Table Of ContentElisa Grimi Editor
Virtue
Ethics:
Retrospect
and Prospect
Virtue Ethics: Retrospect and Prospect
Elisa Grimi
Editor
Virtue Ethics: Retrospect
and Prospect
123
Editor
Elisa Grimi
European Society for Moral Philosophy
Milan,Italy
ISBN978-3-030-15859-0 ISBN978-3-030-15860-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15860-6
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Contents
1 Some Questions About Virtue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
John Haldane
2 Virtue as the Order of Inner Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Margarita Mauri Alvarez
3 Virtues. The Aristotelian-Thomistic Line of Thinking. . . . . . . . . . . 27
Michael Wladika
4 The Soft Presence of Wittgenstein in Virtue Ethics
and His Hard Significance for Its Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Marco Damonte
5 The Humean Sentimentalist Learns from the Aristotelian
Anscombe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Michael Slote
6 Wisdom and the Origins of Moral Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Randall Curren
7 Some Complexities of Categorizing Character Traits . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Christian B. Miller
8 Does Virtue Ethics Allow Us to Make Better Judgments
of the Actions of Others? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Liezl van Zyl
9 Virtue Ethics, Teleology, and Religion in the Aristotelian
Tradition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Christopher D. Owens
10 Virtue Without Law? A Problem and Prospect
for Virtue Ethics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Scott J. Roniger
v
vi Contents
11 Liberal Perfectionism and the Virtues. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Michele Mangini
12 The Big Risk Behind the Explosion of Virtues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Elisa Grimi
13 Proliferating Virtues: A Clear and Present Danger?. . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Nancy E. Snow
14 Sacrifice in Eudaimonistic Virtue Ethics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
Christopher Toner
Editor and Contributors
About the Editor
Elisa Grimi is Executive Director of the European Society for Moral Philosophy,
the Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Philosophical News, and Project
Manager of philojotter.com. On May 30, 2014, she received the Paolo Michele
Erede Foundation First Prize with a work on “Politics and Network”. She has
studied and worked at various universities throughout the world, in countries
including Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, England, France, and the United
States. She is the author of numerous publications, including her first Italian
monograph G.E.M. Anscombe: The Dragon Lady (Cantagalli, 2014) with direct
testimonies, G.E.M. Anscombe. Guida alla lettura di Intention (Carocci 2018),
co-author with Rémi Brague of Contro il cristianismo e l’umanismo. Il perdono
dell’Occidente (Cantagalli, 2016), and editor of the collection Tradition as the
Future for Innovation (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016), of the Dossier La
philosophie de l’humilité (Recherches Philosophiques, ICT, 2017), and of
Metaphysics of Human Rights 1948–2018: On the Occasion of the 70th
Anniversary of the UDHR (Vernon Press 2019). E-mail: [email protected]
Contributors
Margarita Mauri Alvarez University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
Randall Curren University of Rochester, New York, USA
Marco Damonte University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy
Elisa Grimi European Society for Moral Philosophy, Milan, Italy
John Haldane Baylor University, Waco, USA;
University of St Andrews, Fife, UK
vii
viii EditorandContributors
Michele Mangini Department of Law, University of Bari, Bari, Italy
Christian B. Miller Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, USA
Christopher D. Owens St. John’s University, New York City, USA
Scott J. Roniger Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, USA
Michael Slote University of Miami, Miami, USA
Nancy E. Snow University of Oklahoma, Norman, USA
Christopher Toner University of St. Thomas, Saint Paul, MN, USA
Liezl van Zyl University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand
Michael Wladika International Theological Institute (ITI), Trumau, Austria;
University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Introduction
In recent years, increasing attention has been given to the philosophical school
calledVirtueEthics.1Formany,thiswouldbeseenasagoodthing:asignthatthe
world isreturning on a path toward good moral values. But is this really the case?
Virtues, understood in their original meaning (following first Aristotle and then
Thomas Aquinas), need to be nurtured and require time. The cultivation of virtue
requires the subject to develop, change, and grow; thus, it is impossible for this to
occur without a telos and a destination. Consequently, virtue makes an entrance in
the living subject in a humble, modest way, and—importantly—in an unfinished
way. Later, and through habitual effort, virtues gradually increase in the subject
toward their full realization.
