Virtue Ethics

Education as a Thick Epistemic Concept (ETEC) is a thick epistemology project that highlights the role of education in both epistemic virtues acquirement and motivation. In this paper, I argue that ETEC is not satisfactory because it relies on a version of Virtue Responsibilism (VR) that is also not plausible, in so far as it relies on the premise that both the motivation and the action-guidedness of epistemic and moral virtues are unified. By rejecting this unification premise, I show that (...) an epistemically virtuous person is not necessarily a morally virtuous/caring person either. It might happen to be the case that an epistemically virtuous person is also a morally virtuous person. However, there is no necessary connection between the two since there can be a sharp gap between their motivation and their action-guidedness. I also argue that there are bad forms of education that can further sharpen the gap between epistemic and moral virtues, further undermining ETEC. Thus, when it comes to education, a thick epistemology project should consider how different forms of education can sharpen the gap in the motivation and the action-guidedness of different types of virtues developed by learners. (shrink)

How should we interact with people in echo chambers? Recently, some have argued that echo-chambered individuals are not entitled to civility. Civility is the virtue whereby we communicate respect for persons to manage our profound disagreements with them. But for civil exchanges to work, people must trust one another and their testimony. Therefore, some argue, we can be moderately uncivil towards those in echo chambers who are unlikely to trust our attempts to be civil. I argue against this position. I (...) suggest the focus should be on trying to rebuild these social relationships in alignment with the Confucian value of harmony. In this tradition, we aim to manage social relationships with disagreeable others by turning inward and cultivating certain dispositions in ourselves: open-mindedness, amenability, tactfulness, and courage. I argue this helps us craft a concept of ‘reparative civility’: an ideal for managing our fraught social relations in a world of echo chambers. (shrink)

Though courage is widely regarded as a core virtue there is controversy over what kinds of acts are courageous. Moreover, some see courageous acts as necessarily good, whereas others believe that some acts can be both courageous and bad. We examine this disagreement and argue that it largely rests on two sorts of confusion or misunderstanding. We examine this disagreement and argue that it largely rests on two sorts of confusion or misunderstanding. One regards differences in the descriptor under which (...) the act is seen: acts can be comprehended under several different descriptors, all of which may be appropriate but support different courage evaluations. The other involves differences in uses of the term courage: the term serves two fundamentally different functions and involves two different concepts. One, process courage, is the use of the term to refer to the psychological mechanisms or processes whereby people act in the face of risk for perceived good. The other, accolade courage, is a form of acknowledgment - the use of the term to draw attention to the action or the actor and commend one or the other. We identify various sorts of support for this process/accolade distinction. We then conclude by outlining several important contributions these distinctions offer for research and social debate. Attention to differences in descriptors and functions of the term courage will improve both research and social discourse on the virtue of courage. (shrink)

Despite the tremendous growth of interest in both emotion and character in recent years, little has been said about the relation between the two. I argue that emotions have a proximal and fundamental role in determining character. The proximal role consists in the effects of emotion on the way that a person perceives and ensuingly cognizes the object of emotion. This plays a significant part in determining character-relevant actions. The fundamental role consists in the function that emotions have in sustaining (...) values on which character traits are based. Emotions enable character traits to persist by maintaining the importance of these values and thus countering “axiological entropy,” which is the diminution over time of the tacit sense of importance of such values. Emotions are thus essential to the possession of character traits, and character development involves developing an appropriate emotional repertoire. (shrink)

This chapter delves into the intricate relationships among engineering, technology, ethics, and morality, highlighting their interconnected nature as they shape and are shaped by individual and collective human existence. Exploring the profound philosophical and religious underpinnings that underlie ethical and moral contemplation, the chapter also introduces seven distinct ethical systems, emphasizing three non-Western paradigms: South American Buen Vivir, African Ubuntu, and Asian Confucianism. These ethical systems are examined in the context of their implications for technology and engineering. This exposition illuminates (...) the significance of studying ethics and the philosophy of engineering or technology, particularly in using engineering to help marginalized individuals and communities empower and liberate themselves, fostering alternative social structures and existential meanings. (shrink)

Do we have a unified pre-theoretical concept of _morality_? This paper makes a start on the larger argument that we do not, by countering criticisms of virtue ethics on the ground that it does not adequately capture such a pre-theoretical concept. One criticism is discussed and met, namely that the reasons on which virtuous people act fail to have the special force of _moral_ reasons.

