In this paper I examine and reply to a deflationary challenge brought against virtue ethics. The challenge comes from critics who are impressed by recent psychological evidence suggesting that much of what we take to be virtuous conduct is in fact elicited by narrowly specific social settings, as opposed to being the manifestation of robust individual character. In answer to the challenge, I suggest a conception of virtue that openly acknowledges the likelihood of its deep, ongoing dependence upon particular social (...) relationships and settings. I argue that holding this conception will indeed cause problems for some important strands of thought in virtue ethics, most notably in the tradition of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. But an approach to virtue ethics modeled on David Hume's treatment of virtue and character in A Treatise of Human Nature promises to escape these problems. (shrink)

In this paper, I describe some of what I take to be the more interesting features of friendship, then explore the extent to which other virtues can be reconstructed as sharing those features. I use trustworthiness as my example throughout, but I think that other virtues such as generosity & gratitude, pride & respect, and the producer’s & consumer’s sense of humor can also be analyzed with this model. The aim of the paper is not to demonstrate that all moral (...) virtues are exactly like friendship in all important respects, but rather to articulate a fruitful model in which to explore the virtues. Section 2 explores the relational nature of friendship, drawing on Aristotle’s discussion of friendship in the Nicomachean Ethics. Section 3 catalogues four motivations for taking seriously the friendship model of virtue. Section 4 applies the friendship model in depth to the virtue of trustworthiness. (shrink)

One Stoic response to the skeptical indistinguishability argument is that it fails to account for expertise: the Stoics allow that while two similar objects create indistinguishable appearances in the amateur, this is not true of the expert, whose appearances succeed in discriminating the pair. This paper re-examines the motivations for this Stoic response, and argues that it reveals the Stoic claim that, in generating a kataleptic appearance, the perceiver’s mind is active, insofar as it applies concepts matching the perceptual stimulus. (...) I argue that this claim is reflected in the Stoic definition of the kataleptic appearance, and that it respects their more general account of mental representation. I further suggest that, in attributing some activity to the mind in creating each kataleptic appearance, and in claiming that the expert’s mind allows her to form more kataleptic appearances than the amateur, the Stoics draw inspiration from the wax tablet model in Plato’s Theaetetus (190e–196d), where Socrates distinguishes the wise from the ignorant on the basis of how well they match sensory input with its appropriate mental ‘seal’ (σφραγίς). (shrink)

We argue that the concept of practical wisdom is particularly useful for organizing, understanding, and improving human-machine interactions. We consider the relationship between philosophical analysis of wisdom and psychological research into the development of wisdom. We adopt a practical orientation that suggests a conceptual engineering approach is needed, where philosophical work involves refinement of the concept in response to contributions by engineers and behavioral scientists. The former are tasked with encoding as much wise design as possible into machines themselves, as (...) well as providing sandboxes or workspaces to help various stakeholders build practical wisdom in systems that are sufficiently realistic to aid transferring skills learned to real-world use. The latter are needed for the design of exercises and methods of evaluation within these workspaces, as well as ways of empirically assessing the transfer of wisdom from workspace to world. Systematic interaction between these three disciplines (and others) is the best approach to engineering wisdom for the machine age. (shrink)

This paper examines the Stoic account of apprehension (κατάληψις) (a cognitive achievement similar to how we typically view knowledge). Following a seminal article by Michael Frede (1983), it is widely thought that the Stoics maintained a purely externalist causal account of apprehension wherein one may apprehend only if one stands in an appropriate causal relation to the object apprehended. An important but unanswered challenge to this view has been offered by David Sedley (2002) who offers reasons to suppose that the (...) Stoics (or at least Zeno, the founder of the Stoa) did not make such a causal stipulation. I offer a defence of the traditional, causal reading against the challenges raised by Sedley but also argue, against the traditional view, that the Stoic account incorporated an internalist element. On the hybrid account defended here, in order to apprehend not only must the agent stand in an appropriate causal relation to the object apprehended but the agent’s appearance of the object must also be clear (a feature which is accessible to the epistemic agent). The traditional scholarly view rejects internalist interpretations because it is thought that such interpretations cannot make sense of the Stoics’ discussion of the ‘automatic assent’ produced by kataleptic appearances and a purely externalist view is taken to be charitable insofar as it saves the Stoics from a vicious regress which they would otherwise face (were they internalists). I spell out how the regress might be taken to function and defend an internalist interpretation against both these charges. The internalist element embraced by the Stoics does not lead to the problems it is often thought to and the account defended here not only does justice to the textual evidence but also sheds light on the Stoic debates with their sceptical opponents and grants the Stoics an epistemic account fit for purpose. (shrink)