In current times, however, the motivations accompanying the resurgence of
conversations about virtue in both academic and popular circles are perhaps less
than virtuous. Rather than a process of the subject becoming more fully in accor-
dance with their telos, “virtue” has become an economic exchange, a hasty com-
pulsion to offer a completed image of the subject, a subject that appears both fully
realizedandsplendidlyvirtuousineveryaspect.Insuchasociety,wherecompanies
triumph in their efficiency, in their ability to provide their clients with everything
theywant,andveryoftenanticipatingtheirdesires(whetherornotthesearedesires
are good is another question), peoples’ characters are shaped in the mold that the
societyhasestablishedforthem.Therenewedattentionsomescholarsaregivingto
the subject of virtues is precisely an expression of this distorted phenomenon.
Paradoxically,whattheyproposetodayisatypeofprepackaged,ready-madevirtue
ethics, without the telos moving the question in the subjects and without the
aspiration to a final destination being stirred up within them. This ultimately leads
to an absurdly non-virtuous virtue ethics.
1SeeS.Hampshire,1949.“FallaciesinMoralPhilosophy”,inMind,58,232,Oct.,pp.466–482;
G.E.M.Anscombe,1958.“ModernMoralPhilosophy”,inPhilosophy,33,194,January.Sull’uso
di questa espressione see: M. Nussbaum, 1999 “Virtue Ethics: A Misleading Category”, in The
JournalofEthics,3,3,p.163–201.
ix
x Introduction
In response to this proposal, the present volume was conceived out of a vital
necessity to reveal the risk concealed behind this sort of “enthusiasm” in the way
thatvirtueethicsisbeingpromotedinbothacademiaandtheworld.Alongsidethis,
the work also advances a positive contribution to unveil the richness belonging to
virtue, when this term is properly considered. When speaking of virtue in ethics,
humble thought is required, and so an underlying premise in this study is Dietrich
von Hildebrand’s distinctive method of disrobing before reality, his humble
approach of true reflection: «Philosophy implies a wondering about its object. In
philosophy, one “wakes up” in a special way. When a man embarks upon a
philosophical analysis of the world, he begins to stare at the world in wonder,
instead of taking it for granted».2
In order to promote an authentic renewal in virtue ethics, a twofold approach is
takeninthiswork:“RetrospectandProspect”.Inthefirstapproach,welooktothe
pastinordertoseeahistoryoftheconcept.Inthisway,thevolumeisausefultool
forunderstandinghowtheconceptofvirtuehasdevelopedthroughouttheages,and
come to see that there is a real current which emerges in philosophy under a new
category called “virtue ethics”. In the second approach, we look at the human
subject,startingfromapersonalstory—alife,withitsjoysanddifficulties,sweetor
bitter—on the path that tends toward its realization. What does this fullness mean,
toward which all yearn? What does it mean to be virtuous? Are vices and virtues
simplydefinitionsforsomethingthatiseitheronthepathorelseinterfereswiththe
same realizationofthesubject? The themeisof amoralnature:isvirtue an empty
name or is it something that belongs essentially to everyone? How do we define
“virtue”? How is it present in particular actions?
Alloftheessayshavethissharedpurpose:tounderstandthereasonforthebold
return to this important concept in the history of thought. There are some authors
who accomplish this by starting from a historical excursus, while others prefer a
dialectic. Regardless of method, what unites the different contributions is the
common aim of enabling the reader to understand that this resurgence of “virtue
ethics”isnotjustafad;andfurther,thatunderlyingsucharesurgenceispowerfully
hidden, as it were, an explosion, bringing with it risks, rewards, and also some
obstacles to overcome along the way.
JohnHaldaneintroducesustothethemeofvirtues.Inhisessay,hefirstshows
how thethemeofvirtues hasmaturedwithinthehistory ofthoughtandwhy ithas
found its success. Haldane proposes a brief historical excursus starting from the
recent Anglophone philosophy and emphasizes how the term “virtue” did not
resurfaceuntilveryrecently.Heunderlines,forexample,itsabsenceintheworkof
Vernon J. Bourke, History of Ethics. The development of Virtue Ethics is not
somethingtobetakenforgranted:likeallhistorical–philosophicalparadigms,ithas
also found its thrust, thanks to its antagonists. Haldane recalls the celebrated work
of Alasdair MacIntyre, A Short History of Ethics, highlighting the multiple entries
of “virtue” and “vice”, a factor that will certainly result in the publication of the
2D.vonHildebrand,1991.Whatisphilosophy?,bilingualedition(English–Italian).London–New
York:Routledge,p.438.