In his masterpiece, After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre criticizes Kant's ethics from a virtue ethical perspective, making reference to the "ethic of rules," "rigorism," "formalism," as well as his "inadequate conception of human reason." However, Onora O'Neill, Marcia W. Baron, and Nafsika Athanassoulis point out that MacIntyre's critique of Kant's ethics is based on a partial understanding of Kant's ethical works and suffers from his neglect of Kant's later work Metaphysical First Principles of the Doctrine of Virtue (1797), which misshapes his (...) conception of the "duties of virtue." This paper analyzes Kant's conception of the "duties of virtue" with a view to responding to MacIntyre's critique of Kant's ethics, and thus softening the differences between Kant's ethics and virtue ethics. (shrink)

In recent decades, P. F. Strawson’s “Freedom and Resentment” (1962) has had an enormous influence on philosophical views of moral responsibility. Many contemporary views follow Strawson in centering questions of responsibility on the appropriateness of certain attitudes in our interpersonal relations, especially attitudes of blame and anger, rather than on the abstract nature of free will. Strawson’s influence has in many ways been beneficial, but the prevailing Strawsonian views have taken on some of the more dubious tendencies of contemporary moral (...) philosophy. Among them is the tendency to think of our ethical relations narrowly in terms of the sort of respect that we owe friends and strangers alike, while neglecting attitudes of concern and understanding. This tendency distorts our views of our ethical relations and how we should respond to one another’s wrongful conduct. To correct those distortions, I retrieve insights from older traditions of ethical thought—especially Platonic, Stoic, and Christian traditions—which give love and understanding a central place in our ethical relations, along with respect. These traditions, which have profoundly shaped the development of Western ethical thought, are unduly neglected in contemporary moral philosophy. By joining the insights of these traditions with the insights of Strawsonian views of responsibility, I believe we can articulate a more complete and compelling view of ethical life and responsibility. (shrink)

The virtue development literature often draws on the language of goal-directed automaticity and flow states in discussions of virtue. This article examines the attentional features of various virtues and argues that only some virtuous actions can be adequately described in these terms. It proposes a distinction between three kinds of virtuous actions—flow state actions, deliberative actions, and presence actions—which have varying attentional features, bodily reliance, and conscious reasoning in virtue performance. Then the article motivates these distinctions as important, describing how (...) one might take on-board these classifications in character education, providing a more tailored development of virtues. (shrink)

Scholars who mention the turn to Aristotelian virtue ethics in the Mid-Twentieth Century tend to cite G. E. M. Anscombe’s famous ‘complaint’, and sometimes Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue. It is less usual to write of Roger Scruton. Placed in the context of Bernard Williams and John Casey’s works – at the intersection of moral philosophy and the philosophy of the emotions – Scruton’s theory of the imagination is shown to concern the rationality of moral attitudes. In short, it concerns virtue (...) ethics. Of broader interest, following Scruton’s arguments, his aesthetics may be conceived as concerning stores of moral knowledge; this is by virtue of the sensuous conditioning of the thought-content of moral judgement. The centrality of imitation to Aristotelian ethics, in other words, finds its concomitant in the object of imitation as the artwork. It is my view that Scruton’s work, Art and Imagination (his PhD thesis of 1973), is an attempt to provide a framework for the judgement involved in virtue ethics, concerning both intentionality and object. (shrink)

I offer a reconstructive reading of Ṭūsī’s (1201-1274) account of natural goodness in the Naserian Ethics. I show that Ṭūsī’s version of Aristotelian ethics is especially well-suited to accommodate an intuition that is hard to integrate into a theory of natural goodness: human good is nobler or more elevated than animal and vegetative goods. To do this, I analyze Ṭūsī’s discussion of the relationship between different kinds of perfection from non-living material compounds to vegetative, animal, human, and divine beings. I (...) close by noting that, depending on our reading of Ṭūsī’s conception of di-vine beings and their perfection, his proposal might come at a cost to his Aristotelian naturalist ambitions for ethics. (shrink)

This book is the first to introduce readers to contemporary philosophical works on moral judgement stemming from France, Germany and the Anglo-American world – many of which remain untranslated. By integrating Kantian and Aristotelian reflections on this subject, the author combines historiography and critical reflection to offer a rich picture of what it means to make good moral decisions. As both Kantians and Aristotelians argue, moral judgements are ultimately grounded in the normativity of practical identities. Thus, it is by identifying (...) the obligations tied to the multiple dimensions of our identities (e.g., friend, teacher, romantic partner, citizen) that we can ultimately understand how we ought to act. Yet, Aristotle and Kant also remind us that doing so requires the acquisition of moral virtues which allow us to better discern practical reasons in concrete situations. (shrink)

