While most discussions of corruption focus on administration, institutions, the law and public policy, little attention in the debate about societal reform is paid to the “internalities” of anti-corruption efforts, specifically to character-formation and issues of personal and corporate integrity. While the word “integrity” is frequently mentioned as the goal to be achieved through institutional reforms, even in criminal prosecutions, the specifically philosophical aspects of character-formation and the development of corporate and individual virtues in a rational and systematic (...) way tend to be neglected. This paper focuses on the “internalities” of anti-corruption work with special emphasis on the pre-requisites that need to be ensured on behalf of the social elites in order for proper individual and collective character- formation to take place throughout the society. The author argues that a systematic pursuit of socially recognised virtues, both those pertaining to society as a whole and those specific to particular professions and social groups, is the most comprehensive and strategically justified way of pursuing anti-corruption policy, while institutional and penal policies can only serve an auxiliary role. The pursuit of institutional and criminal justice policies against corruption in a society that is subject to increasing relativism with regard to values and morality is at best ineffective, and at worst socially destructive. Thus the paper suggests a re-examination of the social discourse on the level of what the author calls “value strategy” and the gradual building of a plan to create and solidify specifically designed features of “corporate character” for key sectors of the society. This approach can serve as the main long-term strategy to improve the public profile of integrity and reinforce morality in both the public and civil sectors. (shrink)

The moral issues that occur for profit corporations are a unique function of many internal and external factors, including corporate policies and purpose, business regulations, and business governance's economic and political system. Several possible theoretical frameworks prescribe behavioral norms and standards of conduct to companies, such as utilitarianism, deontological ethics, or virtue ethics. In this paper, we argue although there are signs cant similarities between Kantian Ethics and ideal corporate cultures, Kantian ethics cannot fully be integrated into (...) contemporary corporate practices. Kant's theory of morality fundamentally fails to consistently accommodate the infamous given purpose of corporations, namely the profit-maximizer. We also provide empirical insights from a case study in developing a semi-Kantian corporate code of conduct in a large technology-based company. (shrink)

A number of paradigms have been proposed to understand the sources of meaningful work, but a non-Western approach has attracted little attention. This study aims to make a theoretical contribution toward an understanding of meaningful work from a virtue-ethics framework that is culturally meaningful and relevant to Filipino realities and their distinct cultural heritage. It develops a paradigm for a Filipino view of meaningful work that could guide both researchers and practitioners in business ethics by defining what is meaningful (...) work, explaining why it is important, and presenting some examples of concrete measures that management can utilize to promote meaningful work in the Philippine workplace. (shrink)

Recently, I have proposed an extension of the framework of the ethics of collegiality (Berber & Subotić, forthcoming). By incorporating an anti-individual perspective and the notion of epistemic competence, this framework can reveal the epistemic virtue/vice relativism, which, in turn, charts the tension between being a good colleague and an efficient, loyal employee. In this paper, however, I want to sketch how the ethics of collegiality could be applied to practical domains, such as the historical accountability and atonement of (...) corporations that participated in the anti-Semitic policies of the Third Reich and contributed to the Holocaust by using slave or forced labor. New studies suggest that corporations ought to engage in deeper historical reflection and ethical dialogue between Shoah survivors and top managers to address the issue of industrial compliance (Federman 2021), whereas most of the work on this topic traditionally focused on the issue of reparations litigation (Kelly 2016, Neuborne 2003). Through the notions of collective institutional epistemic vice and institutional ethos (Fricker 2021), the upshot is to assess whether it is feasible for corporations to be genuinely repentant regarding their role in the Holocaust thanks to the ethics of collegiality instead of merely offering compensation. I will argue that instead of emphasizing ethical leadership and the top-down approach to the (re-)implementation of values in corporate conduct, the spotlights should be on the bottom-up approach grounded in collegial solidarity among all employees. (shrink)

The Stoics are famously committed to the thesis that only bodies are, and for this reason they are rightly called “corporealists.” They are also famously compared to Plato’s earthborn Giants in the Sophist, and rightly so given their steadfast commitment to body as being. But the Stoics also notoriously turn the tables on Plato and coopt his “dunamis proposal” that being is whatever can act or be acted upon to underwrite their commitment to body rather than shrink from it as (...) the Giants do. The substance of Stoic corporealism, however, has not been fully appreciated. This paper argues that Stoic corporealism goes beyond the dunamis proposal, which is simply an ontological criterion for being, to the metaphysics of body. This involves, first, an account of body as metaphysically simple and hence fundamental; second, an account of body as malleable and continuous, hence fit for blending (krasis di’ holou) and composition. In addition, the metaphysics of body involves a distinction between this composition relation seen in the cosmology, and the constitution relation by which the four-fold schema called the Stoic Categories proceeds, e.g. the relation between a statue and its clay, or a fist and its underlying hand. It has not been appreciated that the cosmology and the Categories are distinct — and complementary — explanatory enterprises, the one accounting for generation and unity, the other taking those individuals once generated, and giving a mereological analysis of their identity and persistence conditions, kinds, and qualities. The result is an elegant division of Plato’s labor from the Battle of Gods and Giants. On the one hand, the Stoics rehabilitate the crude cosmology of the Presocratics to deliver generation and unity in completely corporeal terms, and that work is found in their Physics. On the other hand, they reform the Giants and “dare to corporealize,” delivering all manner of predication (from identity to the virtues), and that work is found in Stoic Logic. Recognizing the distinctness of these explanatory enterprises helps dissolve scholarly puzzles, and harmonizes the Stoics with themselves. (shrink)

The practice of corporal punishment (CP) in many countries and schools today, has been described to be prevalent as a result of the belief that the practice of CP is effective in changing the behavior, or in building the character of the concerned human subjects. Apparently, this is done without considering the ramifications of its engagement, or neglecting other measures that could be taken to address the situation on the ground. Unarguably, the subject of corporal punishment is one which, though (...) often discussed, is usually discussed without a reached consensus, for its real outflow lies too deep for the purposes of controversy. While the issue of corporal punishment can be best described as that of virtue and vice in our contemporary pedagogy, this paper seeks to take a philosophical and a sociological stance by examining the positioning power, practical prospects of corporal punishment and relevance of various moral theories in the contemporary pedagogy. (shrink)

This is a review of a book which in today's COVID 19 world takes up issues which could have been neglected as meant only for scholars when this book was published. Now with homeschooling and social distancing and race relations going for a toss all over the world; we need to relook virtue and how to cultivate that in our lives and in our children. This review looks at the philosophical, theological and psychological qualia of virtue. For instance, (...) this reviewer connects the virtue-problem with linguistic qualia. In the process he discusses the psychologist Darcia Narvaez. Humanities has no future unless we fend off the rise of the inhuman in the form of social distancing and contactless delivery with the study of virtue. Thus, this is deposited here. (shrink)

On September 7, 2008 the executive administration of American President George W. Bush announced that his government would take over the giant mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, costing the citizens $200 billion. One week later, the 160 year-old American investment bank Lehman Brothers filed for the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history. What would soon be known worldwide as “the financial crisis” had begun. In response to that crisis, less than a month later, on October 3, 2008, the (...) United States Congress passed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, which established the Troubled Asset Relief Program and authorized the use of $700 billion in taxpayer funds to bail out the banking and finance industry. As a result, the U.S. Treasury reports that the total bailout gave Bank of America $45 billion, Citigroup Bank $45 billion, AIG Bank $40 billion, J. P Morgan $25 billion, Wells Fargo $25 billion, General Motors $10.4 billion, Goldman Sachs $10 billion, Morgan Stanley $10 billion, GMAC $5 billion, and Chrysler corporation, a mere $4 billion. This response to a perceived crisis was not limited to the United States. On October 12, 2008—in one day alone—the United Kingdom coughed up the equivalent of €679 billion in bank relief. And in Germany, Der Spiegel reported on December 23, 2008 “The German government whipped its €480 billion bank bailout package through parliament in record time.". (shrink)

