obtain. (shrink)

The prevailing normative model of contemporary journalism, drawn primarily from a liberal enlightenment tradition emphasizing universal notions of rights, contributes to what many perceive as a crisis in contemporary journalism; at the least, Kantian models are too "thin" to provide an adequate ethical standard. We consider the extent to which an ethic of care, reconceived to address weaknesses identified in recent scholarly critiques, provides journalists with an alternative framework for moral decision making. We use the concept of unequal ethical pull (...) to rework caring and to promote caring for distant others because caring that remains at the personal level is inadequate as a moral value. We conclude by noting that public journalism and our retooled ethic of care share several important ideals. We suggest a program of mutually beneficial exploration, one that might help today's journalists cultivate the virtue of care as they work toward justice. (shrink)

Mobile health (mHealth) technologies for self-monitoring health-relevant parameters such as heart frequency, sleeping patterns or exercise regimes aim at fostering healthy behavior change and increasing the individual users to promote and maintain their health. We argue that this aspect of mHealth supports healthism, the increasing shift from institutional responsibility for public health toward individual engagement in maintaining health as well as mitigating health risks. Moreover, this healthist paradigm leads to a shift from understanding health as the absence of illness to (...) regarding health as the performance of certain rituals in order to project healthiness. By drawing from the analogy between healthiness and traditional virtues, we evaluate the promises made by proponents of mHealth technologies for self-monitoring. We argue that the implementation and use of mHealth risk entrenching existing inequalities and, more particularly, tend to exclude populations situated at the losing end of those inequalities from participating in the quasi-virtue of healthiness. Consequently, the implementation and use of mHealth technologies not only present challenges for social justice but also undermine their primary societal goal—to promote public health. Finally, we offer several suggestions on how to realize the potential benefit of mHealth. (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)

This paper aims to show the advantages of the personal ethics perspective employed by the British idealists in the analysis of justice. In the context of Green’s and Bosanquet’s political theory, justice is a secondary moral ideal. Yet, it is argued here, their moral philosophy leads us, through a longer path, to the philosophical grounds we already occupy today: those of thinking about human rights as fundamental, not derivative, i.e. thinking about justice as a primary, not secondary (...) moral ideal. There are three related yet distinct philosophical claims here. First, the British idealists saw clearly the stand-off between justice and virtue. Second, the personal ethics of Green and Bosanquet, with some reconstruction offered here, outlines the way in which this stand-off can be resolved without undermining its significance. Third, the personal ethics perspective is beneficial for resolving some of the difficulties surrounding the institutional approach of implementing of social justice. (shrink)

Among the deleted scenes from the theatrical version of Aliens is a short sequence in which the authors learn about Ellen Ripley's daughter, Amanda. This explains why Ripley feels so connected and responsible to the only surviving colonist of Hadley's Hope, second‐grader Rebecca Jorden, known as “Newt”. Ripley's exceptional treatment of Newt shows that the virtues of care and compassion should sometimes override universal rules of justice and fairness. Ripley has made a promise to never leave Newt, and intends (...) to take it seriously. Knowing Newt, caring about Newt, Ripley would rather die than let anything bad happen to her. The powerful point of Aliens is that this is not a moral failing or lack of consideration, but a deep commitment and serious decision. Ripley's oath to rescue Newt is specific, and it is partial. (shrink)

There seems now to be a wide agreement among contemporary philosophers that one can give good reasons why one ought to adhere to certain rules, but it is not so widely agreed that one ought to cultivate certain virtues which cannot be said to consist merely in the habit of adhering to rules—as probably can be said of justice, truthfulness, honesty and many others. The difference between these points of view may be described as the difference between a legalistic (...) and an idealistic ethics. In the one the moral life is conceived as a careful adherence to correct rules of conduct; in the other it is conceived as a striving toward an ideal of perfection. In the latter the virtues of keeping rules are a part but not the whole of moral virtue.. But in legalism the keeping of rules is the whole of moral virtue. There is no duty to cultivate any virtues beyond those involved in moral laws. The other virtues are praiseworthy but they are not obligatory, not duties; it is not wrong to neglect them, though they may be the occasions for citations, awards and honors for “conduct above and beyond the call of duty.”. (shrink)