Advances in artificial intelligence and robotics stand to change many aspects of our lives, including our values. If trends continue as expected, many industries will undergo automation in the near future, calling into question whether we can still value the sense of identity and security our occupations once provided us with. Likewise, the advent of social robots driven by AI, appears to be shifting the meaning of numerous, long-standing values associated with interpersonal relationships, like friendship. Furthermore, powerful actors’ and institutions’ (...) increasing reliance on AI to make decisions that may affect how people live their lives may have a significant impact on privacy while also raising issues about algorithmic transparency and human control. In this paper, building and expanding on previous works, we will look at how the deployment of Artificial Intelligence technology may lead to changes in identity, security, and other crucial values (such as friendship, fairness, and privacy). We will discuss what challenges we may face in the process, while critically reflecting on whether such changes may be desirable. Finally, drawing on a series of considerations underlying virtue ethics, we will formulate a set of preliminary suggestions, which—we hope—can be used to more carefully guide the future roll out of AI technologies for human flourishing; that is, for social and moral good. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Leibniz's ethics is a kind of virtue ethics where virtues of the agent are explanatorily primary. I first examine how Leibniz obtained his conception of justice as a kind of love in an early text, Elements of Natural Law. I show that in this text Leibniz's goal was to find a satisfactory definition of justice that could reconcile egoism with altruism, and that this was achieved through the Aristotelian virtue of friendship where friends treat (...) each other as “other selves.” Following this decisive moment, Leibniz adopted an Aristotle‐inspired ethical framework where the virtuous agent is central for moral evaluations. I then show that, despite certain developments, Leibniz's ethics retained this essential feature throughout his career. In Leibniz's later writings, God constitutes the foundation of the moral realm, and the fundamental moral endeavor of human beings consists in the imitation of God. (shrink)

In the theological tradition of St. Thomas Aquinas, this paper will argue that the practical actions of studying, contemplation, and teaching sacred theology are acts proper to the infused Christian virtue of religion. To understand this, the framework of Thomistic moral theology and anthropology is necessary. After introducing this background, St. Thomas’s understanding of the virtue of justice is explained alongside the virtue of religion, which is a potential part of this cardinal virtue. The second part of the paper moves (...) into a description of the practical actions of theologizing, as distinguished from the essential nature of sacred theology. The way that these actions are variously elicited or commanded by the infused virtue of religion are then shown to be properly due to God as His just right. (shrink)

This article proposes a metaethical route from neo-Aristotelian naturalism, as developed in particular by Philippa Foot, to virtue-ethical longtermism. It argues that the metaethical assumptions of neo-Aristotelian naturalism inherently imply that a valid description of the life-form of a species must satisfy a formal requirement of internal sustainability. The elements of a valid life-form description then serve as a normative standard. Given that humans have the ability to influence the fate of future generations and know about their influence, this article (...) posits that our future as a species becomes a part of the description of the human life-form. Consequently, in our case, the sustainability requirement is extended into the future, leading to a minimal and humanist version of longtermism. As in Rosalind Hursthouse’s naturalistic virtue ethics, the focus of the proposed virtue-ethical longtermism remains on developing virtues as the only reliable way for the agent to achieve the good life. However, since what can count as virtue must be compatible with a life-form description that, taken as a whole, facilitates the long-term survival of our species, this position still implies a genuine longtermism, although it contrasts with the quantifying and maximizing logic of consequentialism. (shrink)

The book concerns the topic of the common good (bonum commune).

The article concerns the influence of Thomas Aquinas' ethics on the ethics of contemporary analytical philosophy.

The article concerns the anthropological presuppositions of Virtue Ehics.

An essay review of David McPherson's book "The Virtues of Limits". After summarising the main claims, I suggest some points of contact with the Buddhist and Confucian traditions. I then argue that McPherson should draw out the pessimism latent in his discussion, and be more sympathetic to varieties of moral quietism.

The article concerns the relationship between the concept of phronesis in Aristotle and that of prudentia in Thomas Aquinas.