Dynamic Theodicy (DT) is a broad concept we bring up to designate some modern Philosophical Theology attempts to reconcile the necessary and perfect existence of God with the contingent characteristics of human life. In this paper we analyze such approaches and discuss how they have become incomprehensible because the metaphysical assumptions implicit in these explanations have lost their intrinsic relation to the natural human desire for salvation. In the first part we show Charles Hartshorne's DT-model, arising from the modal logic (...) of perfection, and the modern rational problems of this position in making infinite-necessary Being (God) and finite-contingent being (human) compatible. We note that at the heart of the contradictions in this DT account is a dialectical mode of thinking that makes it difficult to find a correct solution to this dichotomy, and to assume a human desire that could be considered related to lifelong goals. In the second part, supported by the proposal of Hans Urs von Balthasar's DT, we develop the concepts of bodily vulnerability, corporeal intentionality, and natural desire for salvation, which come from an Aristotelian-Thomistic thought. This theory is established in order to build an argument, following Alasdair MacIntyre’s ethical framework, on how to make possible the recovery of a metaphysical and anthropological desire that transcends natural aging and goes beyond death. We conclude that both human dependence and the virtues that arise naturally when human beings decide to seek the good of their transcendent condition, make it possible to recover the natural desire for salvation through divine and human love. (shrink)

Over the past few years, individual competencies for sustainability have received a lot of attention in the educational, sustainability and business administration literature. In this article, we explore the meaning of two rather new and unfamiliar moral competencies in the field of corporate sustainability: normative competence and action competence. Because sustainability can be seen as a highly complex or ‘wicked’ problem, it is unclear what ‘normativity’ in the normative competence and ‘responsible action’ in the action competence actually mean. In (...) this article, we raise the question how both these moral competencies have to be understood and how they are related to each other. We argue for a virtue ethics perspective on both moral competencies, because this perspective is able to take the wickedness of sustainability into account. It turns out that virtue ethics enables us to conceptualize normative competence and action competence as two aspects of one virtuous competence for sustainability. (shrink)

Some interesting exceptions notwithstanding, the traditional logic of economic efficiency has long favored hierarchical forms of organization and disfavored democracy in business. What does the balance of arguments look like, however, when values besides efficient revenue production are brought into the picture? The question is not hypothetical: In recent years, an ever increasing number of corporations have developed and adopted socially responsible behaviors, thereby hybridizing aspects of corporate businesses and social organizations. We argue that the joint pursuit of financial (...) and social objectives warrants significant rethinking of organizational democracy’s merits compared both to hierarchy and to non-democratic alternatives to hierarchy. In making this argument, we draw on an extensive literature review to document the relative lack of substantive discussion of organizational democracy since 1960. And we draw lessons from political theory, suggesting that the success of political democracy in integrating diverse values offers some grounds for asserting parallel virtues in the business case. (shrink)

The paper discusses the manner and extent to which Epicurean ethics can serve as a general philosophy of life, capable of supporting philosophical practice in the form of philosophical counseling. Unlike the modern age academic philosophy, the philosophical practice movement portrays the philosopher as a personal or corporate adviser, one who helps people make sense of their experiences and find optimum solutions within the context of their values and general preferences. Philosophical counseling may rest on almost any school of (...) philosophy, ranging — in the Western tradition from Platonism to the philosophy of language or logic. While any specialist school of philosophy may serve valuable purposes by elucidating specific aspects of one’s experiences and directing future action, the more ‘generalist’ the philosophy used as the basis for counseling is, the broader and more far-reaching its potential impact on the person undergoing counseling. Epicurean ethics is a prime example of a philosophy of life that is suitable for philosophical counseling today. Its closer examination reveals that, contrary to superficial opinion, it is not opposed to Stoicism and may in fact incorporate Stoicism and its antecedent virtues (including many Christian virtues) in a simple yet comprehensive practical system of directions for modern counseling. (shrink)

In this chapter, I philosophically reflect on the management of corporate responsibility in the case of innovation. I first set the scene by contrasting responsibility in corporate social responsibility and innovation ethics, and arguing that classical conceptualizations of backward and forward looking responsibility are inappropriate in the case of innovation. Next, I introduce the concept of responsible innovation as a lens to understand the management of corporate responsibility in the case of innovation and show that the notions (...) of virtue ethics and practical wisdom are inappropriate for understanding what is at stake in innovation ethics, because the notion of practical wisdom is at odds with the nature of innovation. I conclude this chapter by proposing a concept of action-based responsible management of corporate innovation, which will be framed in terms of innovation as ethos. (shrink)

According to the Stoics, ordinary unified bodies—animals, plants, and inanimate natural bodies—each have a single cause of unity and being: pneuma. Pneuma itself has no distinct cause of unity; on the contrary, it acts as a cause of unity and being for itself. In this paper, I show how pneuma is supposed to be able to unify itself and other bodies in virtue of its characteristic tensile motion (τονικὴ κίνησις). Thus, we will see how the Stoics could have hoped (...) to account for corporeal unity by positing another body (pneuma) apparently itself in need of unification. (shrink)

Cooperation has been analyzed primarily in the context of theories of collective intentionality. These discussions have primarily focused on interactions between pairs or small groups of agents who know one another personally. Cooperative game theory has also been used to argue for a form of cooperation in large unorganized groups. Here I consider a form of minimal cooperation that can arise among members of potentially large organized groups (e.g., corporate teams, committees, governmental bodies). I argue that members of organized (...) groups can be minimally cooperative in virtue of playing roles in an organizational structure and having a common goal. The minimal form of cooperation I argue for is not grounded in collective intentions involving symmetric mental states, special collective intentional modes, or joint commitments. More generally, I show how considering minimal cooperation in the context of organized groups provides an opportunity to reevaluate the extent to which the social world and social phenomena depend on internalist mental factors (e.g., intentions, beliefs) and externalist non-mental factors (e.g., documents, laws, job descriptions). The view of minimal cooperation among members of organized groups I offer provides support for an externalist rather than internalist theory of at least one social phenomenon. (shrink)

This paper argues that attempts to apply Alasdair MacIntyre’s positive moral theory to business ethics are problematic, due to the cognitive closure of MacIntyre’s concept of a practice. I begin by outlining the notion of a practice, before turning to Moore’s attempt to provide a MacIntyrean account of corporate governance. I argue that Moore’s attempt is mismatched with MacIntyre’s account of moral education. Because the notion of practices resists general application I go on to argue that a negative application, (...) which focuses on regulation, is more plausible. Large-scale regulation, usually thought antithetical to MacIntyre’s advocacy of small-scale politics, has the potential to facilitate practice-based work and reveals that MacIntyre’s own work can be used against his pessimism about the modern order. Furthermore, the conception of regulation I defend can show us how management is more amenable to ethical understanding than MacIntyre’s work is often taken to imply. (shrink)

In this article I rethink death and mortality on the basis of birth and natality, drawing on the work of the Italian feminist philosopher Adriana Cavarero. She understands birth to be the corporeal event whereby a unique person emerges from the mother’s body into the common world. On this basis Cavarero reconceives death as consisting in bodily dissolution and re-integration into cosmic life. This impersonal conception of death coheres badly with her view that birth is never exclusively material but always (...) has ontological significance as the appearance of someone new and singular in the world of relations with others. This view of birth calls for a relational conception of death, which I develop in this article. On this conception, death is always collective, affecting all those with whom the one who dies has maintained relations: As such, our different deaths shade into one another. Moreover, because each person is unique in virtue of consisting of a unique web of relations with others, death always happens to persons as webs of relations. Death is relational in this way as a corporeal, and specifically biological, phenomenon, to which we are subject as bodily beings and as interdependent living organisms. I explore this with reference to Simone de Beauvoir’s memoir of her mother’s death from cancer. Finally I argue that, on this relational conception, death is something to be feared. (shrink)

I sketch a non-rights-based grounding for the impermissibility of spanking. Even if children have no right against being spanked, I contend that spanking can be seen to be impermissible without appeal to such a right. My approach is primarily consequentialist but also has affinities with virtue ethics, for it emphasizes the moral importance of avoiding bad habits in one’s behavior toward one’s children.