A familiar feature of moral life is the distinctive anxiety that we feel in the face of a moral dilemma or moral conflict. Situations like these require us to take stands on controversial issues. But because we are unsure that we will make the correct decision, anxiety ensues. Despite the pervasiveness of this phenomenon, surprisingly little work has been done either to characterize this “ moral anxiety” or to explain the role that it plays in our moral lives. This paper (...) aims to address this deficiency by developing an empirically informed account of what moral anxiety is and what it does. (shrink)

This paper introduces a body of research on Organizational Behavior and Industrial/organizational Psychology that expands the range of empirical evidence relevant to the ongoing character-situation debate. This body of research, mostly neglected by moral philosophers, provides important insights to move the debate forward. First, the OB/io scholarship provides empirical evidence to show that social environments like organizations have significant power to shape the character traits of their members. This scholarship also describes some of the mechanisms through which this process of (...) reshaping character takes place. Second, the character-situation debate has narrowly focused on situational influences that affect behavior episodically and haphazardly. The OB/io research, however, highlights the importance of distinguishing such situational influences from influences that, like organizational influences, shape our character traits because they are continuous and coordinated. Third, the OB/io literature suggests that most individuals display character traits that, while local to the organization, can be consistent across situations. This puts pressure on the accounts of character proposed by traditional virtue ethics and situationism and provides empirical support to interactionist models based on cognitive-affective processing system theories of personality. Finally, the OB/io literature raises important challenges to the possibility of achieving virtue, provides valuable and untapped resources to cultivate character, and suggests new avenues of normative and empirical research. (shrink)

While there is now considerable anxiety about whether the psychological theory presupposed by virtue ethics is empirically sustainable, analogous issues have received little attention in the virtue epistemology literature. This paper argues that virtue epistemology encounters challenges reminiscent of those recently encountered by virtue ethics: just as seemingly trivial variation in context provokes unsettling variation in patterns of moral behavior, trivial variation in context elicits unsettling variation in patterns of cognitive functioning. Insofar as reliability is a condition on epistemic virtue, (...) we have reason to doubt that human beings possess the cognitive materials required for epistemic virtue, and thereby reason to think that virtue epistemology is threatened by skepticism. We conclude that while virtue epistemology has resources for addressing this challenge, exploiting these resources forces tradeoffs between empirical and normative adequacy. (shrink)

There has been a long history of arguments over whether happiness is anything more than a particular set of psychological states. On one side, some philosophers have argued that there is not, endorsing a descriptive view of happiness. Affective scientists have also embraced this view and are reaching a near consensus on a definition of happiness as some combination of affect and life-satisfaction. On the other side, some philosophers have maintained an evaluative view of happiness, on which being happy involves (...) living a life that is normatively good. Within the context of this debate we consider how people ordinarily understand happiness, and provide evidence that the ordinary understanding of happiness reflects aspects of both evaluative and descriptive views. Similar to evaluative views, normative judgments have a substantive role in the ordinary understanding of happiness. Yet, similar to descriptive views, the ordinary understanding is focused on the person’s psychological states and not the overall life they actually lived. Combining these two aspects, we argue that the ordinary understanding of happiness suggests a novel view on which happiness consists in experiencing positive psychological states when one ought to. This view, if right, has implications for both philosophical and psychological research on happiness. (shrink)

Birch sketches out an ingenious account of how the psychology of social norms emerged from individual-level norms of skill. We suggest that these individual-level norms of skill are likely to be much more widespread than Birch suggests, extending deeper into the hominid lineage, across modern great ape species, all the way to distantly related creatures like honeybees. This suggests that there would have been multiple opportunities for social norms to emerge from skill norms in human prehistory.

Contemporary discussions of knowledge how typically focus on the question whether or not knowing how to do ϕ consists in propositional knowledge, and divide the field between intellectualists and anti-intellectualists. This way of framing the issue is said to derive from Gilbert Ryle. I argue that this is a misreading of Ryle, whose primary interest in discussing knowledge how was not epistemological but rather action-theoretical, whose argument against intellectualism has for this reason been misunderstood and underestimated, and whose positive view (...) aims to chart a middle course between intellectualism and anti-intellectualism. (shrink)

