Contemporary Virtue Ethics Research Articles

The Case for Investment Advising as a Virtue-Based Practice

Contemporary virtue ethics was revolutionized by Alasdair MacIntyre’s reconfiguration using practices as the starting point for understanding virtues. However, MacIntyre has very pointedly excluded the professions of the financial world from the reformulation. He does not count these professions as practices, and further charges that virtue would actually hinder or even rule out one’s pursuit of these professions. This paper addresses three tasks, in regard to the financial profession of investment advising. First, the paper lays out MacIntyre’s soon-to-be-published charges against the investment world, as specified to this profession. Second, it sets forth the role function of investment advising and shows that it does possess internal goods—the crucial aspect of practices disputed by MacIntyre in this case—including goods of production and goods of performance. Third, it demonstrates that this function, and the goods tied to it, cannot be achieved apart from the virtuous pursuit of the profession, thereby showing that MacIntyre’s charges are mistaken. Investment advising is shown to be a virtue-based practice, and the groundwork is laid for showing that other financial professions are so, as well.

Kant’s Virtue as Strength

The revival of virtue ethics has been accompanied by an increasing interest in Kant’s theory of virtue. Many scholars claim that virtue plays an important role in Kant’s moral theory. However, some worries and disagreements have arisen within the camp of contemporary virtue ethics concerning the Kantian concept of virtue. Some scholars have pointed out that Kantian virtue is at best nothing more than Aristotelian continence, that is, strength of will in the face of contrary emotions and appetites, and hence not a real virtue. In response to these criticisms and worries concerning Kant’s concept of virtue, this paper examines the question of whether Kant’s account of virtue is only a reformulation of Aristotle’s idea of continence. My analysis focuses on Kant’s concept of inner freedom, his ideas about latitude in the imperfect duties of virtue, and his notion of the perfection of virtue. I thus attempt to provide some evidence of the significant differences between Aristotelian continence and Kant’s virtue as strength. Then I explore the significance of Kant’s virtue as strength. Finally, I argue that Kant’s virtue as strength not only is not Aristotle’s idea of continence but also is located at a much higher level, that is, the state of inner freedom and the mental attitude of a human being’s soul.

Aligning and Reorienting the Passible Self: Maximus the Confessor’s Virtue Ethics

This essay seeks to abstract from the works of Maximus the Confessor (580–662) a ‘theory’ of virtue ethics that engages Maximus’s own categories and language while still developing conversation with contemporary virtue ethics. First is a reconstruction of the larger cosmological (and moral) ‘narrative’—the oikonomia Maximus sees embodied in sacred history—that frames his essentially teleological understanding of the formation of virtue in created beings. The second part of the essay explores Maximus’s doctrine of the moral self as a synthesis of ‘diachronic’ and ‘synchronic’ dimensions, and details three identifiable protocols by which moral agents cultivate the Christian virtues: first, the development of intellectual virtues such as prudence that serve clear vision ( theoria) of worthy moral ends; second, the appropriate ‘use’ of the passible faculties of desire and temper in alliance with reason; and third, the conditioning of the virtues within moral communities (monastery or church) characterized by relations of accountability, imitation, and the traditioning of moral wisdom.

The Virtues, Moral Inwardness, and the Challenge of Modernity

Stephen C. Angle’s book Sagehood: The Contemporary Significance of NeoConfucian Philosophy is a fascinating attempt to take Neo-Confucian moral thought seriously as contemporary philosophy. Most readers will close this book with the strong feeling that Angle has opened up new and highly promising vistas for crosscultural philosophical inquiry. His writing style is admirably clear and always engaging, and while he attempts to draw out the systematic implications of NeoConfucian teachings, he remains remarkably close to the original texts. Besides developing quite a sophisticated interpretation of Chinese thinkers like ZHU Xi 朱熹 (1130-1200) and WANG Yangming 王陽明 (1472-1529), he also engages with contemporary virtue ethicists like Iris Murdoch, Michael Slote, and Christine Swanton. In this way, Angle’s book cashes in on an intuition probably shared by many scholars working on Chinese philosophy, namely that the only way to prove the relevance of pre-modern Chinese thought today is to go to the street-corner and engage with current debates in Western philosophy. Angle’s interpretative framework rests on one central claim: that the concept of li 理 should be translated as “coherence” or “the valuable and intelligible way that things fit together,” and not as “principle” or “pattern,” as it has most often been translated in the past (122). This claim is directly related to his second thesis, that a stable commitment to finding harmony is indispensible for moral action (128-9). Both claims have countless implications and ramifications and ultimately lead Angle to a set of far-reaching conclusions. There have already been a couple of book reviews, Dao (2013) 12:369–380 DOI 10.1007/s11712-013-9339-9

