In this paper, I show that the conception of a virtue in positive psychology is a mishmash of two competing accounts of what virtues are: a Common Sense View and an Aristotelian View. Distinguishing the strengths and weaknesses of these two frameworks leads also to a reconsideration of an old debate, namely, that concerning the Unity of the Virtues thesis. Such thesis is rejected by positive psychologist, as well as by some philosophers among the virtue-ethical field, on (...) the basis, I argue, of a lack of accuracy in defining the very meaning of the concept of what virtues are, before examining the issues at stake. In the first part of the paper, I show to what extent the conceptions of virtue employed by the different voices diverge and the consequences of this divergence for the UV problem. Then, I go on by arguing for one of the two competing accounts, namely, the Aristotelian View, over the other, that is, the Common Sense View. Finally, I show to which of CSV theses positive psychologists are committed, so to explain their rejection of the UV thesis, and to highlight their need for a clearer account of what a virtue is. (shrink)

The idea that moral virtues form some sort of “unity” has received considerable attention from virtue theorists. In this paper, I argue that the possibility of unity among intellectual virtues has been wrongly overlooked. My approach has two main components. First, I work to distinguish the variety of different views that are available under the description of a unity thesis. I suggest that these views can be categorised depending on whether they are versions of standard (...) unity or of strong unity. Standard unity claims that the possession of one virtue implies possession of all the others. Strong unity claims that the virtues are, in some sense, all the same thing. By exploring what these different versions of unity would look like when applied to intellectual virtues, I aim to provide a menu of options for future work in virtue epistemology. I then develop and defend one of these options in more detail, arguing that the initially less plausible strong unity has merit when applied to the intellectual sphere. In these two ways, I aim to show that the possibility of unity among the intellectual virtues is deserving of serious consideration. (shrink)

A careful reading of the initial posing of the issue to be debated with Protagoras and of its subsequent restatement when the debate resumes after a break will show that Socrates employs three distinct formulae, only the first of which answers at all closely to the term "Unity of the Virtues" which has been commonly used in the scholarly literature as a label for the position which Socrates upholds in the debate. The other two formulae, perfectly distinguishable from (...) the first, I shall call the "Similarity" and "Biconditionality" Theses. I shall discuss the three Theses seriatim. But let me emphasize from the start that they are not treated in the text as logically disjoint tenets, but as successive moments in the elucidation of a single doctrine. That is how Protagoras himself understands them. At no point does he try to drive a wedge between them or play off one against another. He accepts them as complementary expressions of a theory which he rejects and combats as a whole. (shrink)

Aristotle’s argument in Nicomachean Ethics 6 for the mutual implication of the virtues by one another is developed, and others added to it, in a repertory of arguments for this thesis in section 18 of the De anima libri mantissa attributed to Alexander of Aphrodisias. The last part of this is echoed in no.22 of the Ethical Problems attributed to Alexander; nos. 8 and 28 of the same collection are also relevant. A distinction can be drawn between the mutual (...) implication of the virtues and the unity of virtue in some stronger sense; the arguments in the texts attributed to Alexander are examined to see whether they imply the latter more clearly than Aristotle’s own argument does, and the conclusion is drawn that some do so because of the use they make of the conception of the noble as the goal of virtuous action, or of virtue as a whole of parts. The treatment of Aristotle’s argument in the Byzantine commentaries is characterised by a preoccupation with the special status of practical wisdom. (shrink)

Each of the degenerating constitutions in Book VIII of Plato's Republic is the result of the disappearance of one of the four cardinal virtues. The failure of wisdom creates a timocracy; the failure of courage, an oligarchy; the failure of moderation, a democracy; the failure of justice, a tyranny. The degeneration shows that the disunited virtues are imperfect, though they have some power to stave off vice. Thus Book VIII implies a unity of the virtues thesis (...) according to which perfect virtues can only exist in a united state, but imperfect simulacra of virtue can exist in a disunited state. -/- Published 2011 in Apeiron: A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science. (Please note that the pagination in the uploaded document is not the same as the pagination in the published edition.). (shrink)