Someone acts in a morally worthy way when they deserve credit for doing the morally right thing. But when and why do agents deserve credit for the success involved in doing the right thing? It is tempting to seek an answer to that question by drawing an analogy with creditworthy success in other domains of human agency, especially in sports, arts, and crafts. Accordingly, some authors have recently argued that, just like creditworthy success in, say, chess, playing the piano, or (...) archery, creditworthy moral success is a matter of getting things right by way of manifesting a relevant skill. My main aim in this paper is to bring out an important structural difference between moral creditworthiness and creditworthiness in sports, arts, and craft, undermining attempts to use examples of the latter as a model for understanding the former. As an alternative, I propose an account of morally creditworthy action, according to which such action is a matter of manifesting virtue, not skill—a claim that's based on an important, but underappreciated, difference between the sorts of excellences constituting virtues and skills. The paper thus contributes to a more nuanced picture of normative achievements across different domains of human agency, highlighting largely overlooked structural dissimilarities among them. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the widely held view that Aristotle's vicious agent is a principled follower of a wrong conception of the good whose soul, just like the soul of the virtuous agent, is marked by harmony between his reason and non-rational desires is an exegetical mistake. Rather, Aristotle holds – consistently and throughout the Nicomachean Ethics – that the vicious agent lacks any real principles of action and that his soul lacks unity and harmony even more than (...) the soul of the uncontrolled agent. (shrink)

Military metaphors are pervasive in biomedicine, including HIV research. Rooted in the mind set that regards pathogens as enemies to be defeated, terms such as “shock and kill” have become widely accepted idioms within HIV cure research. Such language and symbolism must be critically examined as they may be especially problematic when used to express scientific ideas within emerging health-related fields. In this article, philosophical analysis and an interdisciplinary literature review utilizing key texts from sociology, anthropology, history, and Chinese and (...) African studies were conducted to investigate the current proliferation of military metaphors. We found the use of these metaphors to be ironic, unfortunate, and unnecessary. To overcome military metaphors we propose to give them less aggressive meanings, and/or replace them with more peaceful metaphors. Building on previous authors' work, we argue for the increased use of “journey” metaphors as meaningful, cross-culturally app... (shrink)

Objects often manifest themselves in incompatible ways across perspectives that are epistemically on a par. The standard response to such cases is to deny that the properties that things appear to have from different perspectives are properties that things really have out there. This type of response seems worrying: too many properties admit of perspectival variance and there are good theoretical reasons to think that such properties are genuinely instantiated. So, we have reason to explore views on which things can (...) have the incompatible properties they appear to have across perspectives. This paper explores the view that things can have incompatible properties if the world is not a metaphysically unified place but is instead fragmented. There is a sensible notion of co-obtainment, on which two facts can each obtain without co-obtaining. Using this notion, we can step back from our embedded perspectives on the world without deeming the contents of those perspectives to be mere appearances. This renders th.. (shrink)

Situationists argue that virtue ethics is empirically untenable, since traditional virtue ethicists postulate broad, efficacious character traits, and social psychology suggests that such traits do not exist. I argue that prominent philosophical replies to this challenge do not succeed. But cross-cultural research gives reason to postulate character traits, and this undermines the situationist critique. There is, however, another empirical challenge to virtue ethics that is harder to escape. Character traits are culturally informed, as are our ideals of what traits are (...) virtuous, and our ideals of what qualifies as well-being. If virtues and well-being are culturally constructed ideals, then the standard strategy for grounding the normativity of virtue ethics in human nature is undermined. (shrink)

This paper argues for the following three claims. First, the Agrippan mode from disagreement does not play a secondary role in inducing suspension of judgment. Second, the Pyrrhonist is not committed to the criteria of justification underlying the Five Modes of Agrippa, which nonetheless does not prevent him from non-doxastically assenting to them. And third, some recent objections to Agrippan Pyrrhonism raised by analytic epistemologists and experimental philosophers fail to appreciate the Pyrrhonist's ad hominem style of argumentation and the real (...) challenge posed by the mode from disagreement. (shrink)

Despite the impressive progress that has been made on both the empirical and conceptual fronts of boredom research, there is one facet of boredom that has received remarkably little attention. This is boredom's relationship to morality. The aim of this article is to explore the moral dimensions of boredom and to argue that boredom is a morally relevant personality trait. The presence of trait boredom hinders our capacity to flourish and in doing so hurts our prospects for a moral life. (...) -/- . (shrink)

In this paper, I introduce what I call relational virtue and defend it as an important subcategory of virtue. In particular, I argue that it offers a valuable resource for answering questions concerning the value of intimate relationships such as parent-child relationship or friendship. After briefly sketching what I mean by relational virtue, I show why it is a virtue and in what sense we can meaningfully distinguish it from other sorts of virtue. I then describe some distinctive features of (...) relational virtue in more detail and discuss their implications. Next, I present filial piety as the paradigmatic example of relational virtue. I argue that a child s being filial should be understood as an appropriate response to her parent s being virtuous as a parent. I conclude by showing how my relational virtue theory of filial piety can avoid the difficulties faced by previous theories of filial piety such as gratitude theory and friendship theory. (shrink)