Eine neutrale Einführung in die Tugendethik – den ältesten ethischen Ansatz in der Philosophiegeschichte, der auf Aristoteles und Platon zurückgeht, aber seit der Aufklärung an Bedeutung verlor. Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts erlebte die Tugendethik eine Renaissance und gilt heutzutage, neben dem Konsequentialismus und der Deontologie, als eines der drei großen Paradigmen der normativen Ethik. Die Rolle der Tugend im Sinne der Vortrefflichkeit des Charakters und des Verstandes lässt sich dabei von verschiedenen (meta-)ethischen Positionen aus begründen. Die vorliegende Einführung führt im (...) Rahmen einer neuen Systematik in die Vielzahl der tugendethischen Ansätze ein – verständlich, übersichtlich und mit einem Fokus auf moderne Ansätze. (shrink)

Michael B. Gill’s A Philosophy of Beauty: Shaftesbury on Nature, Virtue, and Art focuses on Shaftesbury’s thinking about nature, religion, morality, and art. This beautifully and engagingly written book is insightful for scholars and general readers alike, and invites readers to explore the philosophical issues that arise from Shaftesbury’s philosophy. Gill not only shows how Shaftesbury’s ideas were revolutionary at the turn of the eighteenth century but also how they remain relevant today. Shaftesbury’s major work, Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, (...) Times, was one of the most influential books published during the first half of the eighteenth century. According to Gill, “[i]t played a momentous role in turning European thought away from the negative and toward the positive—in nature, religion, morality, and art” (1). Although Characteristicks serves as a major source, Gill also engages with numerous other published and unpublished writings by Shaftesbury. A Philosophy of Beauty is divided into five chapters which focus respectively on nature and God, virtue, art, painting, and writing. (shrink)

The complexity and emotional/psychological responses to the environmental challenges of the 21st century has led to the coining and development of new words and concepts that, for some people, better describe how they are personally grappling with anthropogenic ecosystem damage and climate breakdown. This paper identifies some of the more commonly used environmental neologisms within scholarly literature and evaluates their usefulness and contradictions for those influenced by the virtue ethics promoted by the ancient Stoics and the Catholic Church. We find (...) that environmental neologisms, when framed by these philosophical and/or theological ideas, offer an alternative and, ultimately, helpful means to contemplate the nature of what might be considered an environmental crisis and how best we might address, or at least, mitigate it, as conscientious spiritual human beings. (shrink)

In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ teaches that God will only forgive [aphiemi] us if we forgive [aphiemi] others; however, it’s hard to understand why God would only forgive us conditionally and yet expect us to forgive unconditionally. I argue that understanding aphiemi as not counting a person’s sin against their relative moral standing makes sense of Christ's teaching.

The ancient Greek philosopher and teacher Aristotle was the founder of the Lyceum, a school in Athens dedicated to the study of nature and philosophical inquiry for over a hundred years. In opposition to his own teacher, Plato, Aristotle developed a metaphysical and ethical theory based on the view that human beings are embodied creatures, not merely thinking things. In doing so, he clarified and expanded the concept of virtue, developing a theory of virtue that has impacted how we think (...) about mental states, states of wellbeing, and states of moral character. In Book II of his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle explains how we learn good (or bad) habits through experience, education, and training. Pleasure and pain provide starting points for us, because they help orient us toward the good, but eventually our primary motivation should be to do good because it is good. Excellent habits are those that cause us to react in neither excessive nor deficient ways to the things around us. Once we have the right motivation to do good because it is good, and once our habitual righteous action exemplifies our stable character, we are virtuous and thriving people. (shrink)

Mortality seems important in explaining the value of virtues. It seems that courage is valuable because we face dangers of death and pain, just as it seems temperance is valuable because we can harm our health by overindulgence. This poses a serious problem for Christian ethics. If the virtues are valuable because they ameliorate harms stemming from limitations like mortality, then the virtues will lose much of their value in the new creation, where those limitations are no more. This chapter (...) argues that the threat is serious, and requires the rethinking of the fundamental value of the virtues. The virtues are not, first and foremost, the dispositions that allow us to improve the broken world we live in, but precisely those dispositions necessary for enjoying ideal or perfect conditions. (shrink)

Research has shown that when healthcare providers have the time to show their patients compassion, medical outcomes not only improve, but unnecessary costs are reduced as well. At the same time, compassion also helps curtail physician burnout, as connecting with patients makes doctors happier and more fulfilled. But due to an emphasis on efficiency and increased medical surveillance, many doctors already say that they do not have enough time for compassion in their clinical routines. If compassion plays a significant role (...) in providing quality healthcare, then that needs to change. (shrink)