Nuestro recorrido será el siguiente. En el capítulo primero examinamos la noción de unión del cuerpo y el alma que Descartes formula desde el inicio de Las pasiones del alma (§2), noción anticipada por otros textos (Principia II §2) pero muy original, y que recusa todo dualismo, en tanto concibe una unión no substancial, en la que el alma está unida, de modo más o menos estrecho, a todos los cuerpos que la afectan, como "corps de dehors", de manera tal (...) que todos los sentimientos, internos o externos, en tanto referidos al cuerpo, pueden ser ubicados en una misma exterioridad respecto al alma (sección §1). Esta noción de unión: a) coincide plenamente con la experiencia del poder o capacidad del alma para actuar sobre el cuerpo, o recibir la acción del cuerpo, de manera tal de excluir definitivamente toda referencia a la substancia espiritual, corporal o compuesta; b) establece una diferencia meramente cuantitativa entre mi cuerpo y los cuerpos del mundo, porque la unión al cuerpo es más o menos estrecha, según sea más o menos inmediata la acción del cuerpo sobre el alma. La primera consecuencia de lo anterior es la siguiente: Las pasiones del alma no establece distinción alguna entre sentimientos interiores y exteriores, porque el lugar del agente (las partes de nuestro cuerpo, los cuerpos del mundo) no sirven ya más como criterio para la distinción entre los modos de la sensibilidad (sección §2). Es precisamente en este punto fundamental que la investigación cartesiana sobre las pasiones se distingue definitivamente del análisis de la sensibilidad realizado en la cuarta parte de Los Principios de la Filosofía, en donde la pasión era considerada como un sentimiento interior, junto con los apetitos naturales (IV §190), por oposición a los cinco sentidos exteriores (IV §§ 191-195). Luego del examen de la definición de pasión, en el próximo capítulo, podremos preguntar: dadas, por un lado, la interioridad de la pasión al alma, y por otro, el emplazamiento de todos los cuerpos en el mismo afuera, «dehors», respecto del alma, ¿cabe buscar, en la pasión, el sentimiento de un corps de dedans? Anticipemos que la reforma conceptual de la unión del cuerpo y el alma exige y a la vez resulta de una reforma lexical especialmente interesante porque, al excluir toda referencia a las substancias o a la substancialidad de la unión, a) identifica esta última con la capacidad o potencia del alma de afectar o ser afectada por el cuerpo (sección §3); b) debe describir la unión como un «estar (del alma) junto (al cuerpo), ( être jointe)», que califica la estrechez de la unión por la inmediatez de la acción (sección §4). Finalmente, esta conjunción del alma y del cuerpo anticipa de manera coherente la doctrina cartesiana del amor, el cual se define por la capacidad del alma de unirse (« se joindre ») a los objetos que la afectan en la apariencia de bondad. El capítulo segundo se dedicará a la definición de pasión (Pasiones §§21-28), el único sentimiento interior al alma misma porque el único que es tal como aparece, en una evidencia que no puede ser entendida mas que en relación, todavía indeterminada, con la evidencia primera ego sum, ego existo, en la Meditación Segunda, y especialmente con su última formulación, en la certeza del « creo ver » («videre videor»). El carácter inaugural de esta definición reside en los puntos siguientes: a) la relación con el alma convierte a la pasión en el único sentimiento que es tal como se siente, pero al mismo tiempo, b) inaugura una nueva forma de error posible, todavía indeterminado, pero de otro orden que aquél al que nos somete la naturaleza extrínseca del resto de las percepciones (sección §1). Ahora bien, la pasión es tal como se siente porque no es un « ver », videre, y por lo tanto no le corresponde revelar el ego sum (« ego sum qui sentio » VII, 29, 11), a través de un « creo ver », videre videor (sección §3). Quisimos probar que esto es perfectamente coherente con la doble enumeración de los modos del pensamiento, en la Segunda y Tercera Meditación, (VII, 28 y 35, respectivamente) y con la clasificación de los pensamientos (ideas, juicios, voluntades, afecciones), establecida en la Meditación Tercera (VII, 38) (sección §2). Pero la pasión, a la vez que inaugura una interioridad, se recibe en el alma, como algo que no proviene de ella (Pasiones §17). Es aquí, donde se da a conocer el carácter inaugural y a la vez paradójico de la pasión: en ella, la interioridad del alma a sí se conoce, por primera vez, en una modalidad particular de la recepción sensible. Examinamos esa doble condición, interioridad y recepción, en la sección §7, la última de este segundo capítulo. Dos consecuencias. La primera: a partir de la definición de pasión, la investigación sobre la cualidad sensible se independiza del examen de la realidad objetiva (sección §4). La pasión puede por lo tanto inaugurar una verdad y un modo de error que se separa definitivamente del objeto representado como cosa o privación de cosa. No seremos los primeros en decir que la pasión, el saber afectivo en general, sólo puede dirigirse a un no-objeto (F. Alquié). Pero hay que agregar que la definición de pasión, al recuperar su evidencia primera, abre a la meditación el campo de una realidad inobjetivable, o, mejor, de una modalidad de la objetividad definitivamente irreal, que ya ha sido descubierta por J-L. Marion, por lo menos para el caso particular de la admiración, y que sólo podrá ser de ser descripta en el momento de definir las pasiones particulares. La segunda consecuencia reside en la relegación definitiva de toda explicación de la pasión por la causa eficiente (sección §6). En efecto, Descartes deja de lado las funciones del cuerpo como criterio de clasificación de los modos de la sensibilidad, y la relega a la segunda parte de la segunda parte de su definición, de manera tal que la causa de la pasión no explica nada y por el contrario, es ella la que debe ser explicada. Si se admite una doble constitución de la metafísica cartesiana, nuestro esfuerzo conduce a mostrar que la noción de pasión, y la investigación que ella abre, pertenece a una metafísica presidida por su primera figura, cogitatio, antes que por la segunda, causa. La investigación sobre los efectos de la pasión, que comprende los artículos §§40 a 48 de Las pasiones del alma, y a la que dedicamos nuestro capítulo III, debe ser leída en continuidad al texto de la Meditación Sexta, en tanto viene a responder a la pregunta siguiente: ¿cuál es el modo de la pasividad que caracteriza a la pasión y la distingue de otros modos del sentimiento como de otros modos de constricción a la voluntad? Si la pasión, se recibe en el alma, ¿cómo se siente esa proveniencia, si por definición queda excluida toda relación al cuerpo como causa o como objeto? En primer lugar, aquello que caracteriza a la pasión es que ella tiene como efecto una disposición a querer. Pero, dado que la voluntad es esencialmente libre, la disposición a querer en el alma tiene a su vez un efecto igualmente necesario, este es, una respuesta del alma a la disposición a querer que es en ella, respuesta que Descartes llama (no) consentimiento a los efectos de la pasión (§46; §80). A partir del artículo §40, la investigación sobre las pasiones se introduce resueltamente en el ámbito de una moral, como una ciencia de los efectos (sección §1). En segundo lugar, y por lo anterior, la pasión, puede ser, en su interioridad y proximidad al alma, directamente contraria a la voluntad (365, 12-13), justamente, porque ella es el único sentimiento que tiene como efecto necesario en el alma una disposición a querer (§40). Lejos de presentar un mero obstáculo a una determinación del alma, la pasión se recibe como una invitación, a la cual el alma debe imperativamente responder. El punto a destacar (sección §2) es el siguiente: Descartes describe aquí una verdadera autoafección indirecta, por la cual el alma puede excitar en sí una pasión voluntaria (362, 28 ; 363, 2; 486, 6-9), autoafección de la cual es absolutamente incapaz en el caso del resto de los sentimientos, tal como quedaba establecido desde la Meditación Sexta. Así, el cuerpo que actúa inmediatamente sobre el alma, al cual ella está más estrechamente unida, abandona su condición de mero intermediario entre los cuerpos y el alma y pasa a ser, en una autoafección voluntaria, el intermediario entre una acción del alma y una pasión en el alma. En la sección §3 se agrega esto: la pasión, a diferencia de todos los sentimientos, no se siente en el instante. Por el contrario, en ella, el sentir se despliega en el tiempo y se hace por lo tanto independiente de la acción de los cuerpos sobre los sentidos internos o externos. Esto se debe a lo siguiente: primero, en la pasión, el cuerpo actúa como una totalidad indivisible. Segundo: el cuerpo actúa sobre sí. En la pasión, tercero, el cuerpo actúa de manera tal que su acción se presenta siempre como una exigencia al ejercicio efectivo de la libertad. Finalmente, en la pasión, la totalidad de las funciones del cuerpo se someten definitivamente a la voluntad, de manera que el alma puede afectarse a sí en una pasión voluntaria. Quisiéramos proponer (sección §3) que la experiencia del cuerpo en la pasión merece ser nombrada como la experiencia de un cuerpo de dedans, que se presenta en la repugnancia o el consentimiento y cuya acción no se siente en un lugar (en una internidad que no establece ninguna distinción con la exterioridad de los cuerpos del mundo), sino en el alma misma, en una interioridad que hace imposible la reducción del cuerpo sentido a la categoría común de objeto o causa. Ahora bien, la investigación sobre la pasión puede introducirse en el ámbito de la moral con una condición: que la pasión permita el acceso del ego a un alter ego, o según la fórmula tradicional utilizada por Descartes, a un «otro sí mismo», alter ipse. Es el problema que abordamos en el capítulo IV. Queda claro que las Meditaciones Metafísicas impiden, o mejor, ocluyen de modo parentemente definitivo, ese acceso. Pero, en Las pasiones del alma, Descartes, introduce un género muy particular de objeto , «otros objetos, que consideramos causas libres, capaces de hacer el bien y el mal » (§55, 374, 5-7). Más aún, la libertad del agente se erige en criterio de clasificación de segundo orden para todas las pasiones simples, con excepción del deseo. El punto a notar aquí (sección §1) es el siguiente: el ego no se ve afectado por la causa libre porque infiera que ella, a diferencia de otras, actúa moralmente sobre él, con independencia de toda determinación mecánica. Es al revés: el ego siente la acción de una causa libre porque se ve afectado por la libertad del agente; es esa afección la que otorga a los actos del otro el carácter moral de buenos o malos. Esto se prueba en el respeto o la veneración (§162): aquello que nos afecta no es la supuesta bondad o la maldad de los actos, sino inmediatamente aquello que los hace tales, esto es, la « capacidad » de hacer el bien o el mal. De aquí que el hijo, cuyos actos evidentemente no son morales, pueda nombrarse, entre los objetos de amor, como un « otro(s) sí mismo» (§82, 389, 15). A fin de precisar