Woiceshyn showed that leaders who exhibit rational egoistic behaviors not only make decisions that lead to organizational success, but that these decisions are also ethical. Woiceshyn’s ethical decision-making model consists of seven fundamental virtues associated with rational egoism: rationality, productiveness, justice, independence, honesty, integrity, and pride. In this paper, we define the rational egoism construct using a virtues-based ethical framework. We compare and contrast the seven virtues under rational egoism with alternative interpretations that arise under altruism, deontology, and teleology (...) in order to further refine the construct. Based on this analysis, we conceptualize rational egoism as a Type II second-order formative model and develop a scale based on the seven underlying virtues. Through the use of partial least squares path modelling, we validate this on a sample of 534 full-time American workers. We then demonstrate that this rational egoism construct has a strong, positive relationship to the transformational leadership construct. Implications for practice are discussed and areas for future study are suggested. (shrink)

In response to Lawrence Solum's advocacy of a ‘virtue–centred theory of judging’, I argue that there is indeed important work to be done in identifying and characterising those qualities of character that constitute judicial virtues – those qualities that a person needs if she is to judge well (though I criticise Solum's account of one of the five pairs of judicial vices and virtues that he identifies – avarice and temperance). However, Solum's more ambitious claims – that a judge's (...) vice necessarily corrupts her decisions, and that in at least some contexts we must define a legally correct decision as one that would be reached by a virtuous judge – should be rejected: we can undermine the former by attending to the requirements of due process, and the latter by attending to the ways in which a judge would try to justify her decision. (shrink)

The last half-century has seen a steady loss of confidence in the defensibility of a duty to obey the law — even a qualified, pro tanto duty to obey the laws of a just or nearly just state. Over roughly the same period, there has been increasing interest in virtue ethics as an alternative to the dominant consequentialist and deontological approaches to normative ethics. Curiously, these two tendencies have so far only just barely linked up. Although there has been (...) discussion of the question whether patriotism should be considered a virtue, and abstract discussion about the virtuous person’s relation to authority and justice in general, there has been little virtue-oriented discussion having specific reference to the kinds of difficulties that have motivated the ascendant skepticism about political obligation. This silence has persisted despite repeated calls for renewed work on “virtue politics”. This article proposes and defends a preliminary account of law-abidance (as contrasted to obedience) as a virtue. It argues that a virtue-theoretic account of our relation to the law offers advantages that are not contingent upon the independence or priority of the virtues with respect to consequentialist and deontological components of a complete moral theory. Chief among these advantages is the promise of an alternative to the deadlocked positions taken by apologists for the duty to obey the law and their philosophical-anarchist critics — positions which have tacitly been assumed to exhaust the viable possibilities. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.1 (2003) 121-122 [Access article in PDF] Harold Tarrant. Plato's First Interpreters. