Concept Of Virtue Research Articles

Professionalism in the palliative medicine physician: How ought it best be cultivated?

This article was migrated. The article was not marked as recommended. The role of professionalism in regards to becoming a mature palliative medicine physician is explored in this essay. As a professional, the physician will acquire attributes that belong to the domains of both the professional and healer.The doctor as professional and as healer requires the development of an ethical wisdom. In particular consideration of the concept of virtue is shown to be key to being effective in this role. The acquisition of these traits and the honing of the necessary skills may be operationalised through the repeated practice of good habits. This may be learnt and does not depend only on an innate disposition. Experiential learning and the powerful role of exemplars is crucial to this. Self-awareness, a keen understanding of compassion, and situational ethical ease will contribute to both career longevity and satisfaction.

The Westminster Standards and the possibility of a Reformed virtue ethic

AbstractThe renaissance of virtue ethics in Christian moral discourse has led a handful of Reformed theologians to consider whether or not the Reformed tradition is compatible with classical and medieval concepts of virtue. Barthians, in particular, express doubt regarding the prospect of such a retrieval, arguing that classical notions of virtue compromise the Reformed hallmark of divine sovereignty and Luther's dictumsimul justus et peccator.This essay counters that the Reformed tradition is broad enough to find more productive ways to engage virtue ethics. In particular, the Westminster Standards provideboththe formal space for a significant theological exploration of human agencyandthe material content for the development of something like a classical virtue ethic. Barthian concerns regarding divine sovereignty and moral progress are satisfied by a demonstration that Westminster's attention to human agency is always within the context of a greater emphasis on divine agency.

Dygðirnar í Laxdæla sögu: Efniviður fyrir mannkostamenntun

Bókmenntakennsla í anda mannkostamenntunar byggist mjög á því að fjalla um dygðirnar í textanum. Þegar tilraun var gerð með að kenna Laxdæla sögu með þessu móti þurfti að taka saman dygðirnar í sögunni. Í þessari grein er að finna ítarlega greiningu á dygðum í Laxdælu. Beitt var tveimur aðferðum við að leita að dygðunum. Fyrri aðferðin fólst í að skoða þau dygðaorð sem koma fyrir í sögunni. Þannig má fá nokkuð heilsteypta mynd af þeim dygðum sem höfundur Laxdælu nefnir sjálfur. Til að fá breiðari mynd af dygðunum í sögunni og jafnframt dýpri mynd af þeim aðstæðum þar sem dygðir koma fyrir var beitt annarri aðferð. Þar var notaður listi yfir dygðir frá Jubilee-miðstöðinni á Englandi og skoðað hvað af þeim mætti finna í sögunni. Í báðum tilfellum voru sams konar dæmi tekin saman til að gefa sem besta mynd af notkun orða og tilvist dygða í Laxdælu. Greiningin er rökstuðningur fyrir tilvist dygða í sögunni, getur nýst þeim sem vilja kenna Laxdælu út frá dygðum og loks varpar hún fræðilegu ljósi á þær dygðir sem finna má í sögunni.

Dygðir, siðferði og siðferðisþroski: Að nota Íslendingasögur til mannkostamenntunar