el sentido y los alcances de esta alteridad, debemos detenernos en la definición cartesiana del amor (secciones §§2-3). Esa definición debe, en primer lugar, distinguirse claramente de aquella que Descartes había ensayado dos años antes, en la carta a Chanut del 1 de febrero de 1647. El problema que preocupa a Descartes no es ya más la definición de un amor intelectual, sino la de un amor puro, que Descartes distingue precisamente de las pasiones que « participan del amor » (§82, título), mezcla de deseo y « otras pasiones particulares » (§82 389, 9-10). El amor puro es una pasión que no tiene relación alguna al cuerpo, porque se siente sin placer y es la primera de las pasiones « que pertenecen al alma », según la distinción establecida en los títulos de §137 y §139. Esta distinción se establece estrictamente dentro del ámbito del amor pasión porque no considera en ningún momento el alma en tanto separada del cuerpo, condición del amor intelectual (IV, 602, 4-8), sino como « nuestra mejor parte » (§139, 432, 5). El único que merece sin reparos el título de « amor puro » es el amor paterno, el único en el que se cumple la tríada, pureza, posesión perfecta, alteridad. En la sección §4 nos detenemos en los modos del engaño propio de las pasiones, en general, y del amor en particular, para entender el último rasgo que Descartes le otorga al amor puro, este es, el de ser un amor verdadero, que elude todas las formas de engaño a las que las pasiones pueden someternos, y puede por lo tanto ocupar el lugar del verdadero conocimiento. La teoría cartesiana del amor permite así dos conclusiones. Primera: la alteridad sirve para distinguir definitivamente el amor del deseo, el amor puro de las pasiones que participan de él, los grados de perfección del amor, amor paterno, amistad honesta, y, finalmente, la formas del amor, afección, amistad y devoción. Segundo, antes de toda reflexión sobre el deseo, es decir, antes de considerar la perfectibilidad del ego por la posesión de bienes que dependan exclusivamente de nuestra voluntad, Descartes escribe que el alma se perfecciona en el amor, por la unión al bien verdadero, mientras que se envilece y rebaja en su unión con un bien excesivamente estimado (§139, 432, 12-20 ; §142, 435, 18 –22). En la sección §5 examinamos el efecto del amor, la benevolencia, que Descartes, haciendo caso omiso de la tradición, define como una verdadera beneficencia, como un acto de donación, que no necesita de ningún deseo para hacerse efectivo. El punto a destacar aquí es que Descartes considera que el otro al que el alma se une es la « mejor parte » del todo que resulta de la unión (§82, 389, 16-17). Por este exceso, el generoso, sobre la estrechez de la unión al cuerpo, decide por la estrechez de la unión a otra alma, y privilegia el objeto de amor sobre el amor a la vida. Brevemente: la amistad cartesiana tiende a la devoción y rompe con toda noción de amistad fundada en la igualdad. Esto nos permite, en la sección §6 hacer notar cómo la teoría del amor resignifica un léxico que Descartes recibe de Aristóteles y Santo Tomás. La comparación, al menos inicial, con esos autores está dirigida a incluir a Descartes en una historia del amor. El quinto capítulo traza el largo itinerario de la noción de virtud, a través de la Correspondencia, y se detiene especialmente en las cartas mencionadas más arriba, ( a Elisabeth, 15 septiembre 1645; a Chanut, 1 febrero 1648) en las que Descartes ensaya y abandona una primera forma de moral definitiva, especialmente problemática, en tanto aspira, por primera vez, a deducir el amor a Dios de la idea de Dios, y se dirige a pensar al ego como parte de totalidades (familia, vecindad, Estado) que han sido, ellas también, creadas por Dios. Esta reflexión sobre el amor a Dios es todavía independiente de la reflexión sobre las pasiones, que recién comienza. Intentamos aquí despejar la intención cartesiana que puede resumirse así: de la misma manera que Dios, creador de toda verdad, es fundamento de toda ciencia y toda verdad se halla ya contenida en Su idea, es Dios, creador de totalidades físicas, sociales o políticas, el fundamento de todo amor, aunque no se lo conozca, o sólo confusamente, como tal; de modo que en todo acto de renuncia por la totalidad, amamos a Dios, en un amor sensible, aunque nada en Él sea imaginable. Sin embargo, una vez adquirida, en Las pasiones del alma, la definición de pasión e incluida la noción de consentimiento en la definición definitiva del amor, aquella vía de análisis, que parte de un ego ya incluido en las totalidades de las que forma parte como persona, agota definitivamente sus posibilidades y debe ser abandonada. Debemos preguntar, entonces: qué queda de esta ardua reflexión sobre el amor a Dios en Las pasiones del alma? Principalmente, Descartes recupera de aquellas cartas la reflexión sobre la Providencia divina, en los artículos §§146-147. Pero entre las cartas de 1645-1647 y el texto de Las pasiones del alma, hay una diferencia capital. La reflexión sobre la Providencia divina, en 1649, no hace mención alguna al amor, parece abandonar toda aspiración a fundar, en el amor a Dios, el amor a otros hombres y se dirige exclusivamente a establecer la regla del deseo, intermediario privilegiado entre pasión y acción (§143, 435, 26-29). Ahora bien, una moral que no tuviera otra regla que la del deseo presentaría dos características distintivas. Primero, la indagación sobre el bien verdadero se agota en la determinación del bien verdaderamente posible; son pues igualmente buenos todos los bienes igualmente estimables e igualmente posibles. De aquí, en segundo lugar, que la noción de virtud no pueda otorgar a la voluntad otro bien que su mero ejercicio, vacío de todo contenido. Ha sido pues posible interpretar que, la moral cartesiana, en el momento de alcanzar su fundamento, se independiza de ella, como otra potencia igualmente arbitraria, que no puede someterse a otro fin que el de imitar a Dios por la inmutabilidad de la decisión. En el capítulo sexto, dedicado a la definición de generosidad, nosotros propondremos, al contrario, que el texto de Las pasiones del alma, cuya teoría del amor aquella interpretación debe desconocer, permite otra lectura de la moral cartesiana. Sucede que Descartes cambia radicalmente el punto de partida de su reflexión : en las cartas de 1645-1647, la omnipotencia divina exigía considerar el ego como parte de distintas totalidades, a las que se haya ligado de hecho. En 1649, la unión no describe una situación existencial, impuesta por nacimiento, vecindad o juramento, porque no accede a una situación de hecho más que por el consentimiento libre y lúcido del ego a la unión efectiva con el bien amado. De aquí, proponemos, se siguen dos consecuencias. La primera (sección §2): una reformulación del problema del amor a Dios. La omnipotencia divina no se conoce como aquí como Providencia, es decir, en el decreto universal que determina la fatalidad de todas las cosas, sino en el acto singular de una donación personal y desmedida, la libre disposición de nuestras voluntades, por la cual la criatura se reconoce semejante a su Creador (§152). El generoso reconoce que el libre albedrío, el único bien por el cual puede estimarse a sí mismo, es, tal como quedaba establecido desde la Meditación Cuarta, un don divino y el reconocimiento por un don recibido es una pasión, la gratitud, la cual, a diferencia de la admiración, la esperanza o la seguridad, es una especie del amor, siempre virtuosa (§§193-194). En efecto, la reflexión sobre la Providencia, es apenas uno de los modos de reglar el deseo, el segundo, porque el primero es, justamente, la generosidad, que se define con total prescindencia del conocimiento de la fatalidad de todas las cosas (§145, 437, 27-438, 3). Investigamos aquí los tres rasgos del don divino: infinitud formal, pertenencia verdadera, distribución perfecta. La segunda consecuencia, que confirma la primera (secciones §§3-4), es la reformulación del amor a otros hombres. En efecto, no arriesgaremos demasiado al proponer que la definición de generosidad, lejos de agotarse en los artículos §§152-153, comprende los artículos §154 y §155 y culmina, finalmente, en el §156. Así entendida, la generosidad es una autoafección que, como tal, determina, prioritaria y precisamente, el modo en que el generoso es afectado por los otros hombres, en tanto causas libres, semejantes al ego, y por lo tanto semejantes a Dios. La generosidad se define pues en el horizonte de la alteridad porque el generoso no sería tal si no estimara a todos y cada uno de los hombres como generosos posibles (§154) y si no redescubriera su capacidad de hacer el mal por comparación al mal efectivamente realizado por ellos (§155). De aquí, finalmente, la regla definitiva de la moral cartesiana (§156), regla que, al definir la mejor acción posible, otorga un contenido definitivo a la firme resolución de hacer el bien, esta es: imitar la donación original, haciendo el bien a todos los hombres. Luego, la ausencia de una reflexión sobre el amor a Dios, en Las pasiones del alma, no es, todavía, una desaparición, ya que el acto de donación divina condiciona definitivamente la regla moral como una imitación, que se concibe como una repetición, igualmente gratuita, de aquella donación original. La relación entre ambos puntos se prueba en lo siguiente: Descartes afirma que el efecto necesario de la benevolencia generosa, la gratitud es uno de las principales vínculos de la sociedad entre los hombres (§194, 474, 13-15), la cual se funda pues en el mismo vínculo que une al hombre generoso con Dios: gratitud por la gratuidad de la donación (sección §6). La afirmación cartesiana es de un laconismo insalvable, pero recupera un texto hasta aquí descuidado, la Carta a Voetius de 1643, la primera reflexión cartesiana sobre el amor y la única dedicada a examinar las leyes que de él se deducen, como una jus caritatis (sección §7). Examinamos en la seccción §8 la problemática relación, o ausencia de relación, entre esas leyes de amistad y la ley civil, jus civile, basada en la autoridad del Príncipe. Finalmente, en la Conclusión, podemos detenernos en un problema ya dos veces pospuesto, este es, el que resulta de la equivalencia que Descartes establece entre amistad honesta y caridad cristiana. (IV, 309, 2-4; IV , 612, 14), equivalencia que la noción de generosidad está lejos de contradecir y que recupera la «gran afinidad» (VIII-2, 112, 24-25) entre las leyes de la amistad y las leyes de caridad, que Descartes había desarrollado en aquel capítulo séptimo de la Carta a Voetius. El carácter problemático de esta equivalencia es evidente: si el amor natural, por exceso, aspira a la caridad, es a riesgo que la caridad, por defecto, deje de ser cristiana. Esa afinidad no ha merecido mayor atención por parte de la metafísica y de sus historiadores. Pero, ha merecido la mayor atención por parte de la destitución de la metafísica que lleva a cabo Blaise Pascal quien descubre y acusa, en esa afinidad, el último esfuerzo de la filosofía cartesiana, dirigida a otorgarle al ego su última y más controversial primacía, la del acceso a Dios por el amor. -/- . (shrink)

