Over against Christianity, John Casey seeks to revive pagan notions and patterns of the cardinal virtues. He highlights the importance of anger in the pagan pattern and connects it to courage, to pride, and ultimately to friendship. I argue that his notion of friendship is overly formal and more modern than ancient pagan. Nonetheless, his treatment of pagan virtue helps clarify why Christians, with Aquinas and contra paganism, assert the primacy of prudence, qualified as infused (...) prudence informed by charity. Only within this context can Christian ideas about anger and pride be set forth. (shrink)

Today's conversations in virtue ethics are enflamed with questions of “pagan virtues,” which often designate non-Christian virtue from a Christian perspective. “Pagan virtues,” “pagan vices,” and their historied interpretations are the subject of Jennifer Herdt's book Putting On Virtue: The Legacy of the Splendid Vices (2008). I argue that the questions and language animating Herdt's book are problematic. I offer an alternative strategy to Herdt's for reading Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologiae. My results are twofold: (...) (1) a different set of conclusions and questions regarding the moral life that lend a fresh perspective to “pagan virtues” and (2) corresponding methodological suggestions for improving Herdt's project that would, to my mind, reaffirm her normative conclusions regarding the most viable ways forward for contemporary discussions of virtue. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 349 Pagan Virtue: An Essay in Ethics. By JOHN CASEY. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990. Pp. ix + 226. By this philosophical study of the four cardinal virtues, John Casey joins the ever.expanding ranks of those moral theorists who have con· trihuted to the contemporary theory of the virtues. But Casey's hook is set apart from the others both by the exceptionally high quality of his (...) analysis and even more by his thesis that traditional thinking on the virtues is in tension, at least, with fundamental Christian assumptions about the nature of the moral life. For both these reasons, his hook deserves serious attention, especially by those scholars who argue for a special congruity between virtue theory and Christian ethics. Although the title might suggest otherwise, this hook is not primarily a historical study. Rather, Casey uses the traditional schema of the four cardinal virtues (courage, temperance, practical wisdom or prudence, and justice) as the basis for philosophical analysis, which is intended as "a modest rediscovery and (hence) criticism of a tradition which we inherit" (p. viii). Along the way, he draws on a diverse selection of writers, among whom Aquinas as well as Aristotle are prominent. His thesis is that the tradition of the virtues is "worldly," that is, in significant tension with our dominant Christian and Kantian assumptions about morality, in two ways: "[the virtues] include an element of self-regard, and... they rely upon material conditions for their fulfillment" (p. viii). And yet the tradition of the virtues is not simply at odds with our received assumptions about morality. As Casey argues in his brilliant first chapter, "Persons," the Kantian commitment to respect for persons implies that the adventitious qualities that distinguish individuals are far more significant morally than Kant could allow. In the first place, the human qualities that do in fact command our respect include such capacities as intelligence, wit, and even strength. While we may want to distinguish in theory between respect for these sorts of qualities and a purely moral respect for a good will, Casey argues that this sort of distinction is artificial and untrue to our actual judgments. Hence, he concludes, " If there is no adamantine distinction between what characterizes someone purely as a person, and all other advantages and attractive qualities a human being may have, then the way is clearly open for a 'worldly' scheme of values" (p. 9). Secondly, he argues that respect for persons necessarily presupposes some capacities for empathy and emotional response that on Kant's theory must he wholly irrelevant to the moral life (pp. 9-28). Correlatively, he claims that the individual's sense of oneself and 350 BOOK REVIEWS others is mediated through an awareness of one's body and its relation to others' bodies in a way that a Kantian theory cannot readily allow: "We can, then, move naturally from the idea of persons as self-conscious, rational beings, to them as beings with certain emotions and attitudes, and with a certain apprehension of themselves and others mediated through their sense of their own and others' bodies " {p. 43). Finally, he argues that these interlocking human qualities and capacities necessarily entail not only a willingness to acknowledge the claims of others but also a readiness to make certain claims upon others, to set a value on oneself, that is at least in tension with the Christian ideal of self-abnegation (pp. 44-50). I have dwelt at some length on the first chapter of Casey's book because it sets out the main lines of analysis for the subsequent chapters. In the course of developing