Both literalism, the view that mathematical objects simply exist in the empirical world, and fictionalism, the view that mathematical objects do not exist but are rather harmless fictions, have been both ascribed to Aristotle. The ascription of literalism to Aristotle, however, commits Aristotle to the unattractive view that mathematics studies but a small fragment of the physical world; and there is evidence that Aristotle would deny the literalist position that mathematical objects are perceivable. The ascription of fictionalism also faces a (...) difficult challenge: there is evidence that Aristotle would deny the fictionalist position that mathematics is false. I argue that, in Aristotle's view, the fiction of mathematics is not to treat what does not exist as if existing but to treat mathematical objects with an ontological status they lack. This form of fictionalism is consistent with holding that mathematics is true. (shrink)

In this chapter, we address the roles that exemplars might play in a comprehensive response to epistemic injustice. Fricker defines epistemic injustices as harms people suffer specifically in their capacity as (potential) knowers. We focus on testimonial epistemic injustice, which occurs when someone’s assertoric speech acts are systematically met with either too little or too much credence by a biased audience. Fricker recommends a virtue­theoretic response: people who do not suffer from biases should try to maintain their disposition towards naive (...) testimonial justice, and those who find themselves already biased should cultivate corrective testimonial justice by systematically adjusting their credence in testimony up or down depending on whether they are hearing from someone whom they may be biased against or in favor of. We doubt that the prominent admiration­emulation model of exemplarism will be much use in this connection, so we propose two ways of learning from negative exemplars to better conduct one’s epistemic affairs. In the admiration­emulation model, both the identification of what a virtue is and the cultivation of virtues identified thusly proceed through the admiration of virtuous exemplars. We show that this model has serious flaws and argue for two alternatives: the envy­agonism model and the ambivalence­avoidance model. (shrink)

What is virtue? How can we lead moral lives? Exploring how contemporary moral philosophy has led to a revival of interest in the concepts of 'virtue', 'character' and 'flourishing', this is an accessible and critical introduction to virtue ethics. The book includes chapter summaries and guides to further reading throughout to help readers explore, understand and develop a critical perspective towards this important school of contemporary ethical thought.

It has previously been argued that Schopenhauer is a distinctive type of virtue ethicist (Hassan, 2019). The Aristotelian version of virtue ethics has traditionally been accused of being fundamentally egoistic insofar as the possession of virtues is beneficial to the possessor, and serve as the ultimate justification for obtaining them. Indeed, Schopenhauer himself makes a version of this complaint. In this chapter, I investigate whether Schopenhauer’s moral framework nevertheless suffers from this same objection of egoism in light of how he (...) conceives of the relationship between morality and ascetic 'salvation'. Drawing upon his published works and letters, I argue that Schopenhauer has the resources to avoid the objection. Because of his idiosyncratic metaphysics, I argue that Schopenhauer can also avoid the problem of self-effacement which may result from the way in which he avoids the egoism objection. The discussion thus intends to establish further nuance to Schopenhauer’s conception of virtue and its value. (shrink)

How is it possible for David Hume to be both withering skeptic and constructive theorist? I recommend an answer like the Pyrrhonian answer to the question how it is possible to suspend all judgment yet engage in active daily life. Sextus Empiricus distinguishes two kinds of assent: one suspended across the board and one involved with daily living. The first is an act of will based on appreciation of reasons; the second is a causal effect of appearances. Hume makes the (...) same distinction, only he extends the sort of assent involved in daily life to theoretical matters as well. He is a skeptic both in finding no reason to grant the first sort of assent and in being subject to the second. (shrink)

ABSTRACT According to David Lewis, alteration is "qualitative difference between temporal parts of something." It follows that moments, since they are simple and lack temporal parts, cannot alter from future to present to past. Here then is another way to put McTaggart's paradox about change in tense. I will appeal to my theory of Aspects to rebut the thought behind this rendition of McTaggart. On my theory, it is possible that qualitatively differing things be numerically identical. I call these differing, (...) numerically identical things "aspects." I will argue that alteration can be a qualitative difference between temporal aspects of something that lacks temporal parts. So a moment can alter in tense. By rejecting Lewis's assumption my theory can solve this version of McTaggart's paradox. (shrink)