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000. Pp. viii + 263. Cloth, $55.00. This is Tarrant's third book on the ancient Platonist tradition, following his Scepticism or Platonism? (1985) and Thrasyllan Platonism (1993). In those earlier volumes his focus was on the first centuries bc and ad. Here his scope is much (...) wider. Stating that "Platonic interpretation is today at a crossroads," he has written a book that explores "ancient attempts to wrestle with this corpus," with the ultimate objective "to encourage a fresh, almost primitive reading of Plato himself" (vii).He begins engagingly by confronting the ancients with questions any modern reader of Plato must ask: What kind of text is this? Are there doctrines here? Where do I look for Plato's doctrines? The second part of his book is a historical survey, taking us from Plato, the early Academy and Aristotle, through the Hellenistic and early Roman Imperial period, and concluding with the principal Neoplatonist interpreters. In the third and longest part, he focuses on the interpretation of specific dialogues, giving most space to the Gorgias and Theaetetus, but also dealing in particular detail with the Meno, Parmenides, and Philebus. Something is said about every dialogue, but Tarrant writes only briefly about such major works as the Republic and Timaeus. He explains his selectivity (not very convincingly) as due to his wish to "discuss issues of meta-interpretation, with emphasis on the period before Plotinus" (198).Taking his book as a whole, one realizes that few strands of modern interpretation were not prefigured to quite a large extent in antiquity. The two most obvious exceptions are the chronological and developmental approach (Early, Middle, and Late), at present under strong attack from some quarters, and the theological, numerological, and allegorical readings practiced by Neoplatonists. Plato's ancient interpreters were doctrinal unitarians, but they implicitly anticipated our tendency to distinguish "Socratic dialogues," which some of them called "gymnastic" and "inquisitive," from such "canonical" works as the Phaedo,Republic, Symposium, and Timaeus, to which they applied the labels "dogmatic" and "expository." And they recognized that both types of characteristics could be found in the same dialogue, as in the Meno and Theaetetus. Plato himself, they proposed, spoke primarily through the voices of Socrates, Timaeus, and the Eleatic and Athenian strangers; but other characters, such as Pausanias in the Symposium, or Protagoras in the dialogue of that name, utter thoughts with some philosophical value. In explaining difficult passages of one dialogue, they would typically refer to passages from other parts of the corpus. An especially intriguing instance is the strategy of the Anonymous Commentator on the Theaetetus, who reads the Meno into the dialogue on which he is officially commenting.Ancient scholars, just like ourselves, asked questions about the unifying themes of complex dialogues. Hence the sub-titles given to certain works: "On the soul" for the Phaedo, and "On justice" for the Republic, etc. For Olympiodorus (whose commentary on the Gorgias Tarrant has recently co-edited [Leiden, 1998]), earlier interpreters have seriously erred by giving too limited an account of that dialogue's scope. It is not, he says, simply about rhetoric, nor about justice and injustice; nor is its theme the divine demiurge (as some Neoplatonists had strangely proposed, on the basis of the concluding myth). Rather, the subject of the Gorgias is "the ethical principles that lead to constitutional well-being" (125). [End Page 121] However, Olympiodorus's eminently "sensible" reading (as Tarrant calls it) is deeply embedded in the Neoplatonic contrast between the "purificatory virtues" of the Phaedo and the "constitutional virtues" of Republic4.Strong or weak scepticism, esotericism, unwritten doctrines, spurious versus genuine, a canon of central dialogues, dramatic considerations, and the philosophical importance or non-importance of the dialogues' prologues—all of these are interpretive approaches that Tarrant surveys in this immensely learned book, and all of them continue to resonate for us. Modern scholars, who emphasize the literary and philosophical unity of each dialogue, are walking... (shrink)