his main thesis, he offers a number of fascinating analyses of particular questions, including a defense of the unity of the virtues (pp. 67-78), a discussion of the ways in which a virtue can he a bodily quality (pp. 105-113), and an argument that practical wisdom, and therefore moral goodness, may depend in part on the possession of a more than average level of intelligence (pp. 144147 ). At times, the very richness of his analyses can make it difficult to perceive the threads of a coherent argument. But he consistently returns to his... (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this article, I argue that an essential part of our obligation as teachers and scholars of philosophy is to insist that the ultimate point of criticism is to foster the development of increasingly better explanations of natural and social phenomena. Doing so, moreover, requires that we cultivate in ourselves and our students a sense of gratitude for the very possibility of human flourishing and scientific advance. I illustrate these claims by showing how Dewey's analysis in Human Nature and (...) Conduct is the sine qua non of a good explanation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Ethics as a Work of Charity: Thomas Aquinas and Pagan Virtue by David DecosimoTravis KroekerEthics as a Work of Charity: Thomas Aquinas and Pagan Virtue David Decosimo stanford, ca: stanford university press, 2014. 376 pp. $65.00 / $29.95If "debeo distinguere" represents the programmatic scholarly agenda for "prophetic Thomism," over against the more mystical narrative "exitus et reditus" itinerary of Dionysian Augustinianism, David Decosmio should (...) be considered a virtuous practitioner of this Thomistic craft in the domain of political ethics. To put it more accurately, Decosimo provides a complex, lucid account of his reading of Thomas as one who tutors Christians and especially Christian ethicists through "fraternal correction" in what it means to provide a generous, charitable account of "pagan virtue" via the making of distinctions. For Decosimo the word "pagan" refers to non-Christian "outsiders"—that is, "all those without charity" (11). While that may seem to be a noncharitable way to put it, Decosimo means it to bespeak that form of charity that allows non-Christians to be and to speak as non-Christians, absent (or refusing) those virtues that Thomas calls "theological"—those habits infused supernaturally by God through the "redemptive grace" that orders and unites humans "in loving friendship with the God revealed in Jesus Christ" (11). Thomas's representative pagan is, of course, Aristotle. Decosimo insists that a correct reading of Thomas opposes both "hyper-Augustinian Thomism" (on which account non-Christians are incapable of true virtue) as well as a "public reason Thomism" (which avoids theological claims). At the same time, Decosimo claims that Thomas remains fully Augustinian in his theological account of charity and yet "unites and transforms Aristotle and Augustine alike to teach charity toward outsiders and their virtues" (1). To put it in terms of the formula Decosimo reiterates throughout the book, Aquinas "strives to be Aristotelian by being Augustinian and vice versa" (41, 70, 181 253, etc.). In so doing, he offers resources for a prophetic Thomism that more charitably navigates the church's relations to secular politics by welcoming the contributions of pagan virtue to its own Christian virtue.If "charity's scholarly work is the multiplication of distinctions" (8) then Decosimo's book is a model of charity. Decosimo works as an analytic philosopher at a high level of erudition to elucidate the linguistic and syllogistic puzzles in Thomas's accounts of virtue in a close reading of a range of works to show that, for Thomas, natural human virtue oriented toward the shared human and political good (the highest good attainable without charity) is true [End Page 199] virtue in which Christians and non-Christians, Augustinians and Aristotelians, may fully share and participate together. Indeed, the theological virtues must be devoted to the charitable interpretation of all contributions dialectically considered and ordered to the highest human good. Only by adhering to such a vision of virtue that welcomes pagan virtue will Christians practice the ethics of charity, and prophetic Thomism provides a model for how the church may engage difference in a way that honors others while being faithful to its own vision of the gift of grace.I hope it will not be taken as uncharitable or (ugh!) "hyper-Augustinian" to suggest that Decosimo's account of prophetic Thomism is more attuned to Aristotelian logic and the dialectic of definitional distinctions than it is to Augustine's more Platonic account of pagan virtue as a Dionysian erotic dialectic in which the "logos is wild." But I am in full agreement with Decosimo's claim that ethics as a work of charity ought to be open to both (and "all") in providing resources to Christian and non-Christian ethicists alike for engaging contemporary political challenges concerning otherness and difference in the service of justice.Travis KroekerMcMaster UniversityCopyright © 2018 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