In defending the view that justice is the advantage of the stronger, Thrasymachus puzzlingly claims that rulers never err and that any practitioner of a skill or expertise (τέχνη) is infallible. In what follows, Socrates offers a number of arguments directed against Thrasymachus’ views concerning the nature of skill, ruling, and justice. Commentators typically take a dim view of both Thrasymachus’ claims about skill (which are dismissed as an ungrounded and purely ad hoc response to Socrates’ initial criticisms) and Socrates’ (...) latter arguments (which are deemed extremely weak). In this paper, I clarify Thrasymachus’ views (and those of several other ancients) concerning qua locutions and the nature of skill and ability and I reconstruct Socrates’ arguments against Thrasymachus’ views concerning skill and justice. I argue that Thrasymachus’ views are not ungrounded or ad hoc and that Socrates’ arguments are rather different (and significantly stronger) than often supposed. (shrink)

The purpose of the present paper is twofold. First, to examine what beliefs, if any, underlie (a) the Pyrrhonist’s desire for ataraxia and his account of how this state may be attained, and (b) his philanthropic therapy, which seeks to induce, by argument, ejpochv and ataraxia in the Dogmatists. Second, to determine whether the Pyrrhonist’s philanthropy and his search for and attainment of ataraxia are, as scholars have generally believed, essential aspects of his stance.

Aristotle thinks that an account, alogos, of some sort is characteristic of craft,technē. Some scholars think that thelogoselement oftechnēis tagged onto experience as a theoretical element not directly engaged in successful production: I argue instead that thelogosgrounds the productive ability of craft, and also that is practically orientated in a way that distinguishes it from thelogosof theoretical science. Understanding thelogosof craft thus helps us explain how the craftsman differs both from the merely experienced practitioner and from the theoretical scientist.

My purpose in this paper is to examine whether Pyrrhonian skepticism, as this stance is described in Sextus Empiricus’s extant works, has practical or epistemic value. More precisely, I would like to consider whether the Pyrrhonist’s suspension of judgment (ἐποχή) and undisturbedness (ἀταραξία) can be deemed to be of practical or epistemic value. By ‘practical’ value I mean both moral value and prudential value. Moral value refers to moral rightness and wrongness; prudential value to the value of well-being, personal or (...) social. Hence, when I ask whether the Pyrrhonist’s suspension and undisturbedness have practical value, I mean whether they make us behave in a manner that is morally right or wrong, and whether they allow us to attain those goals that would make it possible to live well. As for ‘epistemic’ value, it refers basically to the values of attaining truth and avoiding error. Hence, when I ask whether the Pyrrhonist’s suspension has epistemic value, I mean whether it allows us to attain truth and avoid error. My main focus will be the practical value of both suspension and undisturbedness because this is the value on which ancient philosophy scholars critical of Pyrrhonism have laid emphasis. The reason for examining the epistemic value of suspension is that doing so will enable a fuller assessment of the significance of Pyrrhonism as a kind of philosophy, which is my primary concern. (shrink)

In contrast to medical care, which is focused on the individual patient, public health is focused on collective health. This article argues that, in order to better protect the individual, discussions of public health would benefit from incorporating the insights of virtue ethics. There are three reasons to for this. First, the collective focus may cause neglect of the effects of public health policy on the interests and rights of individuals and minorities. Second, whereas the one-on-one encounters in medical care (...) facilitate a compassionate and caring attitude, public health involves a distance between professionals and the public. Therefore, public health professionals must use imagination and care to evaluate the effects of policies on individuals. Third, the relationship between public health professionals and the people who are affected by the policies they design is characterized by power asymmetry, demanding a high level of responsibility from those who wield them. Against this background, it is argued that public health professionals should develop the virtues of responsibility, compassion and humility. The examples provided, i.e. breastfeeding information and vaccination policy, illustrate the importance of these virtues, which needed for normative as well as instrumental reasons, i.e. as a way to restore trust. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been increasing interest in analytic philosophy that engages with non-Western philosophical traditions, including South Asian religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. However, thus far, there has been no engagement with Sikhism, despite its status as a major world religion with a rich philosophical tradition. This paper is an attempt to get a start at analytic philosophical engagement with Sikh philosophy. My focus is on Sikh ethics, and in particular on the theory of vice and (...) virtue that can be gleaned from Sikh scripture. According to this theory, the five major vices have a unified source in the vice of haumai. Haumai is a kind of false conception of oneself as singularly important, and correspondingly, a false conception of the world as revolving around oneself, as a world of objects there for one’s use. Vice, then, comes down to the failure to recognize the importance of others. The corresponding picture of virtue is that virtue consists in a recognition of the importance of others, through the recognition of an ultimate reality on which all are One. After reconstructing the Sikh theory of vice and virtue, I conclude with some comparative remarks on Sikh and Western ethics. (shrink)