This chapter is centered around an apparent tension that research on implicit bias raises between virtue and social knowledge. Research suggests that simply knowing what the prevalent stereotypes are leads individuals to act in prejudiced ways—biasing decisions about whom to trust and whom to ignore, whom to promote and whom to imprison—even if they reflectively reject those stereotypes. Because efforts to combat discrimination obviously depend on knowledge of stereotypes, a question arises about what to do next. This chapter argues (...) that the obstacle to virtue is not knowledge of stereotypes as such, but the “accessibility” of such knowledge to the agent who has it. “Accessibility” refers to how easily knowledge comes to mind. Social agents can acquire the requisite knowledge of stereotypes while resisting their pernicious influence, so long as that knowledge remains, in relevant contexts, relatively inaccessible. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is one of the most prominent concepts in the literature and, in short, indicates the positive impacts of businesses on their stakeholders. Despite the growing body of literature on this concept, the measurement of CSR is still problematic. Although the literature provides several methods for measuring corporate social activities, almost all of them have some limitations. The purpose of this study is to provide an original, valid, and reliable measure of CSR reflecting the responsibilities (...) of a business to various stakeholders. Based on a proposed conceptual framework of CSR, a scale was developed through a systematic scale development process. In the study, exploratory factor analysis was conducted to determine the underlying factorial structure of the scale. Data was collected from 269 business professionals working in Turkey. The results of the analysis provided a four-dimensional structure of CSR, including CSR to social and nonsocial stakeholders, employees, customers, and government. (shrink)

