The aim of this article is to offer a mitigated moral justification of a much maligned emotional trait, pity, in the Aristotelian sense of ‘pain at deserved bad fortune’. I lay out Aristotle's taxonomic map of pity and its surrounding conceptual terrain and argue – by rehearsing modern accounts – that this map is not anachronistic with respect to contemporary conceptions. I then offer an ‘Aristotelian’ moral justification of pity, not as a full virtue intrinsically related to eudaimonia but as (...) a positive moral quality that has instrumental value in developing and sustaining a certain intrinsically valuable state of character – namely compassion. The justification offered is mitigated in the sense that it does not elevate pity to a virtuous disposition, constitutive of the good life; yet it does offer a crucial counterweight to Aristotle's own denunciation of pity. (shrink)

Aristotle’s views on the choiceworthiness of friends might seem both internally inconsistent and objectionably instrumentalizing. On the one hand, Aristotle maintains that perfect friends or virtue friends are choiceworthy and lovable for their own sake, and not merely for the sake of further ends. On the other hand, in Nicomachean Ethics IX.9, Aristotle appears somehow to account for the choiceworthiness of such friends by reference to their utility as sources of a virtuous agent’s robust self-awareness. I examine Aristotle’s views on (...) the utility and choiceworthiness of friends, and offer a novel reading of Nicomachean Ethics IX.9. On this reading, Aristotle accepts a version of instrumental conditionalism about final value, that is, the thesis that goods (including friends) can be choiceworthy for their own sake (i.e., possess final or end value) at least partly on account of their instrumental properties. In articulating what sort of instrumental conditionalism it is reasonable to attribute to Aristotle, I argue that Aristotle appeals to the utility of perfect friends as part of a broadly material causal account of why such friends are choiceworthy for their own sake. On this reading, perfect friends are not choiceworthy for the sake of their utility in eliciting self-awareness; rather, their choiceworthiness for their own sake is (at least partly) realized in, or constituted by, their conduciveness to the virtuous agent’s self-awareness. This reading, I argue, frees Aristotle from the charge of inconsistency: Aristotle can appeal to the conduciveness of perfect friends to the virtuous agent’s self-awareness as a way of explaining why such friends are choiceworthy for their own sake. (shrink)

Recent virtue theorists in psychology implicitly assume the truth of motivational internalism, and this assumption restricts the force and scope of the message that they venture to offer as scientists. I aim to contrive a way out of their impasse by arguing for a version of Aristotelian motivational externalism and suggesting why these psychologists should adopt it. There is a more general problem, however. Although motivational externalism has strong intuitive appeal, at least for moral realists and ‘Humeans’ about motivation, it (...) continues to be threatened by Smith’s fetishisation argument and burdened by the inability of its familiar counter-examples to internalism (of the immoral, wicked, listless and amoral persons) to bear full scrutiny. I argue that Aristotle’s example of the continent person (as distinct from the fully virtuous) offers a more persuasive counter-example to internalism. The moral judgements of continent persons do not motivate them intrinsically, yet the continent cannot be counted as practically irrational with regard to morality. If Aristotelian motivational externalism holds true, psychologists can offer full-fledged theories of virtue without the danger of turning the science of psychology into a prescriptive moralism. (shrink)

Several philosophers, known as situationists, have argued that evidence in social psychology threatens to undermine Aristotelian virtue ethics. An impressively large amount of empirical evidence suggests that most people do not consistently act virtuously and lack the ability to exercise rational control over their behavior. Since possessing moral virtues requires these features, situationists have argued that Aristotelianism does not accurately describe the character traits possessed by most people, and so the theory cannot lay claim to various theoretical advantages such as (...) explanatory power and egalitarian character education. In contrast to previous defenses which either downplay the relevance of psychological evidence or revise philosophical conceptions of virtue to fit the data, this paper appeals to previously neglected psychological evidence on self-efficacy and mental contrasting in combination with “non-idealized” interpretations of Aristotelian moral virtue to support the view that the available empirical evidence is compatible with widespread possession of virtuous character. These “non-idealized” interpretations of virtuous character allow for serious deviations from virtuous conduct, especially in the contexts described by the psychology experiments. Furthermore, decades of research on mental contrasting and self-efficacy suggest that subjects in the psychology experiments acted for reasons and possessed the ability to exercise rational control over their behavior. Hence, situationists are mistaken in thinking that, based on the empirical data, Aristotelianism is deprived of various theoretical advantages. (shrink)