In this paper, we embark on the complicated discussion about the nature of vice in Virtue Ethics through a twofold approach: first, by taking seriously the claim that virtues (and certain flavours of vices) are genuinely dispositional features possessed by agents, and secondly, by employing a pluralistic attitude borrowed from Battaly’s pluralism (2008). Through these lenses, we identify three varieties of viciousness: incontinence, indifference, and malevolence. The upshot is that the notion of vice is not as categorically homogeneous as that (...) of virtue: some states of viciousness consist in interference of present virtuous dispositions, or mimicking of absent vicious ones, whereas others can be considered genuine dispositions themselves. Furthermore, this set-up can provide an interesting, albeit highly idealized story as to how, through the interference in one’s environment, one gets acquainted with vice in various degrees. Finally, this approach can be illuminating vis-à-vis Virtue Ethics in general; e.g. we can employ it to discuss more productively Johnston’s (2003) objection to Hursthouse’s (1999) account of moral conduct. Finally, this approach can be illuminating vis-a-vis Virtue Ethics in general; e.g. we can employ it to discuss more productively Johnston’s (2003) objection to Hursthouse’s (1999) account of moral conduct. (shrink)

Reasoned disagreement is a pervasive feature of public life, and the persistence of disagreement is sometimes troublesome, reflecting the need to make difficult decisions. Fogelin suggests that parties to a deep disagreement should abandon reason and switch to non-rational persuasion. But how are the parties to know when to make such a switch? I argue that Fogelin's analysis doesn't clearly address this question, and that disputes arising in areas like medical decision making are such that the parties to them have (...) reasons to act as if they can be rationally resolved even if they are deep. Fogelin's analysis is thus of limited value as regards the practical moral demand of addressing concrete moral dilemmas. (shrink)

We offer a sceptical examination of a thesis recently advanced in a monograph published by Princeton University Press, entitled Greek Buddha: Pyrrho’s Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia. In this dense and probing work, Christopher I. Beckwith, a professor of Central Eurasian studies at Indiana University, Bloomington, argues that Pyrrho of Elis adopted a form of early Buddhism during his years in Bactria and Gandhāra, and that early Pyrrhonism must be understood as a sect of early Buddhism. In making (...) his case Beckwith claims that virtually all scholars of Greek, Indian, and Chinese philosophy have been operating under flawed assumptions and with flawed methodologies, and so have failed to notice obvious and undeniable correspondences between the philosophical views of the Buddha and of Pyrrho. In this study we take Beckwith’s proposal and challenge seriously, and we examine his textual basis and techniques of translation, his methods of examining passages, his construal of problems and his reconstruction of arguments. We find that his presuppositions are contentious and doubtful, his own methods are extremely flawed, and that he draws unreasonable conclusions. Although the result of our study is almost entirely negative, we think it illustrates some important general points about the methodology of comparative philosophy. (shrink)

According to philosophical “situationism”, psychological evidence shows that human action is typically best explained by the influence of situational factors and not by “global” and robust character traits of the agent. As a practical implication of their view, situationists recommend that efforts in moral education be shifted from character development to situation management. Much of the discussion has focused on whether global conceptions of virtue and character, and in particular Aristotelian virtue ethics, can be defended against the situationist challenge. After (...) several rounds of debate, both sides claim victory, and they seem to have reached a stalemate. In this paper, I refocus the debate on the arguments offered in support of situationism itself. I argue that two serious problems have so far gone unnoticed in the literature. First, the argument in support of situationism is unsound. It is based on evidence that agents’ morally relevant behavior reliably covaries with morally irrelevant situationa.. (shrink)

Negative emotions are often thought to lack value—they’re pernicious, inherently unpleasant, and inconsistent with human virtue. Taking anxiety as a case study, I argue that this assessment is mistaken. I begin with an account of what anxiety is: a response to uncertainty about a possible threat or challenge that brings thoughts about one’s predicament (‘I’m worried,’ ‘What should I do?’), negatively valenced feelings of concern, and a motivational tendency toward caution regarding the potential threat one faces. Given this account of (...) what anxiety is, I show it can be instrumentally valuable: in sensitizing us to uncertainty and prompting caution and risk assessment efforts, it’s an emotion that can help us better recognize and respond to uncertain threats and challenges. But anxiety can also be aretaically valuable—that is, it’s an emotion that can contribute positively to one’s character. For instance, your anxiety about how best to care for your aging mother not only prompts helpful brainstorming about what you should do, but also reflect well on you—your unease demonstrates both an admirable sensitivity and emotional attunement to what’s at stake. (shrink)