아리스토텔레스는『니코마코스 윤리학』에서 “실천적 지혜 하나만 갖추면, 모든 덕 또한 가지게 된다”는 이른바 덕의 통일성 주장을 제시한다. 이 주장만 따르자면 우리는 ‘하나’의 실천적 지혜를 갖게 됨으로써 여러 덕을 ‘모두’ 한 번에 가지는 것처럼 보인다. 하지만 덕의 통일성 주장을 덕에 대한 그의 다른 주장들과 비교해보면 일관성을 갖기 어려운 것처럼 보이며, 어윈(Irwin)은 이를 다음과 같은 주장들로 요약한다. 아리스토텔레스에 따르면 통이 큼과 포부의 큼은 참되고 구별되는 덕이다. 그리고 이 두 덕 없이도 다른 덕을 가질 수 있다고 한다. 그런데도 어떻게 덕의 통일성 주장이 성립할 수 (...) 있는가? 이 글의 목적은 ‘하나의 실천적 지혜’를 논의의 단초로 삼아 어윈이 제기한 문제로부터 덕의 통일성 주장의 정합성을 옹호하는 데 있다. 실천적 지혜는 자기 자신이나 가정 경제, 폴리스와의 관계에 따라 여럿으로 구분되므로, 그중 하나만을 고려하여 ‘하나의 실천적 지혜’라고 불렀을 가능성이 있다. 이러한 실천적 지혜의 분리 가능성을 바탕으로 통이 큼이나 포부의 큼과 같은 큰 규모의 덕은 자유인다움이나 적절한 명예욕과 같은 작은 규모의 덕과 달리 폴리스적 규모의 큰 이득을 주는 것을 일차적인 목표로 하기에 폴리스에 관한 실천적 지혜를 반드시 전제해야만 한다는 것을 보인다. (shrink)

Plato's "laches" is an investigation into the nature of courage with the intention of demonstrating the difficulty of singling out one virtue, namely courage, and defining it separately from the other cardinal virtues such as bravery, wisdom, justice, temperance, and piety. As the dialogue proceeds it becomes evident that socrates not only relates courage with the battlefield, but also with other spheres of life. Of special interest is his reference of being courageous regarding desires and pleasures where an overlap (...) of virtues is anticipated. This extension of the range of manifestations of courage indicates that his conception of courage transcends the traditional one in which he hints at a new sort of unity of courage and temperance, and on the other of courage and justice. One of plato's main aims in writing this dialogue was to mark out the intellectual limits of the two generals' positions, especially that of nicias, whose philosophical position could appear to be deceptively similar to the socratic one which he did not fully understand. (shrink)

The classical doctrine that the moral virtues are unified is widely rejected. Some argue that the virtues are disunified, or even mutually incompatible. And though others have argued that the virtues form some sort of unity, these recent defenses of unity are always qualified, advocating only a partial unity: the unity of the virtues is limited to certain practical domains, or weak in that one virtue implies only moral decency in the fields (...) of other virtues. I argue that something like the classical doctrine—a full unity of the virtues thesis—remains defensible. After reviewing the arguments of partial unity theorists for the claim that the virtues form at least some sort of unity, I examine their main arguments for thinking that this unity is only partial (limited or weak). I then show that these arguments fail, and address some further criticisms (such as the argument that full unity implausibly requires that a person must attain the virtues “all at once”). I do not seek here to prove the truth of the full unity thesis (in fact I suggest a modification of it), but only to refute important extant criticisms of it, and thus to show that it remains a plausible view. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that in the Eudemian Ethics, Aristotle proposes a strong version of the unity of the virtues. Evidence in favor of this strong version of the unity of the virtues results from reading the common books within the EE rather than as part of the Nicomachean Ethics. The unity of the virtues as defended in the EE includes not only practical wisdom and the character virtues, but also all the (...) virtues of practical and theoretical thinking. Closely related, in the EE, Aristotle proposes a different best agent from the one of the NE. The best agent of the EE is the kalos kagathos. The person who is kalos kagathos has “all” the virtues. Kalokagathia is a whole and the virtues are its parts. I investigate how we should understand this whole and the relation between the individual virtues within this whole. (shrink)

The classical doctrine of the unity of the virtues is generally rejected today. After arguing that the doctrine is more tenable than is commonly allowed, I consider a new and possibly cogent objection based on the idea that some virtues, in some cultural settings, are of diminished importance, and thus are not necessary for the possession of other virtues. I develop a revised version of the doctrine which maintains that certain central virtues are unified, and (...) that any other virtues are dependent upon them, but allows that an agent might have these central virtues without possessing certain other virtues. The upshot will be that a revised but still quite strong version of the unity doctrine remains interesting and defensible. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Unity as Identity Problems with the Identity View Unity as Inseparability Problems with the Inseparability View Unity through Wisdom in the Laches Unity in the Protagoras and Laches Unity in the Republic and Later Dialogues.

