Table Of ContentSelf- Transcendence and Virtue
“This unique volume is a timely interdisciplinary exploration of an essential
human characteristic and its corresponding moral excellence— self- transcendence
and virtue. A brilliant group of philosophers, religious scholars, and psychologists
set out to display in fascinating ways the complex nature of human self-
transcendence and its profound moral implications.”
— Reinhard Huetter, The Catholic University of America , USA
Recent research in the humanities and social sciences suggests that individuals who
understand themselves as belonging to something greater than the self—a family,
community, or religious or spiritual group— often feel happier, have a deeper sense
of purpose or meaning in their lives, and have overall better life outcomes than
those who do not. Some positive and personality psychologists have labeled this
location of the self within a broader perspective “self-t ranscendence.” This book
presents and integrates new, interdisciplinary research into virtue, happiness,
and the meaning of life by re- orienting these discussions around the concept of
self- transcendence.
The essays are organized around three broad themes connected to self-
transcendence. First, they investigate how self-t ranscendence helps us to
understand aspects of the moral life as it is studied within psychology, including
the development of wisdom, the practice of moral praise, and psychological
well- being. Second, they explore how self- transcendence is linked to virtue in
different religious and spiritual traditions including Judaism, Islam, Christianity,
Buddhism, and Confucianism. Finally, they ask how self- transcendence can help
us theorize about Aristotelean and Thomist conceptions of virtue, like hope and
piety, and how this helps us to re- conceptualize happiness and meaning in life.
Jennifer A. Frey is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of South
Carolina. Her main areas of research lie at the intersection of theories of agency,
rationality, ethics, and law, with a particular emphasis on the relations among
virtue, practical reason, and happiness. She has ten publications in venues
such as A nalytic Philosophy , E rgo , T he Journal of the History of Philosophy ,
International Journal of Philosophical Studies , and in multiple edited volumes.
She is the PI of several grants, including a $2.1 million research project titled
Virtue, Happiness, and the Meaning of Life. She is currently editing a volume
titled Practical Reason, Truth, and Knowledge, and is writing a monograph titled
Action, Virtue, and Human Good .
Candace Vogler is the David B. and Clara E. Stern Professor of Philosophy at
The University of Chicago. She is the author of John Stuart Mill’s Deliberative
Landscape: An Essay in Moral Psychology (Routledge), Reasonably Vicious, and
essays in ethics, social philosophy, and other areas.
Routledge Studies in Ethics and Moral Theory
Moral Skepticism
New Essays
Edited by Diego E. Machuca
Explaining Right and Wrong
A New Moral Pluralism and Its Implication
Benjamin Sachs
Determined by Reasons
A Competence Account of Acting for a Normative Reason
Susanne Mantel
Ethics and Self- Cultivation
Historical and Contemporary Perspectives
Edited by Matthew Dennis and Sander Werkhoven
Moral Reality and the Empirical Sciences
Thomas Pölzler
Moral Evil in Practical Ethics
Edited by Shlomit Harrosh and Roger Crisp
Kant and Parfit
The Groundwork of Morals
Husain Sarkar
Perspectives on Empathy
Theoretical Approaches and Emerging Challenges
Edited by Derek Matravers and Anik Waldow
Putting Others First
The Christian Ideal of Others- Centeredness
T. Ryan Byerly
Methodology and Moral Philosophy
Edited by Jussi Suikkanen and Antti Kauppinen
Self- Transcendence and Virtue
Perspectives From Philosophy, Psychology, and Theology
Edited by Jennifer A. Frey and Candace Vogler
For more information about this series, please visit: w ww.routledge.com/
Routledge- Studies- in- Ethics- and- Moral- Theory/book- series/SE0423
Self- Transcendence and
Virtue
Perspectives From Philosophy,
Psychology, and Theology
Edited by
Jennifer A. Frey and Candace Vogler
First published 2019
by Routledge
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Contents
Acknowledgments vii
I ntroduction 1
JENNIFER A. FREY AND CANDACE VOGLER
PART I
Perspectives From Philosophy 13
1 Epiphanic Moral Conversions: Going Beyond Kohlberg
and Aristotle 15
KRISTJÁN KRISTJÁNSSON
2 Fundamental Hope, Meaning, and Self- Transcendence 39
NANCY E. SNOW
3 Aquinas on Sin, Self- Love, and Self- Transcendence 62
JENNIFER A. FREY
4 The Place of Virtue in a Meaningful Life 84
CANDACE VOGLER
PART II
Perspectives From Theology 93
5 Law, Virtue, and Self- Transcendence in Jewish Thought