The probing readings of Putting On Virtue offered by Sheryl Overmyer, Darlene Weaver, and James Foster provide a welcome opportunity for further reflection on key questions: Was Aquinas really concerned with the status of pagan virtues? Can we properly understand a thinker whose driving questions are not the same as our own without taking up a stance of pure deference? Can an inquiry into hyper-Augustinian anxiety over acquired virtue assist us in arriving at an account of positive (...) self-regard? Can an account that stresses the graced character of all virtue formation be coherent? And can it do justice to the ways in which Christians reached for accounts of infused virtue precisely in order to affirm how grace overcomes the ways in which fortune hounds acquired virtue? I respond affirmatively to all of the above. (shrink)

John Milbank's case against secular reason draws much of its authority and force from Augustine's critique of pagan virtue. "Theology and Social Theory" could be characterized, without too much insult to either Augustine or Milbank, as a postmodern "City of God". Modern preoccupations with secular virtues, marketplace values, and sociological bottom-lines are likened there to classically pagan preoccupations with the virtues of self-conquest and conquest over others. Against both modern and antique "ontological violence" (where 'to be' is (...) 'to be antagonistic'), Milbank advances an Augustinian hope for the peace that is both beyond and prior to the peace of (temporarily) repressed antagonism. One aim of this essay is to consider whether virtues conceived out of such a hope are really all that different from the virtues they are taken to replace. I take a critical look at Augustine's critique of pagan virtue, Milbank's appropriation of that critique, the applicability of that critique to Plato, and the polemical value of Augustine's notion of original sin. I end up being skeptical of the notion of a peculiarly Christian way to turn antagonistically conceived virtues into love, but I am not unsympathetic to Milbank's concerns about a loveless and self-complacent secularity. (shrink)

Nietzsche's ethics is basically an ethics of virtue. In his own unique way, and in accordance with his extra-moral view of life, Nietzsche recovers and re-appropriates certain virtues – notably pagan, aristocratic virtues – as part of his project to reconceptualise (‘rehabilitate') the virtues in terms of virtù (virtuosity and vitality), to which he also refers as his ‘moraline-free' conception of the virtues. The virtue of generosity (in the sense of magnanimity) plays a central role in Nietzschean (...) ethics. According to Nietzsche, the truly noble or virtuous person is one who lives beyond resentment and feelings of remorse and guilt. He lives his life from the fullness and plenitude of his own being and what he is able to bestow on others. Nietzsche seeks to rekindle and rehabilitate the aristocratic ‘pathos of distance' as the true origin of ethical life. This pathos of distance basically emanates from self-respect: ‘The noble soul has reverence for itself' (1974b: §287). For Nietzsche, this means that one should realize the greatest multiplicity of drives and form-giving forces in oneself, in the most tension-fraught but ‘controlled' manner. This control, this imposing a form on oneself without neglecting the multiplicity in oneself, is a creative, artistic activity. Nietzsche also refers to this as a process of transforming the self into a work of art, of giving style to one's own existence. Thus we free ourselves from guilt, resentment and the rage against contingency. It is of the utmost importance for Nietzsche that one should attain satisfaction with oneself, for ‘only then is a human being at all tolerable to behold. Whoever is dissatisfied with himself is continually ready for revenge, and we others will be his victims, if only by having to endure his ugly sight.' (1974a: §290). To attain satisfaction with oneself ultimately means to affirm life in its totality. This implies a life beyond resentment, i.e. a life that is characterised by generosity or magnanimity ( megalopsychia, magnanimitas ), which is for Nietzsche the ‘crown' of all the virtues. South African Journal of Philosophy Vol. 26 (1) 2007: pp. 17-30. (shrink)

This paper argues against the current presentation of Aquinas’s conception of pagan virtue because that conception fails to take into account the full weight of the corruption of the goods of nature on which the virtuous unbeliever must found his good acts. I go on to establish that postlapsarian man is in too capricious a position realistically to maintain a prolonged life of virtue. I conclude that while Aquinas’s conception of virtue renders a much more pessimistic (...) picture of the virtuous pagan than recent literature has presented, his reputed theoretical optimism is correct, but is founded on his conception of God’s help. Thus, it makes little sense to have a philosophical discussion about Aquinas’s notion of pagan virtue, because it is impossible to separate the «gifts of God» from «the unbeliever.». (shrink)