This paper examines Aquinas's contention that the virtues are necessarily connected, in such a way that anyone who fully possesses one of them, necessarily possesses them all. It is argued that this claim, as Aquinas develops it in the "Summa Theologiae", is more complex, interesting, and plausible than it is often taken to be. On his view, the cardinal virtues can be said to be connected in two senses, corresponding to the two senses in which certain virtues (...) can be said to be cardinal, namely, as general qualifications of all virtuous action and as particular normative ideals having a specific content. This distinction suggests, in turn, that Aquinas's claim that the virtues are connected should be understood as a psychological thesis about what is characteristic of the virtuous person's distinctive way of acting, as well as a thesis about the interrelationships among the different cardinal virtues considered as discrete normative ideals. So understood, Aquinas's claim that the virtues are connected is seen to be a necessary implication of his metaphysically grounded theory of human action. At the same time, it enables him to offer an interpretation of the complexities of moral discourse that is illuminating and at least prima facie plausible, taken on its own merits. (shrink)

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1995.

The ancient Greeks subscribed to the thesis of the Unity of Virtue, according to which the possession of one virtue is closely related to the possession of all the others. Yet empirical observation seems to contradict this thesis at every turn. What could the Greeks have been thinking of? The paper offers an interpretation and a tentative defence of a qualified version of the thesis. It argues that, as the Greeks recognized, virtue essentially involves knowledge ? specifically, evaluative knowledge (...) of what matters. Furthermore, such knowledge is essentially holistic. Perfect and complete possession of one virtue thus requires the knowledge that is needed for the possession of every other virtue. The enterprise of trying to reconcile the normative view embodied in this conception of virtue with empirical observation also serves as a case study for the field of moral psychology in which empirical and normative claims are often deeply and confusingly intertwined.1. (shrink)

In the Protagoras, Socrates argues that each of the virtue-terms refers to one thing (: 333b4). But in the Laches (190c8–d5, 199e6–7), Socrates claims that courage is a proper part of virtue as a whole, and at Euthyphro 11e7–12e2, Socrates says that piety is a proper part of justice. But A cannot be both identical to B and also a proper part of B – piety cannot be both identical to justice and also a proper part of justice. In this (...) paper we argue that coherent sense can be made of Socrates'' apparently conflicting claims. The key to understanding Socrates'' position, we will argue, is the central role of wisdom among the virtues. It is through the relationship of each virtue to wisdom that each may be said to be the same as all of the others, on the one hand, and also that some virtues may be regarded as proper parts of some other virtues, or as proper parts of virtue in general, on the other. (shrink)

Even though the virtues may be interconnected, it seems obviously possible to have one of the virtues without having them all. Some have defended the unity thesis against this concern by arguing that the virtues are still unified in their ideal forms. The problem with this defense is that it simply admits that the unity thesis, as traditionally conceived, is mistaken, taking the unity of the virtues to be limited to the ideal case. (...) In this paper, I outline a blueprint for how the ideal virtue response can be used to defend the original unity thesis. (shrink)

In Plato on the Unity of the Virtues, Rod Jenks argues that while Plato makes several attempts to show how virtue is one, he deliberately fails to secure this because he thinks the way in which the virtues are both one and many is finally ineffable.