and Practice 95
DAVID SHATZ
vi Contents
6 Piety and Virtue in Early Islam: Two Sermons
by Imam Ali 125
TAHERA QUTBUDDIN
7 The Common Good in Aristotle and Aquinas 154
KEVIN L. FLANNERY
8 Ethical Supernaturalism 173
ANGELA KNOBEL
9 Confucian Excellence 190
OWEN FLANAGAN
10 Virtue, Self-T ranscendence, and Liberation in Yoga and
Buddhism 203
MATTHEW MACKENZIE
PART III
Perspectives From Psychology 223
11 Wisdom Develops From Experiences That Transcend
the Self 225
HOWARD C. NUSBAUM
12 “I Am What Survives Me”: Generativity and the Self 251
DAN P. MCADAMS
13 Reacting to Transcendence: The Psychology of
Moral Praise 274
RAJEN A. ANDERSON, DAVID A. PIZARRO, AND KATHERINE D. KINZLER
List of Contributors 291
Index 297
Acknowledgments
The editors wish to extend their sincere gratitude to the following
institutional partners for supporting the two-d ay capstone conference of
the Virtue, Happiness, and the Meaning of Life project, held in October
2017 at The University of Chicago, which allowed for the initial pre-
sentation and feedback of much of the work that appears in this vol-
ume: The Chicago Center for Practical Wisdom, the Committee on Social
Thought, the Lumen Christi Institute, the Martin Marty Center, the
Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society, The University of Chicago
Department of Philosophy, The University of Chicago Divinity School,
and The University of Chicago Division of Humanities.
We further acknowledge the John Templeton Foundation for its
generous financial support of that meeting, as well as our four cross-
disciplinary working group meetings of philosophers, theologians, and
psychologists that took place from Fall 2015 through Spring 2017 at The
University of Chicago and the University of South Carolina. These meet-
ings were the main intellectual context in which the work put forward in
this volume took shape over the duration of the Virtue, Happiness, and
the Meaning of Life project [grant #56194]. The editors also gratefully
acknowledge the project co-d irectors, Jaime Hovey and Valerie Wallace,
who principally organized and oversaw all events on our project. Both
editors further acknowledge the editorial assistance provided by Jaime
Hovey, Paula Lee, and Valerie Wallace in the preparation of this volume.
Finally, Jennifer Frey wishes to acknowledge the help of her research
assistant, Adam Omelianchuk.
Introduction
Jennifer A. Frey and Candace Vogler
One hallmark of much contemporary philosophical theorizing about
virtue and happiness is the centrality of concepts of individual benefit.
Neo-A ristotelian philosophers in particular tend to expect that virtuous lives
will be happy and meaningful precisely because they are good (A nnas,
1993 , 2006; Hursthouse, 1999 ; McDowell, 1979, 1980 ; Foot, 2001 ,
2004 ). We are told that if we want to be happy, then virtue is a safe bet.
Scant attention has been paid to the fact that virtue and happiness have
traditionally been conceived as securing what we call “self- transcendent
goods,” these being goods that can often demand great personal sacrifice
from individuals for the sake of something “greater than the self,” and
whose benefits are not easily or best understood in terms of individual
benefit or well-b eing. The importance of the enduring value of such goods
across philosophical traditions is very difficult to fit into the conception
of happiness put forward by many contemporary virtue ethicists. This
volume seeks to recover the traditional importance of self-t ranscendence
to human life and happiness. The essays in this volume are animated by
the conviction that happy and meaningful lives are in various ways self-
transcendent and that happiness in the deep sense of e udaimonia is itself
a self- transcendent good.
Our conviction that virtue is essentially related to self-t ranscendence
has grown out of engagement with research throughout the humani-
ties and the social sciences that has continued to suggest that individu-
als who understand themselves to be practically oriented to something
greater than the self— a family with a long history and the prospect of
future generations, a spiritual practice oriented towards due reverence
for the sacred and the need to live right by and be consciously united to
others, work on behalf of social justice and the improvement of one’s
community— often feel happier, have a deeper sense of purpose and
meaning in their lives, and have overall better life outcomes than those
who do not (M cAdams & Olson, 2009; B auer, McAdams, & Pals, 2008 ;
Wong, 2012 ). Some psychologists have labeled this necessity of locating
one’s self within a broader context “self-t ranscendence.” In this volume,
we emphasize the need to develop a new theoretical approach to virtue,