Gratitude, the proper or fitting response to benevolence, has often been conceptualized as a virtue—a temporally stable disposition to perceive, think, feel, and act in certain characteristic ways in certain situations. Many accounts of gratitude as a virtue, however, have not analyzed this disposition accurately, and as a result, they have not revealed the rich variety of ways in which someone can fail to be a grateful person. In this paper, I articulate an account of the virtue (...) of gratitude, and I use this account to explore various vices that can manifest in its absence. (shrink)

In this chapter I use virtue theory to critique certain contemporary punishment practices. From the perspective of virtue theory, respect for rational agency indicates a respect for choice-making as the process by which we form dispositions which in turn give rise to further choices and action. To be a moral agent one must be able to act such that his or her actions deserve praise or blame; virtue theory thus demands that moral agents engage in rational choice-making (...) as a means to develop and exercise the character traits from which culpable action issues. With respect to criminal offenders, virtue theory indicates the state is obligated to recognize offenders’ right to form their own moral character via rational choice-making, even while under state supervision. I will argue below that punishment practices should limit choice-making only to the extent necessary to achieve the functions of punishment : whenever possible, punishment should preserve opportunities for the rational exercise of character and development of virtue. This means that even within a prison setting incarcerated offenders should be able to make some choices about their daily lives. Offenders should also be offered opportunities to develop virtuous traits through rehabilitative programming such as drug addiction treatment, educational programming, and job training. I will also argue that two contemporary punishment practices unjustly undermine an offender’s moral agency. The first is the overuse of isolation sanctions, which very severely limits offender choice-making. The second is chemical castration, which results in limiting an offender’s capacity to develop his character within a specific realm of choice-making. I conclude that these two punishments violate offenders’ moral agency, and that this violation cannot be justified by appeal to the aims of incapacitation, deterrence, retribution, and rehabilitation. (shrink)

According to Arti Dhand, it can be argued that all Indian ethics have been primarily virtue ethics. Many have indeed jumped on the virtue bandwagon, providing prima facie interpretations of Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist canons in virtue terms. Others have expressed firm skepticism, claiming that virtues are not proven to be grounded in the nature of things and that, ultimately, the appeal to virtue might just well be a mere façon de parler. In this paper, we (...) aim to advance the discussion of Indian virtue ethics. Our intent is not to provide a catch-all interpretation of the different Indian schools. Our goal is, more modestly, to offer a theory of virtues in Indian philosophies, as a framework for theorists and interpreters who see these diverse traditions as amenable to systematic virtue analysis. Our theory grounds virtues in the reality of genuine moral dispositions and in a system of beliefs where morality is understood as transformative in nature. (shrink)

A large swathe of the indigenous African ethical tradition is frequently encapsulated in the maxim, “A person is a person through other persons.” This phrasing is an overly literal translation of some sayings that are prominent in the southern and central regions of Africa, but that resonate with most indigenous sub-Saharan cultures. This chapter articulates and motivates a philosophical interpretation of the maxim for an international readership interested in virtue. According to the initial formulation, one should strive to become (...) a real person, which one can do insofar as one prizes other persons’ capacity to relate harmoniously, where harmony consists of identifying with and exhibiting solidarity toward them. The chapter also explores ways of revising this theory to respond to some powerful criticisms, such as that virtue is not purely relational, but also includes some self-regarding dispositions, and that virtue can be manifested by relating to parts of the natural world, particularly to some non-human animals. (shrink)

This paper applies a virtue epistemology approach to using the Internet, as to improve our information-seeking behaviours. Virtue epistemology focusses on the cognitive character of agents and is less concerned with the nature of truth and epistemic justification as compared to traditional analytic epistemology. Due to this focus on cognitive character and agency, it is a fruitful but underexplored approach to using the Internet in an epistemically desirable way. Thus, the central question in this paper is: How to (...) use the Internet in an epistemically virtuous way? Using the work of Jason Baehr, it starts by outlining nine intellectual or epistemic virtues: curiosity, intellectual autonomy, intellectual humility, attentiveness, intellectual carefulness, intellectual thoroughness, open-mindedness, intellectual courage and intellectual tenacity. It then explores how we should deploy these virtues and avoid the corresponding vices when interacting with the Internet, particularly search engines. Whilst an epistemically virtuous use of the Internet will not guarantee that one will acquire true beliefs, understanding or even knowledge, it will strongly improve one’s information-seeking behaviours. The paper ends with arguing that teaching and assessing online intellectual virtues should be part of school and university curricula, perhaps embedded in critical thinking courses, or even better, as individual units. (shrink)

Some of the earliest Western ideas about the virtues of character gave justice a prominent position, but if moral philosophy has made any progress at all in the past two centuries, we might think it worthwhile to reconsider what that virtue involves. Kant seems (even to most non-Kantians) to have crystallized something important to our relations with others in formulating a proscription against treating others merely as means. And twentieth-century moral and political theory put the justice of social institutions (...) in the spotlight in an unprecedented way. Here I explore the significance of these developments for what it is to be a just person (the nature of “individual justice”) as it was originally understood, within the eudaimonist virtue-ethical theories of the ancient Greeks. By any standard, ancient thinking about individual justice seems to have been incomplete in important ways; perhaps, in virtue of these advances in moral theory, we are in position to enrich our thinking about it. (shrink)

The revival of Aristotelian virtue ethics can be seen as a response to the modern problem of disenchantment, that is, the perceived loss of meaning in modernity. However, in Virtue and Meaning, David McPherson contends that the dominant approach still embraces an overly disenchanted view. In a wide-ranging discussion, McPherson argues for a more fully re-enchanted perspective that gives better recognition to the meanings by which we live and after which we seek, and to the fact that human (...) beings are the meaning-seeking animal. In doing so, he defends distinctive accounts of the relationship between virtue and happiness, other-regarding demands, and the significance of linking neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics with a view of the meaning of life and a spiritual life where contemplation has a central role. This book will be valuable for philosophers and other readers who are interested in virtue ethics and the perennial question of the meaning of life. (shrink)

Recently, a number of people have argued that certain entities embodied by groups of agents themselves qualify as agents, with their own beliefs, desires, and intentions; even, some claim, as moral agents. However, others have independently argued that fully-fledged moral agency involves a capacity for reactive attitudes such as guilt and indignation, and these capacities might seem beyond the ken of “collective” or “ corporate ” agents. Individuals embodying such agents can of course be ashamed, proud, or indignant about (...) what the agent has done. But just as an entity needs to have its own beliefs, desires, and intentions to qualify as a bona fide agent, the required capacity for reactive attitudes is a capacity to have one’s own reactive attitudes. If fully-fledged moral agency requires reactive attitudes, the corporate agent must itself be capable of guilt and indignation. In this paper, we argue that at least certain corporate agents are. Or, more precisely, we argue that if there are bona fide corporate agents, these agents can have the capacities that are both associated with guilt and indignation and plausibly required for moral agency; in particular certain epistemic and motivational capacities. (shrink)

Virtue theories have become influential in ethics and epistemology. This paper argues for a similar approach to argumentation. Several potential obstacles to virtue theories in general, and to this new application in particular, are considered and rejected. A first attempt is made at a survey of argumentational virtues, and finally it is argued that the dialectical nature of argumentation makes it particularly suited for virtue theoretic analysis.

Abstract: In this essay I outline a radical kind of virtue theory I call exemplarism, which is foundational in structure but which is grounded in exemplars of moral goodness, direct reference to which anchors all the moral concepts in the theory. I compare several different kinds of moral theory by the way they relate the concepts of the good, a right act, and a virtue. In the theory I propose, these concepts, along with the concepts of a duty (...) and of a good life, are defined by reference to exemplars, identified directly through the emotion of admiration, not through a description. It is an advantage of the theory that what makes a good person good is not given a priori but is determined by empirical investigation. The same point applies to what good persons do and what states of affairs they aim at. The theory gives an important place to empirical investigation and narratives about exemplars analogous to the scientific investigation of natural kinds in the theory of direct reference. (shrink)

‘Virtue signaling’ is the practice of using moral talk in order to enhance one’s moral reputation. Many find this kind of behavior irritating. However, some philosophers have gone further, arguing that virtue signaling actively undermines the proper functioning of public moral discourse and impedes moral progress. Against this view, I argue that widespread virtue signaling is not a social ill, and that it can actually serve as an invaluable instrument for moral change, especially in cases where moral (...) argument alone does not suffice. Specifically, virtue signaling can change the broader public’s social expectations, which can in turn motivate the adoption of new, positive social norms. I also argue that the reputation-seeking motives underlying virtue signaling impose important constraints on virtue signalers’ behavior, which serve to keep the worst excesses of virtue signaling in check. (shrink)