The study of the virtues has largely dropped out of modern philosophy, yet it was the predominant tradition in ethics fom the ancient Greeks until Kant. Traditionally the study of the virtues was also the study of what constituted a successful and happy life. Drawing on such diverse sources as Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Shakespeare, Hume, Jane Austen, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Sartre, Casey here argues that the classical virtues of courage, temperance, practical wisdom, and justice centrally define the good for humans, (...) and that they are insufficiently acknowledged in modern moral philosophy. He suggests that values of success, worldliness, and pride are active parts of our moral thinking, and that the conflict between these and our equally important Christian inheritance leads to tensions and contradictions in our understanding of the moral life. (shrink)

Ethics, published (anonymously) by Coornhert in 1586, is a remarkable publication for a number of reasons: it is the first work on ethics written in a European vernacular; it is a mature work, appearing four years before Coornhert’s death, and summarizes a lifetime of writing and thinking about the good life; it is considered to be fundamentally pagan because of the absence in Zedekunst of biblical references or any direct mention of Christ. Asked why he did not write about (...) such things as the future establishment of God’s kingdom on earth, Coornhert answered: ‘Because I have a greater desire to learn how to live well, than to learn how to know much.’ This is the first English translation of this important work. It will enhance our insight into the ethical outlook of this prominent freethinker and controversialist of the early Dutch Republic. Also available in E-book: ISBN 9789087045586. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 351 raise questions for his thesis. Casey seems to want to suggest that our moral responses that do not fit well with the tradition of the virtues are simply the last remnants of a particular religion. But his own men· tion of the Stoics as one important source for the ' Christian ' tradition suggests that the commitments that Casey traces to Christianity-for example, to some version (...) of equality-may be more deeply rooted in the wider Western culture than he allows. And on the other hand, it is not obvious that everything that he associates with ' pagan ' virtues is necessarily incompatible with Christianity; after all, Aquinas, in addition to his extensive appropriation of the framework of the cardinal virtues, also argues that self-love is the first injunction of charity, after love of God (Summa theologiae 11-11, 26, 4). Even so, Casey's work raises important questions for contemporary moral theory. He succeeds in challenging too easy an appropriation of the tradition of the virtues by Christian ethics, and his challenge must he answered by anyone who would attempt to defend a contemporary Christian theory of the virtues. Moreover, by calling attention to the complexity and inner tensions that characterize our moral reflection, Casey reminds us that the category of ' the moral ' is not as straightforward as we sometimes take it to be. His book deserves to be widely read and carefully debated. University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana JEAN PORTER Nature and Scientific Method. Edited By DANIEL 0. DAHLSTROM. Studies in Philosophy and the History of Philosophy, vol. 22. Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1991. Pp. 328. $48.95. William A. Wallace is a careful scholar and clear teacher of the history and philosophy of science. This volume is dedicated to him; the sixteen contributors were chosen because they have all been influenced by him, directly or indirectly. A comprehensive chronological list of Father Wallace's works, provided at the end of the book, reveals his two primary interests: contemporary issues in the philosophy of science and studies in the history of science. To reflect this, the first part of this book consists of seven essays on various contemporary issues in the philosophy of science; the second part is nine historical studies. This review will address each part in turn. Part I, "Contemporary Issues," suffers from a notable lack of unity. 352 BOOK REVIEWS Some authors directly and appropriately acknowledge the influence or inspiration of Wallace upon their contributions, the sole factor that might provide cohesion to the book as a whole. Other contributions are surprisingly devoid of any explicit connection to Wallace, save a tangential one. Wallace has provided the scholarly community with consistent and well-grounded work in the philosophy of science from a realist perspective. This realist position is shared by Rom Harre, the author of the opening essay, "Causality and Reality." Harre argues that the classical concept of causality, at least in part, survives as an ineliminable element of contemporary physics. To accomplish this, Harre distin· guishes weak from strong causality, the former as the expression of a causal mechanism, the latter as that connection stimulated by an event. This distinction is central to his Varieties of Realism. Realism is of two kinds: that which can be defined in terms of truth and falsity, and that which he terms " policy realism," which remains open to unlimited revisability of concepts, while preserving ontological categories. Having argued for these distinctions, Harre uses quantum field theory in his pursuit of a post-Humean conception of causality that transcends strict event ontology. Laudable as this pursuit may be, I wonder whether it can be achieved without reference to any conception of nature (s), a concept lamentably absent in Harre's more recent work. The realist theme is admirably pursued in Robert Sokolowski's " Explaining." Sokolowski argues for the irreducibility of names and explanations and their obvious correlates, things and causes. Form is in things; natural kinds exist; "ones" come in a splended variety reflecting the diversity of forms. Such unpopular claims are expertly defended in this essay, one of the best contributions in the book. Sokolowski also paints a fine picture of the mind... (shrink)