First paragraph: It is worth distinguishing two kinds of role that ideas of virtue and vice might play in the criminal law (or in our theoretical understanding of the criminal law). Each kind admits of a range of variations; each can be more or less ambitious in scope and aim: but although there are of course quite close connections between the two kinds, we can usefully sketch them as two different ways of developing a virtue jurisprudence of criminal (...) law. Both kinds of role are connected to views of the proper aims of a system of criminal law: in the first case, a view of the further goods that criminal law should aim to achieve; in the second case, a view of the proper objects of criminal liability. (shrink)

In the following pages, our specific aim is to show how Hume’s analysis of justice provides the occasion for the gradual display of some key elements of a psychosocial action theory, which lay the foundations for later social thinking. -/- RESUMEN: En lo que sigue, nuestro objetivo específico es mostrar cómo el análisis que realiza Hume de la justicia proporciona la ocasión para introducir de manera gradual elementos clave para el desarrollo de una teoría psico-social de la acción, presupuesta (...) en buena parte del pensamiento social posterior. (shrink)

Xenophon presents his perplexing account of the conspiracy of Kinadon and its suppression in the midst of his portrait of Spartan imperial power at its zenith in the Hellenika. While the political relevance of this conspiracy has long been assumed by scholars, the labyrinthine structure of Book III obscures the centrality of the account in Xenophon’s examination of Spartan imperialism and Spartan justice. Attention to the details in the conspiracy account and its place within the narrative reveals the source (...) of corruption and decline inherent in the Spartan regime: an unexamined, and fatally deficient, view of justice as a virtue. Imperialism is not the cause but a symptom of the corruption rooted in fundamental defects of the Spartan constitution. Thus understood, the account of Kinadon’s conspiracy in the Hellenika constitutes a compelling critique of Spartan justice and helps to establish the overarching Socratic character of Xenophon’s political thought. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:46. ARTIFICIAL VIRTUE, SELF-INTEREST, AND ACQUIRED SOCIAL CONCERN I One of Hume's most celebrated contributions to moral philosophy is his distinction between natural and artificial virtue. This is obviously intended to be an important distinction but its significance is less than obvious. Many modern commentators view both as interest based, with the natural virtues related to our immediate interests while the artificial are linked to our enlightened (...) long-term interests. Despite the fact that this standard reading does have some textual support (e.g., T535, 2 537), it is not without its difficulties. The major problem lies in the account of why artificial virtues are, in fact, virtues. Natural and artificial virtues frequently encourage conflicting actions. For example (T497498 ), the repayment of a loan to a "seditious bigot" may be in accord with the artificial virtue attached to justice, but nevertheless may thwart public as well as individual interest and consequently clash with natural virtue. As a result, we are faced with two alternatives: We can either accept the standard interpretation and its attendant incoherencies or we can re-examine Hume's natural/artificial distinction in hopes of arriving at a reading capable of avoiding these complications. What follows is an attempt to exploit the second option. In essence, I shall urge that a sharper distinction is needed between the artificial and natural virtues. The present deficiency clearly emerges once we realize that the standard account totally overlooks a critical aspect of Hume's doctrine. Not only does Hume provide a speculative history of how societal conventions arose from the state of nature (an essentially diachronic account), but he also offers an explanation of why we now attach moral approbatior to actions falling within these conventions (an essentially 47. synchronie account). It is the latter that enables Hume to explain the connection between moral sentiment and the artificial virtues; yet this aspect is completely neglected on the popular interpretation. These two accounts must be distinguished and clarified in order to understand Hume's intent and position. II Hume's distinction between natural and artificial virtue is roughly this: Natural virtue is attributable to those sentiments and passions which, if acted upon, generally tend to yield pleasing results to ourselves or others. On the other hand, we ascribe artificial virtue to actions which constitute a certain practice, the observance of which tends towards the good of mankind. Thus, an action is naturally virtuous if it is motivated by a sentiment which, if regularly acted upon, would have pleasant results. Because of this, naturally virtuous actions usually have pleasing consequences. It is in our own self-interest to promote the natural virtues and the actions they engender. Meanwhile, we attach artificial virtue to actions falling under a practice or convention. In effect, we view the entire practice as well as its particular constituent actions as virtuous. This distinction seems fairly simple; nonetheless it has two significant consequences. First, in both cases, virtue is attributed to the motives behind rather than the specific actions themselves. For instance, Hume argues that benevolence is a natural virtue (E295-302), therefore any action following from this motive will be virtuous. However, the same action fails to be virtuous if it does not stem from the sentiment of benevolence. It is the motive that bestows virtue upon the action. Similarly, an action is artificially virtuous if it arises from an artificially virtuous motive. For example, an action is 48. artificially virtuous if it springs from the desire to do what is just (an artificially virtuous motive) ; yet the same action is not virtuous if it is inspired by a nonvirtuous motive or mere caprice. Just as with their natural counterparts, artificially virtuous motives are responsible for the actions they induce. But it is here that the similarity ends, for natural virtue is assigned to motives to perform immediately agreeable actions while artificial virtue is connected with motives to act within institutions deemed to be in the interest of society. To return to the earlier examples, actions arising from benevolence will almost always have an immediately agreeable affect, although, as Hume admits (T497-498, 597; E286, 304), there are exceptions. Of course actions performed for the... (shrink)

This book is a major contribution to the current theory of liberalism by an eminent political theorist. It challenges the views of such theorists as Rawls, Dworkin, and Ackerman who believe that the essence of liberalism is that it should remain neutral concerning different ways of life and individual conceptions of what is good or valuable. Professor Galston argues that the modern liberal state is committed to a distinctive conception of the human good, and to that end has developed characteristic (...) institutions and practices - representative governments, diverse societies, market economies, and zones of private action - in the pursuit of specific public purposes that give unity to the liberal state. These purposes guide liberal public policy, shape liberal justice, require the practice of liberal virtues, and rest on a liberal public culture. Consequently the diversity characteristic of liberal societies is limited by their institutional, personal, and cultural preconditions. (shrink)