In Nicomachean Ethics 2.1, Aristotle draws a now familiar analogy between aretai ('virtues') and technai ('skills'). The apparent basis of this comparison is that both virtue and skill are developed through practice and repetition, specifically by the learner performing the same kinds of actions as the expert: in other words, we become virtuous by performing virtuous actions. Aristotle’s claim that “like states arise from like activities” has led some philosophers to challenge the virtue-skill analogy. In particular, Aristotle’s skill (...) analogy is sometimes dismissed because of the role that practical wisdom or phronesis purportedly plays in character virtue. In this paper, I argue that a proper understanding of character virtue, phantasia-based emotions, and Aristotle’s implicit distinction between habituated and strict or full virtue (aretè kuria) grounds his virtue-skill analogy. Character virtue stems from the non-rational orektikon and is developed through the habituation of passionate elements, primarily phantasia and pathé. Pathé are pleasurable or affective perceptions, not judgments or beliefs. Thus, pathé are subject to non-rational habituation. Practical wisdom, on the other hand, is an intellectual virtue stemming from the rational part of the soul. Though practical wisdom is necessary for full virtue (aretè kuria), it is not necessary for the habituated character virtue that Aristotle refers in Book II. Once we understand the phantastic basis of emotions and the distinction between habituated and full virtue, the virtue-skill analogy is apt. I conclude by briefly mentioning two contemporary forms of emotion regulation—cognitive reappraisal and cognitive behavioral therapy—that lend support from empirical psychology to Aristotle’s claim that emotions (pathé) can be habituated. Character virtue is indeed a skill; it is—at least in part—the skill of emotion regulation. (shrink)

Corporations have often been taken to be the paradigm of an organization whose agency is autonomous from that of the successive waves of people who occupy the pattern of roles that define its structure, which licenses saying that the corporation has attitudes, interests, goals, and beliefs which are not those of the role occupants. In this essay, I sketch a deflationary account of agency-discourse about corporations. I identify institutional roles with a special type of status function, a status role, in (...) which the collectively accepted function is expressed in part through its occupier’s intentional expression of her agency in that role. I identify institutions as systems of status roles and show how this is compatible with seeing the agency of institutions generally, even over time periods in which there is complete change in role occupiers, as a matter of the contributions only of individual agents. I explain how the reduction of the institution to its members is compatible with its potentially having had a completely different membership. I show in the case of the corporation in particular that, once we see its origins and function, the surface features of legal discourse about corporate agency are misleading and are compatible with a deflationary account of corporate agency. I show in connection with this that the corporation is to be identified with its shareholders, and that where a corporation separates ownership and control, its managers and employees are proxy agents of the shareholders doing business under the corporate form. Finally, I canvass the legitimate ways of construing ordinary talk about corporate intention, belief, and so on, in light of this, none of which support the attribution of genuine agency or intentionality to any group per se associated with the corporation. (shrink)

Virtue ethics has been dogged by the objection that it lacks the ability to provide adequate action-guidance, that it is agent-centered rather act-centered. Virtue ethics has also been faulted for devolving into moral cultural relativism. Rosalind Hursthouse has presented an action-based, naturalistic theory of virtue ethics intended to defuse these charges. Despite its merits, I argue that Hurthouse’s theory fails to successfully solve the problems associated with action guidance and relativism precisely because her attempt to provide a (...) non-cultural basis for virtue ethics undermines the possibility of using virtue ethics to derive useful action-guidance. The action-guiding power of virtue is derived from culture; seeking to avoid the cultural grounding of virtue merely brings one back to the problem of how virtue ethics can provide action-guidance. (shrink)

Human beings seek to transcend limits. This is part of our potential greatness, since it is how we can realize what is best in our humanity. However, the limit-transcending feature of human life is also part of our potential downfall, as it can lead to dehumanization and failure to attain important human goods and to prevent human evils. Exploring the place of limits within a well-lived human life this work develops and defends an original account of limiting virtues, which are (...) concerned with recognizing proper limits in human life. The limiting virtues that are the focus are humility, reverence, moderation, contentment, neighborliness, and loyalty, and they are explored in relation to four kinds of limits: existential limits, moral limits, political limits, and economic limits. These virtues have been underexplored in discussions about virtue ethics, and when they have been explored it has not been with regard to the general issue of the place of limits within a well-lived human life. The account of the limiting virtues provided here, however, is intended as a counter to other prominent approaches to ethics: namely, autonomy-centered approaches and consequentialist (or maximizing) approaches. This account is also used to address a number of important contemporary issues such as genetic engineering, distributive justice, cosmopolitanism vs. patriotism, and the ethical status of growth-based economics. (shrink)

Virtue ethics is frequently billed as a remedy to the problems of deontological and consequentialist ethics that Bernard Williams identified in his critique of “the morality system.” But how far can virtue ethics be relied upon to avoid these problems? What does Williams’s critique of the morality system mean for virtue ethics? To answer this question, we offer a more principled characterisation of the defining features of the morality system in terms of its organising ambition—to shelter life (...) against luck. This reveals the system to be multiply realisable: the same function can be served by substantively different but functionally equivalent ideas. After identifying four requirements that ethical thought must meet to function as a morality system, we show that they can also be met by certain constellations of virtue-ethical ideas. We thereby demonstrate the possibility of virtue-ethical morality systems raising problems analogous to those besetting their deontological and consequentialist counterparts. This not only widens the scope of Williams’s critique and brings out the cautionary aspect of his legacy for virtue ethics. It also offers contemporary virtue ethicists a more principled understanding of the functional features that mark out morality systems and lie at the root of their problems, thereby helping them to avoid or overcome these problems. (shrink)

Because obituaries are succinct and explicitly intended to summarize their subjects’ lives, they may be expected to include only the features that the author finds most salient but also to signal to others in the community the socially-recognized aspects of the deceased’s character. We begin by reviewing studies 1 and 2, in which obituaries were carefully read and labeled. We then report study 3, which further develops these results with a semi-automated, large-scale semantic analysis of several thousand obituaries. Geography, gender, (...) and elite status all turn out to be associated with the virtues and values associated with the deceased. (shrink)

Robust Virtue Epistemology maintains that knowledge is achieved just when an agent gets to the truth through, or because of, the manifestation of intellectual virtue or ability. A notorious objection to the view is that the satisfaction of the virtue condition will be insufficient to ensure the safety of the target belief; that is, RVE is no anti-luck epistemology. Some of the most promising recent attempts to get around this problem are considered and shown to ultimately fail. (...) Finally, a new proposal for defending RVE as a kind of anti-luck epistemology is defended. The view developed here turns importantly on the idea that knowledge depends on ability and luck in a way that is gradient, not rigid, and that we know just when our cognitive success depends on ability not rather, but more so, than luck. (shrink)

Authors critical of corporate power focus almost exclusively on one solution: bringing it under democratic control. However important this is, there are at least two other options, which are rarely discussed: reducing powerful firms’ size and influence, or accepting corporate power as a necessary evil. This article provides a comparative perspective for evaluating all three options. It argues that the trade-offs we face in responding to corporate power have a trilemmatic structure. The pure strategies of accepting powerful (...) firms, breaking them up, or rendering them more accountable are each incompatible with one of three important values: power balance, economies of scale, and minimizing agency costs, respectively. While the latter two concepts are purely economic and efficiency-based, the value of power balance can be grounded in a variety of reasons. Different normative interpretations of power balance are discussed, along with their implications for policy choices within the trilemma. (shrink)

Since its inception as a professional field in the 1960s or so, African ethics has been neglected not only by virtue ethicists, but also by international scholars in moral philosophy generally. This is unfortunate, since sub-Saharan normative perspectives are characteristically virtue-centred, and, furthermore, are both different from traditional Western forms and just as worth taking seriously as they are. In my contribution, I spell out the two major respects in which virtue is a salient theme in African (...) ethics, and critically appraise them in relation to some dominant Western conceptions. (shrink)

In his contribution, Mark Alfano lays out a new (to virtue theory) naturalistic way of determining what the virtues are, what it would take for them to be realized, and what it would take for them to be at least possible. This method is derived in large part from David Lewis’s development of Frank Ramsey’s method of implicit definition. The basic idea is to define a set of terms not individually but in tandem. This is accomplished by assembling all (...) and only the common sense platitudes that involve them (e.g., typically, people want to be virtuous), conjoining those platitudes, and replacing the terms in question by existentially quantified variables. If the resulting sentence is satisfied, then whatever satisfies are the virtues. If it isn’t satisfied, there are a couple of options. First, one could just admit defeat by saying that people can’t be virtuous. More plausibly, one could weaken the conjunction by dropping a small number of the platitudes from it (and potentially adding some others). Alfano suggests that the most attractive way to do this is by dropping the platitudes that deal with cross-situational consistency and replacing them with platitudes that involve social construction: basically, people are virtuous (when they are) at least in part because other people signal their expectations of virtuous conduct, which induces virtuous conduct, which in turn induces further signals of expected virtuous conduct, and so on. (shrink)

Mildly modified reprint of a chapter originally appearing in The Handbook of Virtue Ethics (2012).