Ein leið til að sinna mannkostamenntun er að lesa bókmenntir og greina og ræða mannkosti í þeim með nemendum. Í þessari grein er fjallað um forsendur þess að nota Íslendingasögur til mannkostamenntunar með nemendum á unglingsaldri. Rætt er um mikilvægi dygða fyrir mannkostamenntun, áherslu hennar á siðferðilegar dygðir og almenn tengsl dygða og siðferðis. Þá er fjallað um þær aðstæður í bókmenntum þar sem dygðir (eða lestir) birtast en þær eru hér kallaðar dygðaaðstæður. Rökstutt er að ekki sé erfitt að finna slíkar aðstæður í Íslendingasögum. Í ljósi tengslanna á milli dygða og siðferðis er jafnframt fjallað um siðferði Íslendingasagna og hvernig fræðileg umræða um það efni getur haft áhrif á mannkostamenntun. Auk þess er velt upp þeirri spurningu hvort það siðferði sem viðgekkst á tímum Íslendingasagnanna sé sama siðferðið og er viðtekið nú til dags. Stigskipt þroskalíkan Gilligan er notað til að staðsetja siðferðilegan veruleika Íslendingasagna gagnvart nútímasiðferði. Með hjálp þroskalíkansins má einnig bregðast betur við þeirri spurningu hvort hægt sé að nota sögu þar sem siðferði persóna er ef til vill ekki til fyrirmyndar til að efla siðferði nemenda. Með því að nota þroskalíkanið er samtímis hægt að skoða einkenni þeirrar siðferðilegu hugsunar sem stefna má að í mannkostamenntun með unglingum.

Aquinas on Virtue: A Causal Reading by Nicholas Austin, SJ

Reviewed by: Aquinas on Virtue: A Causal Reading by Nicholas Austin, SJ Zhivannah Cole Austin, Nicholas, SJ, Aquinas on Virtue: A Causal Reading, Washington, DC, Georgetown University Press, 2017; paperback; pp. xxiv, 233; R.R.P. US$34.95; ISBN 9781626164734. The moral theology of Thomas Aquinas continues to be of value to modern philosophical and ethical thought. Nicholas Austin substantiates this throughout Aquinas on Virtue, demonstrating the way in which Aquinas’s thought can be fruitfully applied to contemporary theological ethics. In this work, Austin provides an exposition and reconstruction of Aquinas’s thought from both his early and later works, using this as a foundation from which to construct an original and cogent causal virtue theory. Austin argues that virtue theory, which accounts for ‘the nature, genesis and role of virtue’, offers a more holistic and less hierarchical approach than virtue ethics, which tends to determine ethics based solely on virtue (p. xvi). Austin’s approach mirrors that of Aquinas, whose virtue theory is seen to be embedded within a dynamic and holistic vision of the Christian moral life. This work is divided into three parts. The author begins by elaborating on Aquinas’s definition of virtue. Here he acknowledges Aquinas’s adoption of the Aristotelian schema of the ‘four causes’—namely, the material, formal, efficient, and final causes—in defining virtue. Austin notes Aquinas’s inclusion of Peter Lombard’s Augustinian definition of virtue, arguing that it retained relevance to Aquinas because it embraces all four Aristotelian causes (p. 61). Austin supports the argument that Aquinas should not be read as either Aristotelian or Augustinian, but rather that his conception should be understood as a unique synthesis of the two spheres of thought given the clear influence of both in shaping his approach to understanding virtue. Although Aquinas does give preference to a theological reading, his approach is highly conversant with philosophy. This inclusive attitude is mirrored in his method towards defining virtue, wherein he offers an extended treatment of Aquinas’s conception of virtue as a habit. Aquinas’s understanding of causation is further explored in the second section, wherein Austin establishes its continued relevance to contemporary theological ethics. Here the author argues that although Aquinas’s conception of causation was founded on a metaphysical relationship between virtue and its causes, which would not be supported by modern scholarship, it retains its applicability within modern ethics as a methodological principle. The last section, which encompasses over half of the book, is dedicated to the application of causal analysis as a methodological tool through which to further comprehend the nature, origin, and role of specific virtues. Austin concludes by offering a reassessment of the often-cited relationship between grace and virtue. In discussing infused versus acquired virtue, he argues that moral virtue ‘is indeterminate between infusion and acquisition; it can either be acquired by human action or infused through grace or both’ (p. 205). This re-examination offers an original contribution to theological ethics and demonstrates the value of Austin’s causal approach; however, it is Austin’s methodological contribution that holds the most potential in recasting academic approaches to Aquinas’s thought. [End Page 191] One of the strengths of this work is the author’s ability to address the two divergent, yet interconnected, spheres of medieval and contemporary moral theology without inadvertently doing any injustice to either or convoluting his lines of argument—a risk explicitly noted in his introduction (p. xxi). The author artfully avoids this, creating a symbiotic relationship between the two spheres of thought that clearly distinguish between medieval and modern ideas (for an example, see his discussion on the evolution of the term ‘habit’, pp. 23–32). By incorporating striking modern exemplars and discussions of the contemporary applications of Aquinas’s virtue theory, Austin succeeds in providing a holistic causal analysis of virtue that is conversant with the concerns of contemporary society. This dialogue also functions to elucidate the abstracted threads of theoretical discussion, making this work accessible to specialist and non-specialist scholars alike (for an example, see his tantalizing discussion of a virtuous Nazi, pp. 158–64). The author makes a conscious effort to engage non-specialist audiences, providing...