Traditional forms of Christianity often portray the saints as examples of what we should try to become. However, it is not clear how we should engage with the examples of saints whose spirituality is bound up with practices that are inappropriate for most people. If we copy a saint’s exact behavior, then we will likely end up imitating traits that are inappropriate for us. Alternatively, if we don’t try to replicate any particular features of a saint, then it’s hard to (...) explain what purpose the saint’s particular example is serving. To solve this puzzle, I sketch a triadic model of how engaging with the lives of the saints can help us become like them. On this model, a penitent becomes like a saint in an indirect way by engaging in a certain kind of three-way relationship with God and the saint. This model preserves the relevance of a saint’s particular way of being a saint to the process of becoming like the saint, but it does so without requiring one to directly imitate the saint’s specific features. (shrink)

I evaluate the ways in which feminist philosophy intersects with the major strands of contemporary virtue ethics, especially neo-Aristotelian and sentimentalist versions of virtue ethics. I note the common strands of thought present in both feminist philosophy and virtue ethics, and I show how two important elements of feminist thought might fit within various virtue ethics frameworks. I consider whether virtue ethics can account for the full range of women's lived experiences and also whether virtue ethics is capable of giving (...) an account of justice adequate to explain the wrongness of oppression. I conclude with some speculations about the future of feminist virtue ethics. (shrink)

Wellbeing is classically considered a bi-product or externality of economic activity, which can either be positively or negatively influenced. This conventional view is returning to the fore in the face of renewed criticisms of ESG reporting standards as leading business astray from its core financial purpose. However, such reactivism overlooks the fact that wellbeing is the functional and overarching aim of human activity, which Aristotle defines as self-actualization. As such, any sound economic system must, in a fundamental way, enhance individual (...) and collective wellbeing. This essay calls for reinforcing social purpose commitments through a capitalism rooted in moral self-awareness in which the common good displaces profit as the sole function of business. According to this picture, profit maintains its proper place as the means of economic transactions, allowing social purpose to take up its proper place as business' central aim. (shrink)

In this new kind of introduction to ethical theory, Daniel Muñoz and Sarah Stroud present 50 of the field's most exciting puzzles, paradoxes, and thought experiments. Over the course of 11 chapters, the authors cover a huge variety of topics, starting with the classic debate between utilitarians and deontologists and ending on existential questions about the future of humanity. Every chapter begins with a helpful introduction, and each of the 50 entries includes references for further reading and questions for reflection. (...) Among the entries are such classics as the Ring of Gyges, Jim and the Villagers, the Repugnant Conclusion, JoJo, "One Thought Too Many," the Miners Puzzle, the Gentle Murder Paradox, Nowheresville, the Experience Machine, and the Trolley Problem. The book also explores several more recent topics of interest, such as doxastic wronging and the ethics of AI, so that even advanced students are likely to discover something new. Each entry can be read on its own, and the writing is accessible and conversational throughout, making this an ideal resource for undergraduate teaching. Readers at any level can pick up this book and see for themselves how fascinating-and puzzling-ethical theory can be. (shrink)

A central thesis held by neo-Aristotelian virtue theories is that virtues require robust dispositions to have appropriate emotions. This thesis is challenged by a particular form of situationism, which suggests that human beings cannot develop this kind of emotional disposition because our integral emotions are too easily influenced by morally and epistemically irrelevant incidental affect. If the challenge stands, it implies that human beings cannot be virtuous. In response to the challenge, I propose an agential solution that’s grounded in the (...) affective sciences. Drawing from empirical evidence, I argue that agents can develop ameliorative abilities such as emotion differentiation to guard against the influence of incidental affect, thereby developing more robust emotional dispositions. My arguments thus defend the psychological plausibility of this key component of virtue. (shrink)

A post written by Marina Trakas, a philosopher and cognitive scientist interested in the ethical and epistemological aspects of memories of our personal past. -/- .

An important aspect of liberal democracies is their ability to accommodate reasonable pluralism. Many take this to mean that democracies should be completely hands-off when it comes to the moral formation of its citizens. In this article, I use Martha Nussbaum's capabilities approach to argue that there are certain virtues that are necessary for leading self-directed lives, giving even liberal democracies reason to encourage particular minimal virtues in their citizens.