The ‘black box’ in Stoic axiology refers to the mysterious connection between the input of Stoic deliberation (reasons generated by the value of indifferents) and the output (appropriate actions). In this paper, I peer into the black box by drawing an analogy between Stoic and Kantian axiology. The value and disvalue of indifferents is intrinsic, but conditional. An extrinsic condition on the value of a token indifferent is that one's selection of that indifferent is sanctioned by context-relative ethical principles. The (...) value of an indifferent that does not meet this condition is normatively silenced, such that it fails to constitute a reason for action. (shrink)

In an important and widely discussed series of studies, Jonathan Phillips and colleagues have suggested that the ordinary concept of happiness has a substantial moral component. For in- stance, two persons who enjoy the same extent of positive emotions and are equally satisfied with their lives are judged as happy to different degrees if one is less moral than the other. Considering that the relation between morality and happiness or self-interest has been one of the central questions of moral philosophy (...) since at least Plato, such a result would be of considerable philosophical interest. On closer examination of the original research and new studies, we suggest that the data point to a different conclusion: in the dominant folk understanding of happiness, morality has no fundamental role. Findings seeming to indicate a moralized concept are better explained, we suggest, by folk theories on which extreme moral turpitude indicates that an individual suffers from psychological dysfunction. (shrink)

A standard thesis of contemporary Aristotelian virtue ethics and some recent Heideggerian scholarship is that virtuous behavior can be performed immediately and spontaneously without engaging conscious processes of deliberative thought. It is also claimed that phronēsis either enables or is consistent with this possibility. In the Nicomachean Ethics, however, Aristotle identifies phronesis as the excellence of the calculative part of the intellect, claims that calculation and deliberation are the same and that it is the mark of the phronimos to be (...) able to deliberate well. He also insists that for an action to count as virtuous it must issue from rational choice, which he characterizes as determined by deliberation. It thus seems that any exegetically respectable attempt to explain virtuous action within an Aristotelian framework would need to integrate with some account of deliberative choice. This creates a tension in Aristotelian scholarship. In this paper, I shall formalize this tension in terms of an apparently inconsistent triad of claims and shall examine the merits of at least one prominent interpretation of phronesis with respect to its reconciliation. (shrink)

In this article, we develop a non-rights-based argument based on beneficence (i.e., the welfare of individuals and communities) and justice as the disposition to act justly to promote equity in health care resource allocation. To this end, we structured our analysis according to the following main sections. The first section examines the work of Amartya Sen and his equality of capabilities approach and outlines a framework of health care as a fundamental human need. In the subsequent section, we provide a (...) definition of health equity based on the moral imperative to guarantee that every individual ought to have the freedom to pursue health goals and well-being. In the later part of the article, we outline a non-right approach to health care based on three pillars: (1) human flourishing, (2) justice as a disposition not a process, and (3) solidarity. (shrink)

This study adds to the existing literature on meaningful work by offering a cross-cultural perspective. Since work shapes the kind of person that we are and plays an important role in our well-being, some theorists have adopted a virtue theory approach to meaningful work using an Aristotelian-MacIntyrean framework. For lack of a better term, I will call this a western virtue theory. This paper presents a contemporary virtue-focused Buddhist perspective on the topic. While a virtue-ethics interpretation of Buddhism is now (...) widely accepted and has been applied to several issues, not much has been written about meaningful work using a Buddhist-Aristotelian comparative framework. Buddhism is an important cultural component not only of countries that are predominantly Buddhist, but of other societies that have come in contact with it. To develop a Buddhist framework, I draw heavily from the works of Buddhist scholars, particularly in the West who use a virtue framework in interpreting Buddhism. The aims of my essay are dual. The first is to articulate a straightforward application of Buddhism on the contemporary ethical discussion of meaningful work. The second is to discuss the similarities, clarify the differences, and demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses relative to each other of the Buddhist and the Western virtue theory perspectives. In my analysis, I argue that consideration of Buddhist perspective will enable us to construct a cross-cultural, inclusive, and pluralistic conceptual model for the deliberation of meaningful work that complements the Western virtue theory. (shrink)

Perfectionist views of well-being maintain that well-being ultimately consists, at least partly, in excellence or virtue. This paper argues that such views are untenable, focusing on Aristotelian perfectionism. The argument appeals, first, to intuitive counterexamples to perfectionism. A second worry is that it seems impossible to interpret perfection in a manner that yields both a plausible view of well-being and a strong link between morality and well-being. Third, perfectionist treatments of pleasure are deeply implausible. Fourth, perfectionism rests on a misunderstanding (...) about the nature of our interest in prudential and perfectionist values. Finally, perfectionism’s appeal seems to depend heavily on a failure to distinguish the notions of well-being and the good life. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the apraxia argument in Cicero’s Academica. It proposes that the argument assumes two modes: the evidential mode maintains that skepticism is false, while the pragmatic claims that it is disadvantageous. The paper then develops a tension between the two modes, and concludes by exploring some differences between ancient and contemporary skepticism.