In The Impossibility of Perfection, Michael Slote tries to show that the traditional Aristotelian doctrine of the unity of the virtues is mistaken. His argumentative strategy is to provide counterexamples to this doctrine, by showing that there are what he calls “partial virtues”—pairs of virtues that conflict with one another but both of which are ethically indispensible. Slote offers two lines of argument for the existence of partial virtues. The first is an argument for the (...) partiality of a particular pair of virtues: frankness and tact. The second is a kind of feminist critique. I argue that both of these lines of argument fail. In both cases, Slote fails to ask whether the apparent conflict between putatively partial virtues has arisen from a misunderstanding of the demands of those virtues. From this error I suggest we can learn an important lesson: whether in our studies thinking about the virtues or in our everyday lives trying to practice them, it is a serious mistake to focus on the relationships among virtues without considering precisely what each of these virtues demands. (shrink)

Commentators have neglected a tension in Descartes’s virtue theory. In some texts, Descartes seems to argue that there are distinct virtues. In other texts, Descartes seems to argue that there is only a single virtue—the firm and constant resolution to use the will well. In this paper, I reconcile this tension. I argue that Descartes endorses a specific version of the unity of the virtues thesis, namely, the identity of the virtues. Nonetheless, Descartes has the resources (...) to draw conceptual distinctions between various virtues. Distinct virtues are conceptually generated when we regard the firm and constant resolution to use the will well in different ways, that is, based on the different ways this resolution manifests in moral situations. (shrink)

Elizabeth Telfer; III*—The Unity of the Moral Virtues in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics1, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 90, Issue 1, 1 June 19.

Philosophers have recently revived the study of the ancient Greek topics of virtue and the virtues—justice, honesty, temperance, friendship, courage, and so on as qualities of mind and character belonging to individual people. But one issue at the center of Greek moral theory seems to have dropped out of consideration. This is the question of the unity of virtue, the unity of the virtues. Must anyone who has one of these qualities have others of them as (...) well, indeed all of them—all the ones that really do deserve to be counted as virtues? Even further, is there really no set of distinct and separate virtuous qualities at all, but at bottom only a single one—so that the person who has this single condition of “virtue” is entitled also to the further descriptions “honest” and “well-controlled” and “just” and “friendly” and “courageous” and “fostering” and “supportive,” and so on, as distinguishable aspects or immediate effects of his unitary “virtue”? (shrink)

In the Republic Plato describes the best city; in the Laws, he describes what he calls the ’second-best city’. I argue that Magnesia, the city of the Laws, is second-best because she fails to promulgate a single concept of human virtue that transcends the allegedly separate virtues of men and women. Magnesia institutionalizes philosophy in the Nocturnal Council to mitigate the consequent ethical flaws, but excludes women from the Council and thus from philosophic inquiry. I show that this exclusion (...) of women is itself a consequence of Magnesia's moral failings. In imperfect cities, of which Magnesia is supposedly the best, reform of women's status is thus only possible within limits, and those limits on the improvement of women's status are limits on the goodness of political life. (shrink)