Russia's Path toward Enlightenment: Faith, Politics, and Reason, 1500-1801 by G. M. Hamburg

Reviewed by: Russia's Path toward Enlightenment: Faith, Politics, and Reason, 1500-1801 by G. M. Hamburg Paul Bushkovitch G. M. Hamburg. Russia's Path toward Enlightenment: Faith, Politics, and Reason, 1500-1801. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016. xi + 900 pp. Very few historians today would possess the courage to recount and analyze the development of political thought for an entire country for three hundred years of fundamental change. Gary Hamburg has done just that, and for a country whose earlier traditions differ sharply from those of Western Europe. As he properly observes, before the end of the seventeenth century, Russia produced much thought about the monarch and more generally about government, but entirely within a religious tradition. In those centuries there was no political thought in the Western sense. The westernization of Russian culture in Peter's time and after signified [End Page 118] the wholesale importation of an entirely different way of understanding the state (as of everything else), but what the Russians chose from the panoply of European thought and how they understood it is a tremendous problem in itself. Hamburg believes that the Russians were able to absorb Enlightenment thought while keeping a central place for Orthodox Christian conceptions of virtue in their ideas of politics. The greatest part of Hamburg's text is a close reading of the authors whom he believes (mostly correctly) to be the most important exponents of the dominant values. For each of these authors he provides a capsule biography and his interpretation of their work. Nearly the first half of the book is devoted to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, covering the authors whom previous historians have seen as central. In some cases this means including authors like Ivan Peresvetov, who were prominent in the scholarly literature some decades ago, but have less currency today. Peresvetov was the one author whom Soviet scholars could find who seemed to advocate something like "autocracy," but the problem was that his works had little circulation and also that he was not Russian. Perhaps he is best understood as a product of the regalist tradition of Poland-Lithuania imported into Russia. Hamburg is more at home with St. Joseph Volotskii, Ivan the Terrible himself, and Prince Andrei Kurbskii. In the case of all three his method of close reading pays off: there are no anachronistic labels or terminology. Hamburg's Kurbskii does not advocate freedom or Aristotelian aristocracy, and Ivan is not an ideologist of "absolutism." Rather they defend greater or lesser power of the monarch and certain modes of behavior in accord with their biblical and other models. Similarly, Hamburg is able to get through the cloud of polemic around Patriarch Nikon, his opponents in the church, and the early writers of the Old Belief tradition with a clear account of their positions on issues that were important to them, not just to modern historians. The section on Russian thought before Peter is mostly a success, but it has two shortcomings. The secondary literature consulted is curiously old-fashioned, with little or no mention of some major works. Hamburg does know the pre-revolutionary literature well, and that remains in many cases foundational, but he is not abreast of many of the debates and newly published texts and approaches since the 1950s, some exceptions aside. The Soviet era historians of Old Russian literature, Ia. S. Lur'e, D. S. Likhachev, and others, do not seem familiar to the author, apart from a few very old and occasional essays, and he does not seem to know the more recent work of A. I. Filiushkin or K. Iu. Erusalimskii. The references to western literature are also spotty and perhaps as a result his approach in this section is entirely text based. Yet one of the main trends in the study of Old Russian culture in the West has been the integration of visual culture and ritual. The texts simply cannot answer all the questions we would like to pose, for Old Russian religious culture was not systematic: all the main texts arose in polemic, even one as apparently encyclopedic as Joseph Volotskii's Prosvetitel'. The best idea of the conception of the tsar comes...