Rehabilitating Theoretical Wisdom

Given the importance of theoretical wisdom (sophia) in Aristotle’s account of the human good, it is striking that contemporary virtue ethicists have been virtually silent about this intellectual virtue and what contribution (if any) it makes – or could make – toward human flourishing. In this paper, I examine, and respond to, two main worries that account for theoretical wisdom’s current marginality. Along the way, I sketch a neo-Aristotelian conception of theoretical wisdom, and argue that this intellectual virtue is more central to the concerns of contemporary virtue ethicists than it has perhaps so far seemed.

What Contemporary Virtue Ethics Might Learn from Aristotle’s Rhetoric

What Contemporary Virtue Ethics Might Learn from Aristotle’s Rhetoric

Practical Intelligence and the Virtues, by Daniel C. Russell.

Practical Intelligence and the Virtues is the most thorough and detailed work on modern developments of virtue ethics to date. However its mission is not to chronicle those developments, but to defend an Aristotelian virtue ethical model of practical reason, particularly against some recent challenges. An important such challenge is that of Robert Johnson, who claims that the neo-Aristotelian conception of right action (right acts are those that would be performed by the virtuous acting characteristically), cannot account for right actions of the non-virtuous (actions that would not be performed by the virtuous). A main focus of the book is recent virtue ethical conceptions of right action put forward by contemporary virtue ethicists, Hursthouse, Slote, and Swanton. Discussions of these conceptions of right action occupy part one of the book. Part two provides an excellent discussion of some neglected but important issues in virtue ethics. Here Russell considers the problems of the enumeration and individuation of the virtues, and the relation between these problems and the unity of the virtues, vagueness, and particularism. Part three considers the issue of the situationist challenge to belief in the existence of character, and thus to the viability of virtue ethics, but since this issue has received considerable attention I shall not deal with it here. Part four defends Hard Virtue Ethics against objections, notably the commitment to the unity of the virtues.

Der Glückliche Weg zum Erfolg Eines Tugendhaften

In this paper I seek to analyse the following question: how is it that I am able, today, to succeed in fulfilling my goals? My analysis will, I hope, demonstrate that virtues are important because they facilitate this sort of fulfilment. An examination of the classical notion of virtue is thus called for, and this in turn suggests that, at least in certain cases, virtue is connected with luck—that these two belong together. This points towards a new form of contemporary virtue ethics, whose distinctive character will be reflected in the particular significance it invests in the concepts of “qualification” and “competence.” Finally, we are led to Wittgenstein's assertion that “The world of the happy person is other than the world of the hapless person.”

Who’s Afraid of a Final End? The Role of Practical Rationality in Contemporary Accounts of Virtue

In this paper I argue that excising a final end from accounts of virtue does them more harm than good. I attempt to establish that the justification of contemporary virtue ethics suffers if moved this one step too far from the resources in traditional accounts. This is because virtue, as we tend to describe it, rests on an account of practical rationality wherein the role of the final end is integral. I highlight the puzzles that are generated by the ellipsis that is “the role of a final end” in contemporary theories of virtue. The authors of these theories devise ad hoc solutions for these puzzles, puzzles that do not exist for traditional final end-based accounts. Recent critics of virtue ethics have certainly not been satisfied the explanations being offer in lieu of references to a final end. As a remedy, I recommend that the role of a final end be reintroduced in contemporary virtue ethics. I hope to explain that there is nothing to be frightened of and much to be gained.