Kant’s concept of the highest good proportionately unites virtue and happiness—the supreme goods of, respectively, the systems of freedom and of nature. A middle path between theological and secular interpretations of Kant’s highest good is possible if we disentangle two distinct roles played by God: a causal role in promoting the real unity of the highest good, i.e., its actualization; and a conceptual role in modeling its conceptual unity. The highest good is theological in the first case, but (...) neutral—neither directly theological nor secular—in the second. Reconstructing how Kant envisioned the conceptual unity of the highest good requires taking seriously his repeated reference to God as the highest original good, and to the best world as the highest derived good. If, as Kant thought, a moral God forms a triadic unity comprised of holiness, goodness, and divine justice, perhaps he assumed that the conceptual unity of the derived good is likewise triadic, comprised of virtue, happiness, and a form of justice that is not directly divine but “systemic,” designating the unity of the systems of nature and of freedom. Divine justice, in contrast, constitutes the real unity of the highest good. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE UNITY OF THE VICES JONATHAN JACOBS Oolgate University, Hamilton, New York JOHN ZEIS Oanisius Ooilege, Buffalo, New York W:E SOMETIMES describe someone 1rus "just plain,, ' ' • • 0 " ' ' • • mean, or Just plam d1shonesit, orr JUSt pJam unw." Or we say" thaJt wrus ·a just plain ·stupid thing rto do.," G~a:liizing from tlhese and lik!e descriiptions, we can ask, are there (...) any "just plain" vices? By this I mean, are :amy vices pure, 1e.g., can rthere he Cl'lllelty hut nort injustice or in!t:Jempertance, intemperance hut no!t a £ailill'e orf pmctical wisdom, cowardice but not intemperance or injustice, and so on? Is therie perhaps a unity of the vices? Is each ;a col'l'IU!ption thrat involves the coITUpiting ctontriburtion of the othe'l'IS? If there is,a, run:iity of the vicies, then 1be:inig ra vicious individual is Il!Ort siinply 1a ma!bter o:f failing :across the dimensioill of one or rrunothe.r 1 Cihaa:iae1becisltic. ]t ms tan extensi,ve diaiilure, 1a unified (:if l[JIOrt toit.al) failure, even if it is most evident 1and preVialent in one or another •specific respecit. 'f1his iis not to isay thrut.theiie is just one vice,.any moil'!e 1than '!Jo.endorse the unity of it.he virtues is to reduce tth:em to Ollle. There.are many woes OOlld many virrbues, eaiCh respeotively h!ruving to do with dillemnt 1and variously!l'le1aibed crupacirties, motives, emotions, and tiiaiits. Yet, rut least with respect to the virtues a good caise can be mrude :that they.are unified, aind thrut ·AnisbotLe was oorrreot in concluding that practical wisdom :and viWtues of cha;riacter mum occur st quite 1 s1tably, even if '1llolt happily. In any case, we ail"e in 1 to:tal ag.rteemelllt with Geach when he 1sayis 1that ithaJt "If 1a man's ha1bit of sound moml judgme1J11t is virtiiafod anyiwhere, then :it is at risk eVierywhere; but not all dangel"s issue in disa1sit1e'f!s." 3 But 1thes1e dis1as!ters arie aV1eTted r.not because of,any moml str1ength of characil:er 1 th:ait the agent 1truly ihas bUJt heca:us1 e of a me11e inc1ilJJaition tues. 'Ilhe former may he very :firm ox srtable. Mo11eover the n:aituil'ally vi11tuous rindividual may giener1a1ly no1t he oornfused or.impeded maction by "b.ar:d easies" or nnvelty. Alt times he rmay, 1and lthien me may find his re1sourroes iinoompe1be!I1t O'I.' unoel 'l:Ja1in in 1bhreir direetives. Hut the main rpo:inlt of co111iCT'last is thait mo11al virtues 11eflieot 1a 1evel of 1agency wh1oh involves undersitanding 1and self-determin1ation engiaged 1 to t:hat undersltanding, 1a 1leviel tihJait tis 1ruhsen1t foom iinc1ination-grounded action. Na,tu11a1l vri:r1tues 1a1rie ll101t to he despised, 1 and 1aclts :thait fLorw 1f110m 1tJhem 1are not w:iithout moml Wiortlh. But, using the fangiuiage of Fr1a:nk£u:rt, mom1l virtues are oha1racter]s,tios thait refiecrt second order volitions.5 The aiotis: thait flow fil1om them •are not H11e reis:ult of ways one just hrupens to be. And the undeil'-,starnding involvred in moml vrntues makes mo'ral misdireotion 1 1es;s li1"ely. Again, mnswder suoh t.lrings rus mis1applied oomprussfon, or paiti:errce, whioh can involve u1mairness 1and imprudence. P1 errharpis it.is heoausie rbhe mo:rial V1mtueis rare unified that it is 1so hard to rbe 1good. They invo1vie a complex reperrto:We of judgmenits, d1sposi!tiorrs, and moti¥es. No one of them can he oomp1ete on its own, and wie c1an't oome to have 1 tJhem simply 1hy decis1on. One oan til.'y rbo he move coumgeous bU1t caill't ibring it rubout meriely hy init1emal eommanid. Self-imposrutiion in5 In " Freedom of the Will and 'The Concept of a Person," H. Frankfurt writes, "Someone has a desire of the second order when he wants simply to have a certain desire or when he wants a certain desire to be his will. In situations of the latter kind, I shall call his second-order desires "secondorder volitions" or " volitions of the second order." Now it is having... (shrink)