The focus of this paper is Aristotle's solution to the problem inherited from Socrates: How could a man fail to restrain himself when he believes that what he desires is wrong? In NE 7 Aristotle attempts to reconcile the Socratic denial of akrasia with the commonly held opinion that people act in ways they know to be bad, even when it is in their power to act otherwise. This project turns out to be largely successful, for what Aristotle shows us (...) is that if we distinguish between two ways of having knowledge (potentially and actually), the Socratic thesis can effectively account for a wide range of cases (collectively referred to here as drunk-akrasia) in which an agent acts contrary to his general knowledge of the Good, yet can still be said to know in the qualified sense that his actions are wrong. However, Book 7 also shows that the Socratic account of akrasia cannot take us any farther than drunk-akrasia, for unlike drunk-akrasia, genuine akrasia cannot be reduced to a failure of knowledge. This agent knows in the unqualified sense that his actions are wrong. The starting-point of my argument is that Aristotle's explanation of genuine akrasia requires a different solution than the one found in NE 7 which relies on the distinction between qualified and unqualified knowing: genuinely akratic behaviour is due to the absence of an internal conflict that a desire for the proper pleasures of temperance would create if he could experience them. (shrink)

I argue that Aristotelian decisions (προαιρέσεις) cannot be conceived of as based solely on wish (βούλησις) and deliberation (βούλευσις), as the standard picture (most influentially argued for in Anscombe's "Thought and Action in Aristotle", in R. Bambrough ed. New Essays on Plato and Aristotle. London: Routledge, 1965) suggests. Although some features of the standard view are correct (such as that decisions have essential connection to deliberation and that wish always plays a crucial role in the formation of a decision), Aristotelian (...) decisions sometimes must include non-rational desires such as appetite. Consequently, any exegetical account of Aristotle’s notion of decision must be able to accommodate this feature. (shrink)

Epicurus is one of the first social contract theorists, holding that justice is an agreement neither to harm nor be harmed. He also says that living justly is necessary and sufficient for living pleasantly, which is the Epicurean goal. Some say that there are two accounts of justice in Epicurus -- one as a personal virtue, the other as a virtue of institutions. I argue that the personal virtue derives from compliance with just social institutions, and so we need to (...) attribute only one account of justice to Epicurus. I show how this interpretation makes sense of claims about justice by Epicurus and his followers, including Hermarchus, Lucretius, and Diogenes of Oinoanda. (shrink)

Virtue ethics is widely recognized as one of three major approaches in contemporary moral philosophy and arguably the most influential normative theory in business ethics. Despite its rich pedigree in Western and Eastern philosophy, most work in contemporary virtue ethics is part of the Western tradition. The purpose of this Thematic Symposium is to foster dialogue between Western and Eastern conceptions of virtue in business and engage them with questions about the nature, justification, and content of the virtues in each (...) tradition. This Editorial offers a brief introduction to the problem, a summary of Western and Eastern varieties of virtue ethics, an overview of the six articles included in this Thematic Symposium, and a section with five common themes for further exploration and future collaborative research. (shrink)

We paraphrase Descartes’ famous dictum in the area of AI ethics where the “I doubt and therefore I am” is suggested as a necessary aspect of morality. Therefore AI, which cannot doubt itself, cannot possess moral agency. Of course, this is not the end of the story. We explore various aspects of the human mind that substantially differ from AI, which includes the sensory grounding of our knowing, the act of understanding, and the significance of being able to doubt ourselves. (...) The foundation of our argument is the discipline of ethics, one of the oldest and largest knowledge projects of human history, yet, we seem only to be beginning to get a grasp of it. After a couple of thousand years of studying the ethics of humans, we (humans) arrived at a point where moral psychology suggests that our moral decisions are intuitive, and all the models from ethics become relevant only when we explain ourselves. This recognition has a major impact on what and how we can do regarding AI ethics. We do not offer a solution, we explore some ideas and leave the problem open, but we hope somewhat better understood than before our study. (shrink)

Much of present-day epistemology is divided between internalists and externalists. Different as these views are, they have in common that they strip justification from its dialectical component in order to block the skeptic’s argument from disagreement. That is, they allow that one may have justified beliefs even if one is not able to defend it against challenges and resolve the disagreements about them. Lammenranta (2008, 2011a) recently argued that neither internalism nor externalism convinces if we consider the argument in its (...) most interesting format. In this paper I zoom in on this debate, and fix further details of Lammenranta’s lead. Specifically, I will side with skepticism that justification is dialectical, yet only if certain conditions are in place. (shrink)