Kant's theory of virtue: the value of autocracy

Anne Margaret Baxley offers a systematic interpretation of Kant's theory of virtue, whose most distinctive features have not been properly understood. She explores the rich moral psychology in Kant's later and less widely read works on ethics, and argues that the key to understanding his account of virtue is the concept of autocracy, a form of moral self-government in which reason rules over sensibility. Although certain aspects of Kant's theory bear comparison to more familiar Aristotelian claims about virtue, Baxley contends that its most important aspects combine to produce something different - a distinctively modern, egalitarian conception of virtue which is an important and overlooked alternative to the more traditional Greek views which have dominated contemporary virtue ethics.

Two Dilemmas in Virtue Ethics and How Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucianism Avoids Them

Virtue ethics has become an important rival to deontology and consequentialism, the two dominant moral theories in modern Western philosophy. What unites various forms of virtue ethics and distinguishes virtue ethics from its rivals is its emphasis on the primacy of virtue. In this article, I start with an explanation of the primacy of virtue in virtue ethics and two dilemmas, detected by Gary Watson, that virtue ethics faces: (1) virtue ethics may maintain the primacy of virtue and thus leave virtue non-explanatory, or it may attempt to explain virtue in terms of something else and thus render virtue second - ary at most; (2) the explanation of virtue may be objective and thus become morally indeterminate, or it may be normative and thus lack objectivity, merely re-expressing the virtue it intends to explain (Section II). After showing the failure of both clas - sical Aristotelian and contemporary neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics to escape these dilemmas, I turn to the ethical theory of Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130-1200)—the greatest synthesizer of neo- Confucianism, whose place in Confucianism is comparable to that of Thomas Aquinas in the Christian tradition—to show how it can successfully avoid both dilemmas.

Virtue Ethics without Right Action: Anscombe, Foot, and Contemporary Virtue Ethics

Working out a criterion of morally right action is central to developing virtue ethics. Most advocates of virtue ethics believe that achieving such a criterion is crucial to vindicating virtue ethics as a normative theory. Yet the centrality of this task marks a departure from the views of at least some of the philosophers credited with the revival of virtue ethics in the twentieth century, especially from the views of G.E.M. Anscombe and Philippa Foot. Anscombe especially has sharp criticisms of the way philosophers handle the concept of morally right action along with related concepts like moral obligation. Yet the work of contemporary virtue ethicists such as Rosalind Hursthouse, Michael Slote, and Christine Swanton features little discussion of Anscombe’s criticisms or the reasons that the other virtue revivalists avoided providing a criterion of moral rightness. The dominant assumption appears to be that the earlier virtue revivalists neglect establishing a criterion of morally right action because their concern is to give priority to the evaluation of an agent over his acts as a corrective to the exclusive attention given to act-evaluation in the moral philosophy of the time. For Anscombe and Foot, at least, the concern to give priority to agent-evaluation is not among their motives for advocating a return to virtues. Instead, they believe that moral philosophers from the modern period forward have given the terms ‘‘right’’ and ‘‘ought’’ an artificial and incoherent sense.

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Contemporary Virtue Ethics

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Contemporary Virtue Ethics

Species Extinction and the Vice of Thoughtlessness: The Importance of Spiritual Exercises for Learning Virtue

In this paper, I present a sample spiritual exercise—a contemporary form of the written practice that ancient philosophers used to shape their characters. The exercise, which develops the ancient practice of the examination of conscience, is on the sixth mass extinction and seeks to understand why the extinction appears as a moral wrong. It concludes by finding a vice in the moral character of the author and the author’s society. From a methodological standpoint, the purpose of spiritual exercises is to create a habit of thoughtfulness in the writer, and by way of teaching, to suggest one to the reader. Such a habit is important, at least, because virtue is a habit. In other words, there can be no learning of virtue itself without habituation into it. Accordingly, I frame the sample spiritual exercise with a deliberately controversial objection to contemporary academic virtue ethics and with a justification for why the spiritual exercise is important for taking virtue ethically. And I end the paper with some further remarks explaining the form of the exercise and its relevance to doing philosophy. In this way, the paper makes and illustrates a methodological point about virtue ethics based on a meta-ethical assumption about virtue as a habit, and it does this by focusing on a pressing environmental problem in the twenty-first century.