In the Protagoras, Socrates argues that all the virtues are the very same knowledge of human wellbeing so that virtue is all one. But elsewhere Socrates appears to endorse that the virtues-such as courage, temperance, and reverence-are different parts of a single whole. Ambiguity interpretations harmonize the conflicting texts by taking the virtue words to be equivocal, such as between theoretical and applied expertise, or between a power and its deeds. I argue that such interpretations have failed in (...) their specifics and in general, as I defend an alternative that takes into account Socrates' higher purpose in testing others, namely to show them their ignorance of virtue. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Notes and Discussions THE UNITY OF WISDOM AND TEMPERANCE The attempt of Socrates to establish the unity of the virtues has long been an object of philosophic suspicion. Particular attention has been directed to the argument at Protagoras 332a-333b, in which Socrates seeks to demonstrate the unity of wisdom and temperance, by showing that they must be identified as the contrary of folly. The argument (...) proceeds on the assumption that wisdom and temperance are distinct, and so terminates in a contradiction between 'Whatever admits of a contrary admits of one only' and 'Folly, which is one thing, has two contraries, wisdom and temperance.' Scholars have generally rejected Socrates' proof of the second of the contradictory propositions. However, in a recent paper, Professor David Savan has claimed that the contradiction is derived in a formally valid way from premisses which either need no argument or are accepted by Protagoras} My intent in this paper is to cast doubt on this claim, and so to restore the status quo. According to the critics, the weak point in the argument is Socrates' defence of the statement 'Foolish acts and temperate acts are contraries.' But Saran holds that this statement follows from three conditionals, all stated by Socrates and accepted by Protagoras. These conditionals, referred to by Savan as F G and H, will here be termed P1-3. P1 If an act is right and advantageous, then it is temperate. Symbolically: (r.a) D t P2 If an act is wrong, then it is foolish. w~f P3 If an act is foolish, then it is not temperate. fD -t From these, Saran argues, "it follows that 'An act is right' and 'An act is temperate ' are truth functionallyequivalent, as are 'An act is wrong' and 'An act is foolish'.... Since right and wrong are either contraries or contradictories, temperate and foolish acts must also be either contraries or contradictories" (p. 24). Savan then argues that Protagoras, on the basis of his remarks earlier in the dialogue, must take right and wrong to be contradictories, so that temperate and foolish actions are also contradictories, rather than contraries. I want first to consider whether the material equivalences alleged to follow from P1-3 do in fact follow. They may be symbolized: Clr~t C2w =f It is immediately clear that neither C1 nor C2 follows from P1-3. But this is not surprising, because some expression of the relation between 'right' and 'wrong' 1D. Saran, "Socrates'Logic and the Unity of Wisdom and Temperance," in R. J. Butler (ed.), AnalyticalPhilosophy,2nd series(Oxford: BasilBlackwell,1965),pp. 20-26. [157] 158 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY must appear among the premises. Since Savan raises the question whether 'right' and 'wrong' are contraries or contradictories only after he claims to establish C1 and C2, we may suppose that the argument should hold whichever relation we assume. If 'right' and 'wrong' are contraries we add the premise: P4A r D --w And ifthey are contradictorieswe add the stronger premise: P4B r -- --w But neither C1 nor C2 follows from PI-3 together with either P4A or P4B. However, it may be urged, the argument fails only because 'advantageous' has been treated as an independent term. P1 should be replaced by: PI* r ~ t We now find that PI*-3 and P4B are sufficientto derive C1 and C2. But PI*-3 and P4A do not suffice.The most we can establish, using only P4A, is the disjunction : C1 vC2r -- t-v-w -- f And this is useless for the purposes of Socrates' argument. One further way of strengthening the premises might be suggested. Instead of dropping 'advantageous' from the argument, one might take it as related both to 'right' and to 'foolish.' That is, one might introduce additional premises from the pairs: P5A r ~ a P5B r - a and: P6A a D -f P6B a ---- -f P5A, added to P1-3 and P4B, will suffice for the derivation of C1 and C2. But no combination of premises not including P4B will do; from P1-3, P4A, P5B and P6B, one can derive C1 but not C2. It is, therefore, necessary to modify Savan's claim in two fairly important... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Piety, Justice, and the Unity of VirtueMark L. McPherranNo doubt the Socrates of the Euthyphro would be delighted to encounter many of its readers, offering as they do an audience of piety-seeking interlocutors, eager to mend the dialogical breach created by Euthyphro’s sudden departure. Socrates’ enthusiasm for this pursuit is at least as intense and comprehensible as theirs. We are told, after all, that he will never abandon (...) his quest for knowledge of “what the pious is” (15c–16a), since not only is this enterprise both pious and “inconceivably happy” (cf. Ap. 41c3–4) in itself,1 but coming to understand piety would allow one to “live better the rest of one’s life,” (15e7–16a4), especially should its continuation be threatened by a charge of impiety (3b–d, 5a–c, 12e, 15e–16a).2 My own search here is no less happy and ambitious, since I wish to uncover Socrates’ own, implicit understanding of piety and its relation to his claim elsewhere that “the virtues are one.”3 The account of this I shall provide will also touch on Platonic piety, although this notion obviously rests on a tendentious distinction. Nevertheless, there do seem to be some interesting differences between the way piety is treated in elenctic dialogues such as the Euthyphro and Protagoras, and the more explicitly theory-laden, constructive works such as the Republic and Laws. I shall later characterize [End Page 299] these differences, primarily in terms of the more carefully articulated, internalist moral psychology of the Republic.42. SOCRATIC PIETYThe distinct phenomena the term “religion” popularly designates for us were for the Greeks seamlessly integrated into everyday life. Thus, it is natural that the term “piety”—εὐσέβεια—carried a wider sense than our English equivalent commonly does: it concerned not only one’s immediate relation to the gods—emphasizing proper religious conduct and carrying a sense of respect and fear towards divinity (concomitant with a grasp of one’s own mortal limits)—but also often designated appropriate behavior towards parents, native land, and the dead.5 It is to this rough, inclusive conception of piety that Euthyphro appeals when confronted by Socrates on the Porch of the King (2a–6a). Moreover, and despite his own shockingly irreverent attempt at father-bashing and the subsequent elenctic drubbing he then receives from Socrates, toward the close of the dialogue Euthyphro still manages to envision piety in the quasi-traditionalist fashion with which he began—as “a knowledge of how to ensure the preservation of families and states by gratifying the gods through proper prayer and sacrifice” (14b; cf. 14c–15c).6 It is, however, precisely [End Page 300] at this dramatic juncture (14a–c) that we find—arguably—the final elements of a Socratically-acceptable conception of piety; one that builds upon Euthyphro’s initial concession to Socrates that piety and “human justice” are to be distinguished from one another (11e–12e). This, in turn, is a move that in principle forces Euthyphro to disengage from those aspects of the traditional conception of piety which would—from Socrates’ perspective—conflate the two.7 Recent challenges to this reading, however, have seen in Euthyphro’s initial holism not the heterogeneous presumptions of popular thought, but a semi-sophisticated grasp of the Socratic unity of the virtues.8 And since it does appear that the character Euthyphro is designed to serve not only as a hubristically-inflated, Homeric “fundamentalist,” but as an odd and Sophistically-influenced doppelgänger of Socrates as well—a lesson, that is, in what Socrates both is and is not—it now seems worthwhile to reexamine the view that Socratic piety is but a part and not the whole of justice.9Turning to our text, then, we discover that following the failure of Euthyphro’s initial definitional attempts to specify the nature of pious action and the resulting aporetic interlude, Socrates is willing to offer Euthyphro renewed assistance (11e1–4). This he does by asking whether all the just is pious, or whether justice is broader than piety such that piety is then merely a “part” (μóϱιον) of justice (11e4–12e5). Subsequent to his explanation of these alternatives, Socrates... (shrink)

