Normative ethics concerns the practical resolution of questions about the right and the good. Applied ethics concerns the case-based resolution of questions of the right and the good. In this module, we look at the implications of the radical Virtue Theory of Jainism for practical questions, such as life decisions, occupations, and diet –-- questions of normative and applied ethics. The Jain position is that the self is defined by virtue, and hence action (karma) is derivative and not essential to (...) the self. This entails an ethics of ahiṃsā, as action in conformity to the virtues of the self. As only action can harm, the virtue of the individual is beyond harm and hence action in accordance with this virtue is nonharmful. I consider how this impacts questions of guilt and responsibility. Unlike Buddhists who treat states of the world as the outcomes that justify actions, Jains treat the virtue of the self as the guiding outcome of ethical deliberation. It is the ultimate good. In the fourth section, I review a classic disagreement between Jains and Buddhists. This highlights a difference: while Buddhists regard virtue to be a consequence to be maximised, the Jains reject this. Virtue is our essence, and the authentic life reflects our virtue. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to offer a reconstruction of gratitude as an Aristotelian virtue. The account I propose is meant to be essentially Aristotelian although it is clearly not Aristotle’s own account. I start in section “Current Discourses on Gratitude” with an overview of recent discourses on gratitude in philosophy and psychology. I then proceed, in section “Putting the Aristotelian Pieces Together”, to spell out a formal characterisation of gratitude as an Aristotelian emotional virtue. Section “Reappraising Aristotle on (...) megalopsychia and Gratitude” pauses to explore how such a characterisation can be squared with Aristotle’s apparently unambiguous remarks about gratitude as a non-component of the virtuous makeup of the megalopsychoi. Finally, I conclude in section “Gratitude and Poetic Justice” by demonstrating the virtuosity of gratitude—what makes it intrinsically valuable as part of eudaimonia—by elucidating its association with the overarching emotional virtue of nemesis. (shrink)

Nursing ethics centres on how nurses ought to respond to the moral situations that arise in their professional contexts. Nursing ethicists invoke normative approaches from moral philosophy. Specifically, it is increasingly common for nursing ethicists to apply virtue ethics to moral problems encountered by nurses. The point of this article is to argue for scepticism about this approach. First, the research question is motivated by showing that requirements on nurses such as to be kind, do not suffice to establish virtue (...) ethics in nursing because normative rivals (such as utilitarians) can say as much; and the teleology distinctive of virtue ethics does not transpose to a professional context, such as nursing. Next, scepticism is argued for by responding to various attempts to secure a role for virtue ethics in nursing. The upshot is that virtue ethics is best left where it belongs – in personal moral life, not professional ethics – and nursing ethics is best done by taking other approaches. (shrink)

[First published 09/2016; substantive revision 02/2021.] Evaluative terms and concepts are often divided into “thin” and “thick”. We don’t evaluate actions and persons merely as good or bad, or right or wrong, but also as kind, courageous, tactful, selfish, boorish, and cruel. The latter evaluative concepts are "descriptively thick": their application somehow involves both evaluation and a substantial amount of non-evaluative description. This article surveys various attempts to answer four fundamental questions about thick terms and concepts. (1) A “combination question”: (...) how exactly do thick terms and concepts relate evaluation and non-evaluative description? (2) A “location question”: is evaluation somehow inherent to thick terms and concepts, such as perhaps an aspect of their meaning, or merely a feature of their use? (3) A “delineation question”: how do thick terms differ from the thin and from other kinds of evaluative terms? (4) Given answers to these questions, what broader philosophical significance and applications might thick concepts have? (shrink)

Many people are drawn towards virtue ethics because of the central place it gives to emotions in the good life. Yet it may seem odd to evaluate emotions as virtuous or non-virtuous, for how can we be held responsible for those powerful feelings that simply engulf us? And how can education help us to manage our emotional lives? The aim of this book is to offer readers a new Aristotelian analysis and moral justification of a number of emotions that Aristotle (...) did not mention, or relegated, at best, to the level of the semi-virtuous, or made disparaging remarks about, or rejected explicitly. Kristjan Kristjansson argues that there are good Aristotelian reasons for understanding those emotions either as virtuous or as indirectly conducive to virtue. Virtuous Emotions begins with an overview of Aristotle's ideas on the nature of emotions and of emotional value, and concludes with an account of Aristotelian emotion education. (shrink)

Pediatric participation in non-therapeutic research that poses greater than minimal risk has been the subject of considerable thought-provoking debate in the research ethics literature. While the need for more pediatric research has been called morally imperative, and concerted efforts have been made to increase pediatric medical research, the importance of protecting children from undue research risks remains paramount.United States research regulations are derived largely from the deliberations and report of the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical (...) and Behavioral Research. The authors of this report specifically designated children as a vulnerable population and suggested additional protections, most of which became U.S. law. One of the more contested sets of regulations surrounds non-therapeutic research, e.g., research that does not offer the potential for direct benefit to participants. Federal regulations allow local Institutional Review Boards to approve non-therapeutic research posing a minor increase above minimal risk when it involves children who have the disease or medical condition that the research addresses. (shrink)

Sometimes ignorance is an excuse. If an agent did not know and could not have known that her action would realize some bad outcome, then it is plausible to maintain that she is not to blame for realizing that outcome, even when the act that leads to this outcome is wrong. This general thought can be brought to bear in the context of climate change insofar as we think (a) that the actions of individual agents play some role in realizing (...) climate harms and (b) that these actions are apt targets for being considered right or wrong. Are agents who are ignorant about climate change and the way their actions contribute to it excused because of their ignorance, or is their ignorance culpable? In this paper I examine these questions from the perspective of recent developments in the theories of responsibility for ignorant action and characterize their verdicts. After developing some objections to existing attempts to explore these questions, I characterize two influential theories of moral responsibility and discuss their implications for three different types of ignorance about climate change. I conclude with some recommendations for how we should react to the face of the theories' conflicting verdicts. The answer to the question posed in the title, then, is: "Well, it's complicated.". (shrink)

Moral particularists have seen Wittgenstein as a close ally. One of the main reasons for this is that particularists such as Jonathan Dancy and John McDowell have argued that Wittgenstein's so-called "rule-following considerations" (RFCs) provide support for their skepticism about the existence and/or role of rules and principles in ethics. In this paper, I show that while Wittgenstein's RFCs challenge the notion that competence with language, i.e., the ability to apply concepts properly, is like mechanically following a rule, he does (...) not reject the idea that there are rules that govern proper use of language. I then argue that while the RFCs may, at best, support a weak form of particularism that denies that moral competence is dependent on an explicit grasp of rules, they do not support a stronger version of particularism that denies that there are any true rules or principles in ethics. (shrink)

Virtue ethics has been charged with being unable to provide solutions to practical moral issues. In response, the defenders of virtue ethics argue that normative virtue ethics exists. The debate is significant on its own, yet both sides of the controversy approach the issue from the assumption that moral philosophy has to tell us what we should do. In this essay, I would like to examine the question regarding the practicality of virtue ethics in a different way. Virtue ethics is (...) an ancient approach shared by both ancient Greek philosophers and classic Chinese Confucians, and indeed, ancient Greeks call ethics practical science. How, then, do the ancients themselves view the issue of practicality? This essay shows that there is a notion of practicality which is prominent in both ancient Greek and ancient Chinese virtue ethics but is neglected in today’s ethics. According to this notion, ethics is to transform one’s life. The essay also raises a prospect of the revival of this notion. (shrink)