THE WAY, THE RIGHT, AND THE GOOD

ABSTRACTThis article argues that Kongzi's religious ethics suggests an alternative way of understanding the relationship between the right and the good, in which neither takes clear precedence in terms of being more foundational for ethics. The religious underpinnings of Kongzi's understanding of the Way are examined, including the close relationship between tian (“Heaven”) and the Way. It is shown that following the Way is defined primarily by the extent to which one's actions express certain virtues, and not whether one's actions are conducive to the best overall outcome or whether they are inherently right irrespective of consequences. It is then argued that the Way is seen as constitutive of both the right and the good, and that this understanding of the right and the good has important implications for contemporary virtue ethics, religious ethics, and political philosophy.

From Medieval Voluntarism to Hursthouse’s Virtue Ethics

The Thomist 73 (2009): 621-46 FROM MEDIEVAL VOLUNTARISM TO HURSTHOUSE'S VIRTUE ETHICS KEVIN E. O'REILLY Milltown Institute Dublin, Ireland IN RECENT DECADES there has been an attempt to reinstate virtue ethics in moral theorizing and debate. One contribution in this regard is that of Rosalind Hursthouse, whose book On Virtue Ethics, 1 seeks a rapprochement between an Aristotelianinspired virtue ethics and Kantian deontology. Hursthouse's On Virtue Ethics captures the interest of a Thomist in part because of her discussion of the ends in the light of which we evaluate plants, animals, and human beings as members of their respective species. Her reflections bear a certain resemblance to Thomas Aquinas's observations concerning the natural inclinations (at STh I-II, q. 94, a. 2). While Philippa Foot pioneered contemporary discussion concerning the subject of ethical naturalism,2 Hursthouse, building upon Foot's work, has led the way in discussing the "ends" (which bear a certain similarity to Aquinas's "natural inclinations ") that are characteristic of embodied beings, that is to say, of humans and of other animals. Her project, however, reveals a certain operative anthropological dualism. Put briefly, rationality is not constrained in its deliberations by the parameters suggested by our animal "ends"; it ultimately enjoys an absolute freedom in imposing its own "ends" as though from outside the corporeal conditions of our being. Thus, in transcending the 1 Rosalind Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). 2 P. Foot, "Does Moral Subjectivism Rest on a Mistake?" OxfordJournal ofLegal Studies 15 (1995): 1-14. 621 622 KEVIN O'REILLY bodily dimensions of human being, rationality is free to manipulate them according to its own designs. As I will demonstrate, Hursthouse's account betrays some of the same features as are found in the theorizing of John Duns Scotus concerning the ethical life, albeit in a mutated form.3 Scotus's conception of ethics, however, constitutes a rupture with an Aristotelian-inspired virtue ethics, whose major medieval proponent was Thomas Aquinas, not least because of his treatment of the natural inclinations-which treatment also results, I will argue, in an operative anthropological dualism. If, however, we are hylomorphically constituted as body-soul unities, our bodies and their natural inclinations must necessarily enter into our appraisal of what conduces to human flourishing; if it does not, ethics becomes voluntarist in nature. History shows that Scotus's speculations contributed to the death of the virtue-ethics tradition that arguably culminated in Aquinas. Clearly, it is not possible to predict the future of contemporary virtue ethics; nevertheless, given the historical precedent of Scotus, there are grounds for grave misgivings about a virtue ethics grounded in a dualistic anthropology. Ultimately, 3 My line of argument does not require me to establish a causal link between Scotus and Hursthouse. It simply hinges on the similarity between Scotus's and Hursthouse's attitudes towards the will and human nature. Nevertheless, Hursthouse's speculations do unfold in dialogue with Kant, whose moral philosophy arguably traces its genealogy back to Scotus. In particular, she attempts to effect a rapprochement between Aristotle and Kant when dealing with emotion and motivation (On Virtue Ethics, 91££.), seemingly unaware of the kind of developments indicated in this article, developments which arguably render such a rapprochement impossible. For a treatment of the significance ofScotus's treatment of the will and morality for Kant's ethics, see Hannes Mohle, "Will und Moral: Zur Voraussetzung der Ethik des Johannes Duns Scotus und ihrer Bedeutung fiir die Ethik Immanuel Kants," in Ludger Honnefelder, Rega Wood and Methchild Dreyer, eds.,]ohn Scotus: Metaphysics and Ethics (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996), 573-94. Ingham and Dreyer summarize Scotus's historical legacy as follows: "Scotus's philosophical legacy ... can be summarized as an attention to personal, subjective awareness, in the light of rational principles. These principles link logic, ontology, and ethics to form a whole whose unifying principle is the person in the act of selfreflection . In his followers, these principles will be developed and enhanced throughout the fourteenth century. The principles will influence the thought of Ockham, as we know, but also thinkers such as Suarez, Molina, Leibniz, Wollf, and Kant" (Mary Beth Ingham...