In addition to the traditional reliance on rules and codes in regulating the conduct of military personnel, most of today’s militaries put their money on character building in trying to make their soldiers virtuous. Especially in recent years it has time and again been argued that virtue ethics, with its emphasis on character building, provides a better basis for military ethics than deontological ethics or utilitarian ethics. Although virtue ethics comes in many varieties these days, in many texts (...) on military ethics dealing with the subject of military virtues the Aristotelian view on virtues is still pivotal. Developing virtues is by some authors seen as the best way to prevent misconduct by military personnel, it being considered superior to rules or codes of conduct imposed from above. The main argument these authors offer is that these solutions are impotent when no one is around, and lack the flexibility often thought necessary in today’s world. Finally, rules and codes try to condition behavior, leaving less room for personal integrity. At first sight, then, there is a great deal to say in favor of virtue ethics as being the best way of enhancing the chances of soldiers behaving morally. However, this preference for steering conduct by means of promoting certain desirable dispositions is not without any problems that, as it stands, are hardly ever addressed. To begin with, there are a few practical concerns. For instance, even if we assume that military virtues can assist military personnel to do their work in a morally sound manner, it is still not clear to what extent virtues can, in fact, be taught to them. It is an assumption of virtue ethics that they can, but is this really the case? And if so, how should they be taught? – virtues are supposedly developed by practicing them, yet how much room is there for practicing virtues in for instance the ethics education as followed in military academies and school battalions? Secondly, it appears that the traditional military virtues, such as honor, loyalty, courage, and obedience, are, especially in their common interpretation, mainly beneficial to colleagues and the organization, not so much to the local population of the countries military personnel are deployed to. Changes in the military’s wider environment have led to a shift from traditional of self-defense tasks to new, more complex tasks, and especially in today’s missions one could expect that the proper virtues are not necessarily solely the more martial ones. (shrink)

This essay defends a novel form of virtue epistemology: Modal Virtue Epistemology. It borrows from traditional virtue epistemology the idea that knowledge is a type of skillful performance. But it goes on to understand skillfulness in purely modal terms — that is, in terms of success across a range of counterfactual scenarios. We argue that this approach offers a promising way of synthesizing virtue epistemology with a modal account of knowledge, according to which knowledge is safe (...) belief. In particular, we argue that the modal elements of the view offer important advantages over traditional virtue epistemology, which assigns a central explanatory role to aptness. At the same time, the virtue epistemological elements of the theory reveal new avenues for overcoming obstacles to traditional modal accounts of knowledge. Finally, we highlight the advantages of Modal Virtue Epistemology over alternative syntheses, such as Pritchard's (2012) hybrid approach. (shrink)

Was Iris Murdoch a virtue ethicist? At first sight, it would appear that she was not. She does not offer an explicit definition of account of the term ‘virtue’, and there are significant differences between her views and those of standard Aristotelian virtue ethicists. There is no reason, however, to think that the standard Aristotelian view represents the only legitimate form of virtue ethics. In this chapter, I begin by recalling (in section 1) the main commonalities (...) between Murdoch’s criticisms of the prevailing moral theories of her time and those of other first-wave virtue-ethicists. I then highlight (in section 2) some cornerstones of Murdoch’s peculiar approach to morality, which represent the background against which her account of virtue is developed, and I propose to trace these cornerstones back to a more diverse range of influences than the standard version of Aristotelianism. In section 3, I sketch the basics of Murdoch’s account of virtue, and I argue that there are at least three routes to vindicate it as a genuine virtue-ethical approach: the Buddhist, the Kantian and the Socratic-Aristotelian. I explore each of these routes in turn in sections 4, 5, and 6. In conclusion, I argue that the virtue-ethical field would benefit a great deal from the kind of pluralistic account of virtue that Murdoch offers. (shrink)

Virtue signaling—using public moral discourse to enhance one’s moral reputation—is a familiar concept. But, what about profile pictures framed by “Vaccines work!”? Or memes posted to anti-vaccine groups echoing the group’s view that “Only sheep believe Big Pharma!”? These actions don’t express moral views—both claims are empirical (if imprecise). Nevertheless, they serve a similar purpose: to influence the judgments of their audience. But, where rainbow profiles guide their audience to view the agent as morally good, these acts guide their (...) audience to view the agent as epistemically good. They are instances of epistemic virtue signaling. The first goal of this paper is to offer an account of epistemic virtue signaling. I argue that epistemic virtue signaling occurs through both behavioral and propositional signals, and serves purposes similar to those of moral virtue signaling across a wide variety of discourses. The second is to show that there is much work for this concept to do. In particular, this concept illuminates a double bind faced by those who suffer from and seek to overcome testimonial injustice. I close by demonstrating how this double bind arises in the dissolution of medical autonomy, focusing on the care gap faced by pregnant women of color in the United States today, as compared with their white counterparts. (shrink)

ABSTRACT A thriving project in contemporary epistemology concerns identifying and explicating the epistemic virtues. Although there is little sustained argument for this claim, a number of prominent sources suggest that curiosity is an epistemic virtue. In this paper, I provide an account of the virtue of curiosity. After arguing that virtuous curiosity must be appropriately discerning, timely and exacting, I then situate my account in relation to two broader questions for virtue responsibilists: What sort of motivations are (...) required for epistemic virtue? And do epistemic virtues need to be reliable? I will sketch an account on which curiosity is only virtuous when rooted in a non-instrumental appreciation of epistemic goods, before arguing that curiosity can exhibit intellectual virtue irrespective of whether one is reliable in satisfying it. (shrink)

This essay develops a new conceptual framework of science and engineering ethics education based on virtue ethics and positive psychology. Virtue ethicists and positive psychologists have argued that current rule-based moral philosophy, psychology, and education cannot effectively promote students’ moral motivation for actual moral behavior and may even lead to negative outcomes, such as moral schizophrenia. They have suggested that their own theoretical framework of virtue ethics and positive psychology can contribute to the effective promotion of motivation (...) for self-improvement by connecting the notion of morality and eudaimonic happiness. Thus this essay attempts to apply virtue ethics and positive psychology to science and engineering ethics education and to develop a new conceptual framework for more effective education. In addition to the conceptual-level work, this essay suggests two possible educational methods: moral modeling and involvement in actual moral activity in science and engineering ethics classes, based on the conceptual framework. (shrink)

Worsening energy crises and the growing effects of climate change have spurred, among other things, concerted efforts to tackle global problems through what the United Nations calls Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These are in turn argued to be best achieved via the adoption of environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) as the vehicle for guiding our efforts. However, though these things are often presented as the solution to global issues, they are increasingly being used as a means to centralize (...) power and exacerbate growing authoritarian trends. This article aims to demonstrate how the narratives surrounding ESG mask this reality, taking as a solution one of the foundational causes of global wealth and power disparity. (shrink)