Moral Virtues in J. A. Comenius’ Mundus Moralis

Abstract The aim of the article is to reconstruct Jan Amos Comenius’ (1592–1670) conception of moral virtues as it is presented in his major work General Consultation on an Improvement of All Things Human (De rerum humanarum emendatione consultatio catholica), mainly in its part Pansophia – Mundus Moralis with respect to the role which prudence plays (prudentia) in relation to the other cardinal virtues – fortitude (fortitude), justice (justitia), and temperance (temperantia). Comenius’ conception of virtues is further compared with the traditional Aristotelian-Scholastic doctrine formulated prevailingly by Aquinas. In conclusion, it is shown that it is the position of prudence (prudentia), as an intellectual virtue that connects significantly Comenius with the Aristotle-Thomistic tradition in this perspective.

Putovanie Izraela a obnovenie Božieho obrazu v človeku:Analýza alegorickej exegézy v Živote Mojžiša II,256-304 od Gregora z Nyssy

In the part of the Life of Moses, discussing the journey of Israel from Sinai to the Promised Land, Gregory follows the exegetical tradition that saw here a liberating spiritual journey of humans to God. This traditional exegesis is incorporated into a wider exposition on virtuous life, i.e. striving for the restoration of God’s image in humans. During the journey Israel overcomes a number of vices and at the end reaches the Royal Highway of virtue, which leads between two vices. Israel can keep his balance on it and proceed ahead to the Promised Land. What appears in this final image of a harmony of opposites is not only the Aristotelian concept of virtue, but also the idea of restoration of God’s image in humans. The unity of the human soul was damaged with the First Fall and humans began to succumb to vices that splintered the soul. By striving for virtue, however, it is possible to restore the primordial balance, unity and harmony.

Nietzsche Or Aristotle? Reflections on Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue

Nietzsche Or Aristotle? Reflections on Alasdair MacIntyre's <i>After Virtue</i>

Estética de la recepción e Historia de las ideas en el siglo XVIII. La virtus y el honestum ciceronianos en el “honor nobiliario“ de Montesquieu y la “educación cívica“ de Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos

A través de la metodología de una selección de teóricos de la“estética de la recepción”, pretendemos analizar la interrelaciónentre el “horizonte de expectativas” (en terminología deGadamer y de Jauss) de Marco Tulio Cicerón, con el de losintelectuales ilustrados Montesquieu y Gaspar Melchor deJovellanos. A partir de ahí, pretendemos rellenar los “vacíos”(según la terminología de Iser), o los misunderstandings (enpalabras de Hirsch) que la lectura ilustrada hace de la éticapolítica ciceroniana en el término concreto de la “virtud” y la“honestidad”. Así pues, desarrollaremos estos conceptos segúntoda la cosmovisión ciceroniana en contraste con la ilustradade Montesquieu y Jovellanos, y resaltaremos, de este modo,aquellos puntos de cambio y aquellos de enraizamiento en elpensamiento del propio Cicerón. En definitiva, responderemosa la pregunta de hasta qué punto el rhetor romano condicionó laconcepción política de la virtud y honestidad tanto en el ilustradofrancés como en el español (en los que también se tendrá encuenta la destacada interferencia del empirismo inglés), a lavez que, de qué forma estos autores “modernos” readaptaron ytransformaron el pensamiento del “clásico” según sus propios“horizontes de expectativas”.