The Model of The Principled Advocate and The Pathological Partisan: A Virtue Ethics Construct of Opposing Archetypes of Public Relations and Advertising Practitioners

Drawing upon contemporary virtue ethics theory, The Model of The Principled Advocate and The Pathological Partisan is introduced. Profiles are developed of diametrically opposed archetypes of public relations and advertising practitioners. The Principled Advocate represents the advocacy virtues of humility, truth, transparency, respect, care, authenticity, equity, and social responsibility. The Pathological Partisan represents the opposing vices of arrogance, deceit, secrecy, manipulation, disregard, artifice, injustice, and raw self-interest. One becomes either a Principled Advocate or a Pathological Partisan by habitually enacting or embodying the virtues or vices in the context of professional practices.

The Conditions of Our Freedom: Foucault, Organization, and Ethics

The paper examines the contribution of the French philosopher Michel Foucault to the subject of ethics in organizations. The paper combines an analysis of Foucault’s work on discipline and control, with an examination of his later work on the ethical subject and technologies of the self. Our paper argues that the work of the later Foucault provides an important contribution to business ethics theory, practice and pedagogy. We discuss how it offers an alternative avenue to traditional normative ethical theory that both converges and diverges with other extant alternatives. By situating ethics as practices of the self, and by demonstrating the conditions under which freedom in organizations can be exercised, Foucault’s ethics attempt to connect an understanding and critique of power with a personal project of self. He therefore provides a theory of subjectivity that potentially informs a reshaping of contemporary virtue ethics theory, value-based management, and business ethics teaching.

An Aristotelian Critique of Situationism

AbstractAristotle says that no human achievement has the stability of activities that express virtue. Ethical situationists consider this claim to be refutable by empirical evidence. If that is true, not only Aristotelianism, but folk psychology, contemporary virtue ethics and character education have all been seriously infirmed. The aim of this paper is threefold: (1) to offer a systematic classification of the existing objections against situationism under four main headings: ‘the methodological objection’, ‘the moral dilemma objection’, ‘the bullet-biting objection’ and ‘the anti-behaviouristic objection’; (2) to resuscitate a more powerful Aristotelian version of the ‘anti-behaviouristic objection’ than advanced by previous critics; and (3) to explore some of the implications of such resuscitation for our understanding of the salience of character and for future studies of its nature.

Virtue Ethics and Elitism

Because of its reliance on a basically Aristotelian conception of virtue, contemporary virtue ethics is often criticised for being inherently elitist. I argue that this objection is mistaken. The core of my argument is that we need to take seriously that virtue, according to Aristotle, is something that we acquire gradually, via a developmental process. People are not just stuck with their characters once and for all, but can always aspire to become better (more virtuous). And that is plausibly the basic normative requirement of virtue ethics.