Can a virtuous person act contrary to the virtue she possesses? Can virtues have “holes”—or blindspots—and nonetheless count as virtues? Gopal Sreenivasan defends a notion of a blindspot that is, in my view, an unstable moral category. I will argue that no trait possessing such a “hole” can qualify as a virtue. My strategy for showing this appeals to the importance of motivation to virtue, a feature of virtue to which Sreenivasan does not adequately attend. Sreenivasan’s account allows performance alone (...) to be a reliable indicator of the possession of virtue. I argue that, at least with respect to a classical, Aristotelian conception of virtue, this assumption is mistaken: a person is said to possess a virtue only when she is properly motivated. In my view, the nature of motivation required for the possession of Aristotelian virtue does not admit of blindspots. I am not primarily interested in details about the situationist critique of virtue theory but rather the implications that blindspots have for our conception of virtue. I argue that because the practical reasoning of the virtuous requires both cognitive and motivational coherence, the motivational structure of the virtuous agent cannot accommodate blindspots. My conclusion is neither a defense of motivational internalism nor of an idealized conception of Aristotelian virtue. My aim is to show that because blindspotted virtue does not cohere well with Aristotle’s conception of virtuous agency, friends of virtue theory must choose one or the other; they cannot have both. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to make a case for Aristotelian friendship as a ‘method’ of moral education qua mutual character development. After setting out some Aristotelian assumptions about friendship and education in the “Aristotle and Beyond: Some Basics about Character Friendship and Education”section, I devote the “Role-Model Moral Education Contrasted with Learning from Character Friends” section to role modelling and how it differs from the idea of cultivating character through friendships. “The Mechanisms of Learning from Character Friends” section (...) then explores the mechanisms of Aristotelian friendship education directly: those identified by him and those which can be elicited more obliquely from his texts. I end in the “Concluding Remarks and Classroom Applications” section with some reflections on how this model of friendship as a moral method could be applied in current educational contexts. While the idea of character friendship as an educational method comes with many assets, it also imports various liabilities that may lead to painful friendship terminations. I have put the spotlight on those liabilities in two previous articles. In contrast, the goal here is to impart a new edge and added force to the idea that a certain Aristotle-defined type of deep friendships may have a unique role to play in facilitating moral growth, above and beyond other developmental learning mechanisms. (shrink)

This book presents a novel interpretation of Aristotle's account of how shame instils virtue, and defends its philosophical import. Shame is shown to provide motivational continuity between the actions of the learners and the virtuous dispositions that they will eventually acquire.

Gender greatly impacts access to opportunities, potential, and success in corporate leadership roles. We begin with a general presentation of why such discussion is necessary for basic considerations of justice and fairness in gender equality and how the issues we raise must impact any ethical perspective on gender in the corporate workplace. We continue with a breakdown of the central categories affecting the success of women in corporate leadership roles. The first of these includes gender-influenced behavioral factors, such as the (...) requirements and expectations of gendered verbal and nonverbal communication styles as well as appearance. We move on to address the impact of family on corporate leadership opportunities and success, discussing the asymmetrical evaluation of an individual’s potential, authority, and competence based on gender stereotypes of familial obligations and expectations. Finally, we address how gender impacts access to networking and sponsorship opportunities and the long-term effects of systematic limitations on women’s inclusion in the upper echelons of corporate leadership. We conclude with a summary of the questions and issues raised by our discussion and direct individuals to consider how different ethical systems and moral requirements might influence their interpretations of gender and leadership in the corporate workplace. (shrink)