Virtue Ethics is Empirically Adequate: A Defense of the Caps Response to Situationism

AbstractAccording to situationists, the available empirical psychological data show that prevalent conceptions of virtue are ‘empirically inadequate.’ The charge is ambiguous. I begin by differentiating four families of empirical inadequacy charges, explaining the conceptual connections among the families, and showing how different situationists press different versions of the charges from each family. Then I explain how the empirical psychological model known as the ‘cognitive affective personality system,’ or ‘CAPS model,’ enables distinct responses to these varied charges. The CAPS response has come under fire, though, and I close by responding to the five main challenges raised against it.

Literature, Rival Conceptions of Virtue, and Moral Education

Two key claims in the work of Alasdair MacIntyre are identified for the purposes of this paper. The first, that human virtues are capacities required to sustain social practices defined in terms of rival moral traditions, is rejected in favor of a neo-Aristotelian conception of virtues as needed for general (cross-cultural) human flourishing. However, while the second claim (also found in Aristotle)--that the literary products and inheritances of human cultures provide the best possible insight into human moral character and virtue--is fully endorsed, it is also recognized that such literature inevitably shows moral life and experience to be a site of tension and conflict between moral imperatives and virtues. Notwithstanding this, it is argued that, since initiation into rational appreciation of such tension and conflict is the very stuff of moral education, such literature should be regarded as significant moral educational resource.

The Unity of the Virtues Reconsidered. Competing Accounts in Philosophy and Positive Psychology

In this paper, I show that the conception of a virtue in positive psychology is a mishmash of two competing accounts of what virtues are: a Common Sense View and an Aristotelian View. Distinguishing the strengths and weaknesses of these two frameworks leads also to a reconsideration of an old debate, namely, that concerning the Unity of the Virtues (UV) thesis. Such thesis is rejected by positive psychologist, as well as by some philosophers among the virtue-ethical field, on the basis, I argue, of a lack of accuracy in defining the very meaning of the concept of what virtues are, before examining the issues at stake. In the first part of the paper, I show (i) to what extent the conceptions of virtue employed by the different voices diverge and (ii) the consequences of this divergence for the UV problem. Then, I go on by arguing for one of the two competing accounts, namely, the Aristotelian View, over the other, that is, the Common Sense View. Finally, I show to which of CSV theses positive psychologists are committed, so to explain their rejection of the UV thesis, and to highlight their need for a clearer account of what a virtue is.

Husserl y la ética de la virtud

The article aims to determine the role that has the concept of virtue in Husserl s ethics and how would its relationship with other dimensions of his ethics be. With this purpose, firstly, we sketch a presentation of the central aspects of classical virtue ethics and of the objections raised against it. Secondly, we deal with this topic in Husserl s philosophy through an analysis of texts from the 1920s, including texts published in the volumes XXXVII and XLII of the Husserliana series. Concluding, we reflect on the relationship virtue - self-determination and on the way Husserl s conception could solve some problems of the classical theory.

The political functions of virtue in the eighteenth-century Italian debate

ABSTRACTMany recent studies either assert that the concept of virtue in eighteenth-century Italian intellectual culture is a polysemous term without really explaining its meaning, or concentrate on just one of its many facets. However, so far no study has explored the shades of meaning ascribed to ‘virtue’ to their full extent. This study is an attempt to reconstruct the eighteenth-century Italian intellectual perspective on virtue and to reveal its geographical complexities, its semantic evolutionary curve, and its interconnections in different fields. The aim is not to create a simple ‘map’, but rather to focus on the limits of the intellectual debate in defining and communicating virtue, and to envisage the understanding of the political functions of virtue through more popular and widespread media such as poetic texts. Despite its ever-changing meaning, virtue remains not only a keyword of political discourse over the century, but also stands as one of the very pillars on which powerful imageries of political communication were constructed. Therefore, this article provides a first step towards an analysis of political communication in eighteenth-century Italy, which, in subsequent studies, will take into account poetic sources, which at that time were regarded as an effective instrument to overcome the aforementioned intellectual limits and better exploit the possibilities of a rhetoric of virtue.