Dr Casey argues that the classical virtues of courage, temperance, practical wisdom and justice, which are largely ignored in modern moral philosophy, centrally define the good for Man. Success, pride and worldliness remain part of our moral thinking. The conflict between these values leads to contradictions in our understanding of the moral life.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 121.3 (2000) 423-452 [Access article in PDF] The Mourning After: Statius Thebaid 12 Victoria E. Pagán Wie er auf dem letzten Hügel, der ihm ganz sein Tal noch einmal zeigt, sich wendet, anhält, weilt--, so leben wir und nehmen immer Abschied. As he, on the last hill, which shows him his valley one last time, turns back, stops, lingers--, so we live and ever take (...) our leave. --Rilke, Eighth ElegyRecent, fruitful readings of the end of the Thebaid have come a long way toward identifying the political import of the arrival of Theseus and the laments of the Theban women, although consensus remains in the distance. 1 Some scholars have tried to resolve the difficulties posed by the oft-disparaged "superfluous" book 12 by examining Statius' resolution of the Theban epic against the backdrop of the endings of the Iliad or the Aeneid, for instance, thus bringing us closer to understanding the dilemma encountered when a poet does (or does not) reach the end of an epic. 2 Both the political and the literary-historical approaches to the problem, however, still fail to convince opponents that the poem does or does not end conclusively. Valid arguments accrue on both sides, and the mosaic of interpretations itself recreates the stunning effect produced in book 12.For present purposes I accept Braund's argument that the Thebaid ends, and that it ends several times over, and that the repeated gestures toward closure do not undermine but reinforce its ultimate termination. The last ten lines of book 12 (especially 816-17) display an [End Page 423] unease with the poem's status vis-à-vis the Aeneid and an apprehension at simply letting go, despite the need. But the sphragis, when considered in the context of what I call an "aftermath narrative," or the description which follows a battle, reveals more. The aftermath of a battle affects a community, and this highly emotional reaction is captured in narrative. Because aftermath narratives are present in different works of Latin literature, comparison allows a pattern to emerge. Once we identify the elements of this rhetorical commonplace, 3 we can observe the way Statius uses it and adapts it to his needs in book 12. With a better understanding of the phenomenon of aftermath, it is possible to appreciate the apprehension, as well as the finality, that accompanies the end of the epic.More specifically, the term "aftermath narrative" refers to the picture of a battlefield strewn with decaying corpses, weapons, horses, helmets, and debris. The field is inspected in broad daylight, usually on the morning after the battle, by the living, either the victorious generals or, less specifically, the survivors whose concern it is to bury the dead. 4 Thus the reader sees the aftermath through the eyes of those who return to the battlefield. This inspection is an intermediate step between the destruction of war and the funeral rites. Paradoxically, war gives the soldier an opportunity to earn laus and gloria and so to reaffirm the fame of his ancestors and enhance the fame of his progeny. 5 But in his death he also becomes a burden of responsibility to his kin. 6 His corpse is a polluted thing which must be purified by the act of burial. Thus aftermath is part of the transition from the violent disruption of war to the settlement of the dispute and a return to a state of equilibrium. A scene of aftermath necessarily looks backward and recreates the battle in the mind's eye, but it also looks forward to the more permanent results for the winners and the losers of the battle, and ultimately, of the [End Page 424] war. Thus when represented in literature, an aftermath narrative affords an author the opportunity to explore the intertwining nexus of past, present, and future. The survey of aftermath is the means by which those who have experienced the trauma of war come to terms with devastating loss and brutal destruction in their very midst.An author also experiences a sort of aftermath. For... (shrink)

Prolegomena : the ritual context for Ambrose's soteriology -- The case of Augustine's baptism -- The loss of harmonic unity : Ambrose's account of the fallen human condition -- The soul : Ambrose's true self -- Essential unity of soul and body : Ambrose's hylomorphic theory -- The body of death : the legacy of the fall -- Raised to new life : Ambrose's theology of baptism -- Baptism : sacrament of justification -- Resurrection and regeneration -- Baptismal regeneration : (...) participation in the new humanity -- The inner man's new desire -- Conclusion : the inner man's heavenly dwelling place. (shrink)