What sort of moral theory should we view Saint Anselm of Canterbury as holding and using in his writings? In this paper, I argue that Anselm is best understood as a virtue ethicist. In the first part of the paper, I consider whether his approach could be understood in terms of deontological or natural law theories. In the second, I make a case for Anselm being a virtue ethicist. In the third part, I focus on this theme as (...) found in treatises published during Anselm’s lifetime. In the fourth, I look at other texts within the Anselmian corpus, notably the De humanibus moribus and the Dicta Anselmi. In the fifth and sixth parts, I turn to Anselm’s letters, focusing first on general discussions, and then on discussions focused upon specific virtues and vices. -/- . (shrink)

UNTIL RECENT YEARS moral traditions have not been an important topic for moral philosophy. With few exceptions, attention has been directed to the problem of moral justification, to the search for universal criteria for the assessment of moral beliefs or judgments regardless of their traditional provenance. Generally, philosophers aspire to formulate "the view from nowhere." Since the publication of Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue there has been a revival of interest in the concept of a living, moral tradition, especially among (...) moral philosophers concerned with the possibility of an ethics of virtue or character as a viable alternative to the ethics of principle or, say, to deontological, utilitarian, or contractarian ethics. We must observe here that in the three decades prior to 1981, some moral philosophers displayed similar concern with tradition, although terms other than "tradition" were used, for example, "forms of life," "ways of life," "moral practices," and "moral community." Rawls's conception of reflective equilibrium is also developed with an eye on the notion of tradition. Indeed, Rawls has been quite explicit about his tradition-oriented approach to moral theory: "What justifies a conception of justice is not its being true to an order antecedent to and given to us, but its congruence with our deeper understanding of ourselves and our aspirations, and our realization that, given our history and the traditions embedded in our public life, it is the most reasonable doctrine.". (shrink)

Ethical perception involves seeing what is ethically salient about the particular details of the world. This kind of seeing is like informed judgment. It can be shaped by what we know and what we come to learn about, and by the development of moral virtue. I argue here that we can learn to see food justice, and I describe some ways to do so using three narrative case studies. The mechanism for acquiring this kind of vision is a (...) “food justice narrative” that is particular and concrete. These kinds of stories are counter narratives to a popular and dominant “script” about food that disguises the identity of people who eat, and obscures how constraints on free choice are created by particular lived circumstances. Food justice narratives specify the social and political location of individual people who are trying to nourish themselves. Once this contextual surround is included we are in a position to ask why this person, in this set of circumstances, is impeded in their access to nutritious food. This is not a question we are likely to consider if we leave out the identity of food consumers. Food justice narratives are forward looking as well because they bring into clearer focus what actions and kinds of social activism are appropriate responses to constraints on free choice. (shrink)

This book is about virtue and statecraft in Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan. Its overarching argument is that the fundamental foundation of Hobbes's political philosophy in Leviathan is wise, generous, loving, sincere, just, and valiant-in sum, magnanimous-statecraft, whereby sovereigns aim to realize natural justice, manifest as eminent and other-regarding virtue. I propose that concerns over the virtues of the natural person bearing the office of the sovereign suffuse Hobbes's political philosophy, defining both his theory of new foundations and his (...) critiques of law and obligation. These aspects of Hobbes's thought are new to Leviathan, as they respond to limitations in his early works in political theory, Elements and De Cive-limitations made apparent by the civil wars and the regicide of Charles I. Though new, I argue that they tap into ancient political and philosophical ideas, foremostly the variously celebrated, mystified, and maligned figure of the orator founder. (shrink)

This paper tries to show that there is an important virtue (with no generally recognized name) that could be called “accountability.” This virtue is a trait of a person who embraces being held accountable and consistently displays excellence in relations in which the person is held accountable. After describing the virtue in more detail, including its motivational profile, some core features of this virtue are described. Empirical implications and an agenda for future research are briefly discussed. (...) Possible objections to the virtue are considered and rebutted, and relations to other virtues, particularly the personal virtue of justice, are discussed. In conclusion, we suggest that though this virtue has not received the attention it deserves in contemporary society, it has been more clearly recognized in other cultures. Some of the reasons for the partial eclipse of the virtue are understandable and justifiable, but there are good reasons to think our society would be improved if we paid more attention to accountability from a virtue perspective. (shrink)