A role for virtue in unifying the 'knowledge' and 'caring' discourses in nursing theory.

A critical examination of contemporary nursing theory suggests that two distinct discourses coexist within this field. On the one hand, proponents of the 'knowledge discourse' argue that nurses should drop the 'virtue script' and focus on the scientific and technical aspects of their work. On the other hand, proponents of the 'caring discourse' promote a view of nursing that embodies humanistic qualities such as compassion, empathy and mutuality. In view of this, we suggest a way to reconcile both discourses despite the fact that they appear to be at odds theoretically and practically. To that end, we argue that nursing theory must give a prominent role to the Aristotelian conception of virtue, and we offer an account that includes both character and intellectual virtues. This account allows for a focus on moral competence but also accommodates the demands for discipline-specific knowledge. Our account incorporates the caring discourse by suggesting a way for individuals to cultivate the conditions within themselves that make 'caring in nursing' possible, while the knowledge discourse is accommodated via the acquisition of the intellectual virtues. The process for achieving both these ends is the same: an intention to consistently develop, hone and exercise certain character traits over time.

Three Different Approaches to Virtue in Business―Aristotle, Confucius, and Lao Zi

The proposed paper presents an overview on the matter of virtue from different philosophical angles. It concentrates on three different schools of thought coming from the West and the East and their respective concepts of virtue. These schools of thought and the therewith-associated personalities and works discussed in this paper are Aristotelian virtue ethics, Confucianism and Daoism. The paper focuses specifically on the Nicomachean Ethics (NE) by Aristotle, the Analects belonging to Confucianism, and the Dao De Jing coming from Daoism. The paper is divided into three major parts. First, the concept of virtue of each school is outlined. In the second part, the concrete virtues as such according to each school are explained. In the third part, these virtues are then applied in specific business contexts like business practice, corporate culture and leadership, illuminating each school’s characteristic approach. The paper closes with a summary and conclusion. In the conclusion the paper outlines differences as well as similarities between Aristotelian and Confucian virtue ethics. Yet, the author generally takes a critical stance towards comparisons merely for the sake of finding similarities. Particularly between Aristotelian and Confucian virtue ethics there is a significant difference when it comes to the cultural and historical background of these schools, which should not be ignored. Besides, even within Chinese philosophy there are already significant differences when it comes to concepts and practice.