What is it about relativism that justifies, or at least explains, its continued appeal in the face of relentless attacks through the history of philosophy? This paper explores a new answer to this old question, casting the response in metaphilosophical terms. § i introduces the problem. § ii argues that one part of the answer is that some of the well-known defences of relativism take it to be a philosophical stance—that is, a broad perspective or orientation with normative consequences—rather than (...) a doctrine or a thesis. § iii draws attention to an assumption, not always explicitly stated by its proponents, that the relativist stance leads to the cultivation of some key intellectual virtues. Open-mindedness, tolerance, intellectual humility, and curiosity are examples of the intellectual virtues that relativism can foster. § iv argues that the defence of relativism on the basis of the virtues that are assumed to follow from it, at best, is only partially successful. Moreover, there is a range of epistemic vices, resulting from the stance, that undercuts the virtue-based defence presented in § iii. (shrink)

The Virtues by Craig A. Boyd and Kevin Timpe is supposed to be a work about the virtues themselves. Virtue is not limited by language or by race, so one would expect the book to be properly multicultural. However, the entire book is Graeco-Abrahamic, except for a single chapter on Confucianism, which is sometimes erroneous and ultimately below standard. The book is also permeated by an utterly unjustified notion of the instrumentality of virtuosity, which the authors treat as though (...) it were traditional. (shrink)

Molecular vibrations and quantum tunneling may link ligand binding to the function of pharmacological receptors. The well‐established lock‐and‐key model explains a ligand's binding and recognition by a receptor; however, a general mechanism by which receptors translate binding into activation, inactivation, or modulation remains elusive. The Vibration Theory of Olfaction was proposed in the 1930s to explain this subset of receptor‐mediated phenomena by correlating odorant molecular vibrations to smell, but a mechanism was lacking. In the 1990s, inelastic electron tunneling was proposed (...) as a plausible mechanism for translating molecular vibration to odorant physiology. More recently, studies of ligands’ vibrational spectra and the use of deuterated ligand analogs have provided helpful information to study this admittedly controversial hypothesis in metabotropic receptors other than olfactory receptors. In the present work, based in part on published experiments from our laboratory using planarians as an experimental organism, I will present a rationale and possible experimental approach for extending this idea to ligand‐gated ion channels. (shrink)

Although scholars agree that Aquinas believed the pagan could possess “true but imperfect” virtues, there is deep disagreement over the question of how these “true but imperfect” virtues should be understood. Some scholars argue that Aquinas believed the pagan’s imperfect virtues are nonetheless ordered to a genuinely good end (his natural good) and are connected by acquired prudence. Other scholars argue that Aquinas believed that any virtues that the pagan possesses are considerably more limited: they are more (...) akin to dispositions than habits, and they are not connected. This paper argues that this latter position is incoherent. If one is willing to concede that the pagan can perform genuinely good actions, then one must concede that the pagan can possess genuine (albeit imperfect) virtues that are connected by acquired prudence. (shrink)

Focusing on the concept of “the moral self” this essay explores relationships between Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and John Dewey’s moral pragmatism and tries to evaluate the extent to which in his work on ethics Aristotle may be considered a pragmatist. Aristotle foreshadows pragmatism, for example, in preferring virtue-based to rule-based ethics, in contending that the moral status of a person’s actions and the nature of the person’s selfhood are interdependent, and in stressing the key role of habits in character (...) formation. Aristotle, however, may seem far from the status of pragmatist when he privileges the life of contemplation and posits a moral self that is more static than the one proposed by Dewey. This essay contends that if more attention is paid to Aristotle’s treatment of friendship and to his highlighting of the need for reciprocity then the moral self that emerges from Nicomachean Ethics becomes more dialectical and more at one with that proposed by the American pragmatist. Aristotle, then, may be regarded as setting Dewey on the path towards a model of moral self that is not only deeply concerned about the lives of others but that is also dependent on others for its own existence. (shrink)

Thomas and his outsiders -- God, good, and the desire of all things -- The perfection of habit -- Pagan virtue : perfect, unified, and true -- "The virtue of many gentiles" -- Boundaries and ends -- Honest goods -- Infidelitas and final end conceptions -- Sin and the limits of virtue -- The other face of grace.