Some philosophers argue that throughout its long history, Confucian ethics have stressed character formation or personal cultivation of virtues. Thus, it seems appropriate to characterise Confucian ethics as ethics of virtue. in this book, the author attempts to critique the apparent similarity and show, on the contrary, that Confucian ethics are better conceived of as a unique kind of ethics, in which rule-based morality and virtues are united. Through a unique analysis of Confucian ethics and comparison between Confucian (...) ethics and some Western ethical theories, the author also hopes to generate suggestions and ideas on how to integrate or unify rule and virtue in one moral theory. (shrink)

306 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 34:2 APRIL ~996 exposition of Siris but also in the way he is able to tie it thematically to the earlier periods of Berkeley's life. Much of the content of this book has already appeared in articles published by Berman within the past twenty-odd years. Yet, since some this material resides in journals difficult of access without an excellent library, the volume is a welcome addi- tion to the Berkeley literature. In the enormous (...) wake of his mentor, A. A. Luce, Berman has carefully and skillfully plotted his own course, presenting us with a bal- anced and compelling account of Ireland's greatest philosopher, one in which the man is a more sympathetic and fallible figure that that presented in either Luce's portrait of the "good bishop"--"the man with vision but in no sense a visionary" --or Yeats's sketch of a darker and more devious character. While Berman's Berkeley is one who "united the incompatible virtues of worldly wisdom and childlike inno- cence," and had "a delicate sense of what was required if the world was to be changed" , Berman does not hesitate to examine Berkeley "at his worst: in his biblical endorsement of slavery; his approval of kidnapping for the sake of converting the American Indians; in his theological rejection of all rebellion, no matter how tyrannical the ruler; [and] in his intolerant attitude to free-thinkers" . Even for those who will be dissatisfied with.. (shrink)

Plato gives us two model philosophical figures, apparently in contrast with each other—one is the otherworldly philosopher who sees truth and reality outside the cave and has the knowledge to rule authoritatively within it; the other is the demotic figure of Socrates, who insists that he does not know but only asks questions. I consider Plato’s contrasting idioms of seeing and asking or talking, and argue that the rich account of perception that is represented in the Republic requires both idioms, (...) and both models, to explain the development of epistemic virtue. Furthermore, the conditions he places on the giving and taking of reasons show how Plato takes intellectual virtue to be inseparable from moral virtue. That integrated picture of virtue may—however disposed we may be towards the role of virtue in either ethics or epistemology—have something to say to us about how philosophy might best be carried on. (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)

Readers of Plato’s Republic are familiar with Glaucon and his role in prodding Socrates to strengthen his argument throughout the dialogue. It has been asserted on more than one occasion that Glaucon epitomizes the quality of spiritedness, and thus throughout the dialogue he is patiently guided by the taming hand of Socrates to a fuller awareness of justice and virtue. This paper will argue that Glaucon, as ‘Spiritedness Incarnate’, provides needed insight and important encouragement that strengthens Socrates’ positions in a (...) way that doesmore than simply ask those questions that enable the philosopher’s efforts to share his own wisdom. Rather, Glaucon, as Socrates’ younger companion, serves a role vital to the Republic’s overall achievement in several ways. Above all, the relationship between Socrates, Glaucon and the other participants of the dialogue together reflect the unity of the soul as the many become one. (shrink)

For Socrates, the virtues are a kind of knowledge, and the virtues form a unity. Sometimes, Socrates suggests that the virtues are all ‘one and the same’ thing. Other times, he suggests they are ‘parts of a single whole.’ I argue that the ‘what is x?’ question is sophisticated, it gives rise to two distinct kinds of investigations into virtue, a conceptual investigation into the ousia and a psychological investigation into the dunamis, Plato recognized the difference (...) between definitional accounts of the ousia and a psychological accounts of the dunamis, and the distinction between these two investigations can effectively resolve various interpretive puzzles regarding the unity of the virtues. It is argued that the virtues are ‘one and the same’ psychologically, while they are ‘parts of a single whole’ conceptually. (shrink)

In this essay, I show how the virtues, for Maximus the Confessor, contribute to the formation of a positive orientation toward (a deep and abiding desire for) the relevant epistemic goods (e.g., contemplation of God in and through nature, illumination of divine truths, wisdom, and experiential knowledge of God). The first section offers a brief overview of how three character-based virtue epistemologies envision the role of the intellectual virtues in the cognitive life. The second section draws attention to (...) Maximus’s understanding of the relationship between the virtues and the relevant epistemic goods. The third section argues that a relationship of this sort entails a seamless connection (though without confusion) between the practical and contemplative aspects of deiform existence. The fourth section clarifies how select virtues foster within the self a praiseworthy desire for the relevant epistemic goods. (shrink)