Recent Articles

Recent Articles* Douglas Patey, Neil Guthrie, Neil Guthrie, Neil Guthrie, Neil Guthrie, M-C. Newbould, M-C. Newbould, Karen Swallow, Robert G. Walker, Robert G. Walker, W. B. Gerard, W. B. Gerard, Robert G. Walker, W. B. Gerard, Karen Swallow, Robert G. Walker, W. A. Speck, and Melanie Holm ADDISON Mueller, Andreas K. E. "Politics, Politeness, and Panegyric: Defoe, Addison, and Philips on Blenheim," PQ, 94.1–2 (2015), 121–147. Appearing within a few weeks of one another, Addison's Campaign and Philips's Blenheim celebrated the Duke of Marlborough's victory at Blenheim a few months earlier. The two poems, both ministerial propaganda, one from a Whig and one from a Tory point of view, are by consensus the two most admired, important, and lasting—and perhaps only two worthwhile—poems to emerge out of that battle. Yet more than forty Marlborough panegyrics appeared within a year of the victory, and if we read the two famous poems against this background, including those that are "downright tedious" from an aesthetic perspective, we are reminded of what we (should) already know, that "the political landscape of early eighteenth-century [End Page 2] Britain was significantly more complex than a simple Tory-Whig division." Defoe's A Hymn to Victory "offers a clearer endorsement of the government's moderate stance" and thereby "complicates our understanding of the way in which the politics of the moment colored poetic responses to Marlborough's victory"; thus it encourages us to rethink eighteenth-century notions of politeness. Defoe's poem makes an argument for a "precommercial" conception of virtue and politeness. Unlikely to promote widespread reading of the "tedious" Blenheim poems, Mr. Mueller adds a third poem to what had become an exemplary binary pair; he usefully discourages simplistic binary thinking. ARBUTHNOT Keithley, Walter H. "Learning from Don Bilioso's Adventures: Visualizing a Critical Edition of the Printed Works of John Arbuthnot," Editing Lives: Essays in Contemporary Textual and Biographical Studies in Honor of O M Brack, Jr., ed. Jesse G. Swan. Lewisburg: Bucknell, 2014. Pp. 33–44. This starts from an unassailable premise: John Arbuthnot, "one of the most under-studied figures of the British eighteenth century," deserves a proper scholarly edition of his printed works. Arbuthnot has been unfairly neglected because his reputation among his contemporaries was based more on "sentimental praise" than "rigorous scholarly appraisals of his life and work" (both of which merit our attention). Arbuthnot has also suffered from "a poorly defined canon" and a large number of doubtful works that have been attributed to him. This problem arose in the eighteenth century: the majority of the texts included in the 1739 and 1751 collections of his works have since been discredited and deattributed. At this point, Mr. Keithley enters murkier waters, although not entirely of his own making. George Aitken's 1892 biography of Arbuthnot was the first attempt at "a serious intellectual biography" of the author, but it effectively conferred the "status of sub-canonical" on a range of works which are, nevertheless, "legitimate candidates for canonical inclusion" in any future critical edition. It is fair to say that these questionable works may be relevant to the understanding of both "Arbuthnot's canon and intellectual contexts," but it is more difficult to agree with Mr. Keithley's assertion of this "continuing necessity of integrating both canon and sub-canon in a critical edition." His discussion of The Life and Adventures of Don Bilioso de l'Estomac (1719), part of a minor pamphlet war involving Dr. John Woodward over the causes of smallpox, is interesting enough—and it does flesh out the context of medical controversies in the early years of the eighteenth century. But there is nevertheless "no evidence that Arbuthnot was ever interested in the small pox war, and no proof that any pamphlets spawned by the skirmish were ever ascribed to him prior to 1750." Don Bilioso may have some affinities with the Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus, but then so do many ephemeral works of the period. Would it not be better to discuss works of uncertain authorship like this in secondary commentary, but not include them in their entirety in...

ETHICAL METHODOLOGY IN METZ’S THEORY OF UBUNTU

In this article I apply Thaddeus Metz’s ethical methodology to the ancient Greek ideal of σωφροσύνη in order to show that it generates a distorted account of ubuntu. If ubuntu is a virtue concept, then Metz’s analytical method will not reconstruct it — because it fails to determine whether ubuntu refers to one of a plurality of fundamental virtues, the fundamental virtue, or virtue itself.

The history, origin, and meaning of Nietzsche’s slave revolt in morality

While it is uncontroversial that the slave revolt in morality consists in a denial of the nobles as objects of value, Nietzsche’s account in the Genealogy’s first essay invites ambiguities concerning its origin, ressentiment’s relationship to value creation, and its meaning. In this paper, I address these ambiguities by analyzing the morality of good and evil as an historical artifact of Judeo-Christian tradition, and I argue for a two-stage, non-strategic interpretation of the slave revolt, according to which Judaism and Christianity each made essential and different contributions. The inversion of values began with the Jewish prophets, who claimed the poor were holy and ‘good’ and the rich ‘evil’ (BGE 195), and it was sustained throughout the Second Temple period by the Jewish priests in relation to a ‘priestly-noble’ (GM I 7) conception of the virtuous person as holy and pure. Christ, through his espousal of egalitarianism (A 27), negated the pathos of distance essential to noble values, thus beginning the second phase of the slave revolt where goodness became associated with a distinctly slavish conception of virtue.