Human flourishing is a desired outcome for building humanistic workplaces. In this context, flourishing is taken as a whole, an end, and not examined in its distinct causes or components. Surprisingly, many strategies to promote well-being do not include confronting suffering as a comprehensive human experience that can threaten flourishing if not well-oriented. Yet human suffering is ubiquitous, inescapable, and affects relations with the self, the world, and others. Suffering needs to be confronted not only in its distinct forms and (...) causes but also as an experience that encompasses the whole person and threatens human functioning i.e. rationality, free choice, and emotional stability. In the context of the modern work environments and the changes post-COVID-19, there are new difficulties with economic recovery, challenges with flexible work arrangements, and evolving employee-employer trust issues. These changes exist alongside the usual work and life challenges that result from dramatic or everyday events. An agent-based approach where individuals are empowered to recognize, accept, and proactively address suffering is needed. Cultivating cardinal virtues such as prudence, temperance, justice, and fortitude alongside intellectual virtues like epistemic courage, intellectual humility, open-mindedness, and intellectual perseverance will equip individuals to make wise decisions regarding their suffering and that of others. By integrating a virtue-ethic framework that addresses personal suffering through individual character growth and organizational policies, we can pave the way for more humanistic workplaces and promote human flourishing. (shrink)

‘Unity of virtues’ (UV) in Aristotle is the claim that the ethical virtues are mutually entailing. But commentators typically focus on the fact that wisdom implies all the ethical virtues, without explaining how the ethical virtues themselves are mutually entailing. I argue that the so-called ‘Grand End’ view, understood as applying to both wisdom (φρόνησις) and political expertise (πολιτική), allows us to give an account of UV at the level of the ethical virtues. By discussing the ethical virtues individually, I (...) show how all the ethical virtues can be seen as different aspects of the philosopher-statesman’s multifaceted character. (shrink)

This article revisits a widely accepted yet unsubstantiated trajectory of early Kufan Zaydi history, namely, that with ʿAlī recognized as the fourth rightly guided caliph by the proto-Sunni traditionists, represented by Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, the Batri traditionists were Sunnified. Analysis of Safīna’s hadith transmission and the transmitters of the first four caliphs’ virtues suggests that the four-caliphs thesis was likely circulated in Kufa by the late eighth century and that Kufan traditionists of various sectarian persuasions played an important role in (...) its formation. This paper argues that the Kufan Shiʿi traditionists came to identify with their tradition- ist townspeople as a result of shared qualities and mutual enemies. By revisiting a narrative that is often taken for granted, this study proffers new insights into the formation of a defining Sunni doctrine—the four-caliphs thesis—as well as the transformation of the Kufan Shiʿis. (shrink)

When and how were the arrows of love created? Individual invention has been argued for by classicists; a connection to everyday metaphors has been suggested in cognitive linguistics. I propose new cognitive-theoretical tools: the Abstract Cause Personification blend and an EMISSION image-schema. I explain the emergence of Love the Archer in Antiquity through conceptual integration from earlier materials: Apollo the Archer personifying death, erotic emissions in lyric imagery, the link between passion and extreme illness, and possibly the arrows of glance. (...) The embodied, human-scale story of causation that structures the arrows of love has been crucial for their success. (shrink)

I investigate Aquinas’s position that natural virtue can pose dangers to living a moral life, dangers that include natural virtue’s inflexibility to circumstance, the opposing vices it may breed if blindly followed, and its aptitude for deceiving people into thinking they are genuinely virtuous. I also consider whether Aquinas regards these problems as remediable given that he sees natural virtue and natural vice as instances of nature being determined to one. He maintains that we can overcome the (...) moral pitfalls that natural virtue and natural vice pose, though perfect mastery is not possible without divine intervention, insofar as our bodily disposition is not directly subject to reason. (shrink)

One of the most common contemporary approaches for developing an ethics of artificial intelligence (AI) involves elaborating guiding principles. This essay explores the limitations of this approach, using the history of bioethics as a comparative case. The examples of bioethics and recent AI ethics suggest that principles are difficult to implement in everyday practice, fail to direct individual action, and can frequently result in a pure proceduralism. The essay encourages an additional attention to virtue, which forms the dispositions of (...) actors, directs them to valued ends, and encourages right action in particular situation to complement principles. Practices and professions like medicine or warfighting that already have rich traditions of reflection on virtue ethics will be especially fruitful fields for developing an AI ethics of virtue. (shrink)