The standard view of honesty is a subjectivist one, according to which honesty concerns the facts merely “as the agent sees them”. Against this view, the present paper argues for a non-subjectivist view of honesty. It argues, in particular, that ideal honesty requires not merely expressing what one believes to be true but, moreover, expressing what is true. In that case, though one can be honest to an extent while merely expressing what one believes to be true, one cannot be (...) ideally honest without expressing the truth. (shrink)

This article explores the ambivalent relationship of neo-Aristotelian naturalism to ethical supervenience. One of the main proponents of this approach, Michael Thompson, holds a position that leads to a rejection of local ethical supervenience. It is argued that this rejection implicitly undermines a premise held by other prominent neo-Aristotelian naturalists, such as Philippa Foot or Rosalind Hursthouse, who implemented Thompson’s species-relative logic of ethical evaluations into their theories. This premise—that there is a systematic connection between the virtuous life and the (...) benefit of the individual—could be re-established if neo-Aristotelian naturalism abandoned the species-essentialist understanding of life-forms and instead accepted local ethical supervenience as an ethical frame of reference. Although this article derives its problem from the main works of the aforementioned authors, its interest lies not mainly in exegesis, but in the systematic discussion of the logical status and the functionality of the concept of life-form in neo-Aristotelian naturalism. This discussion will be enriched by the inclusion of the logical distinctions and insights from modern philosophical biology. (shrink)

Although fortitude is primarily about confronting the danger of death, it makes the brave person firm and constant in other situations as well. Fortitude acts directly on temperance and therefore indirectly on practical wisdom. But the lack of fortitude may also directly affect practical wisdom when dreadful aspects of life shock us. Fortitude operates on the capacity of practical wisdom to direct actions in context, judging with openness of mind and choosing and acting bravely. Practical wisdom acts on the irascible (...) part of the soul aiming it toward the golden mean of fortitude and against both weakness of character and stubbornness. The phronimos must develop the virtue of fortitude. But this requires a strong motivation related to the answer to the question of happiness and the meaning of life. And this question is strictly related to the topic of recognition. All that suggests that the lack of or deficiency of fortitude may be one of the main causes of the transformation of the meaning of prudence from the virtue of moral decision,personal responsibility and risk to the virtue of those who are careful and avoid risks. Keywords: Practical wisdom; fortitude; virtues; Thomas Aquinas. (shrink)

In the Buddhist tradition, there is an expansive collection of texts that explore the topic of ethics, addressing moral questions concerning the right and wrong behaviors, virtues, vices, and so forth. However, when examining the main texts of this tradition, we find an absence of a structured moral philosophy that systematically and critically analyzes moral values and principles. Therefore, Buddhist scholars have responded in different ways to the perplexing situation in which Buddhism largely lacks an explicit theory in moral philosophy. (...) Some scholars argue that we should read Buddhist moral teachings as one of the contemporary ethical theories, such as consequentialism or virtue ethics. Damien Keown is one of the scholars who claims that “virtue ethics” is the best way to understand Buddhist ethics. This paper analyzes and critiques Damien Kewon’s reading of Buddhist moral teachings as Virtue ethics. I argue that such interpretation poses problems, primarily because it may overlook key aspects of Buddhist beliefs deemed inconsequential to contemporary ethical debates, and secondly, it could result in the imposition of non-authentic Buddhist ideas on Buddhist ethics. (shrink)

When polarization occurs on issues of race and gender, political boundaries are increasingly drawn along racial and gendered lines. One approach to improving the current political climate is by focusing on education for the civic virtues. While talk of citizenship or civic virtue might sound quaint or old-fashioned, the civic virtues are simply the habits that citizens need to support a healthy, well-functioning political community. These virtues are especially critical for liberal democracies, as democratic nations ultimately depend on the political (...) engagement of their citizens. (shrink)

Alongside other virtues like honesty, courage, integrity, and generosity, it is widely accepted that we should all strive to be humble people. But what if humility isn’t all it’s cracked up to be? Some philosophers, for example, have argued that humility can reinforce subordination and entrench exploitation. Despite some popular misconceptions, humility isn’t fundamentally about being servile. Humility doesn’t require being a doormat for whoever wants to take advantage of us. Instead, humility helps us avoid being distracted by our own (...) egos, a trait that is valuable for those from all walks of life. (shrink)

Mark Coeckelbergh is a Belgian philosopher who specializes in the philosophy of technology. His work primarily explores the intersection of technology and society, specifically the philosophical implications of emerging technologies such as AI and robotics. He has written on whether machines can be moral agents and how ethical frameworks should be applied to autonomous machines. He has a broad philosophical perspective drawing on classical sources, Eastern philosophy, Marxism, Foucault, phenomenology, and the postmodernists. In this short text, he brings his remarkable (...) insights and erudition to bear on our attempts at self-improvement in the age of AI. (shrink)

The phenomenon of moral transformation, though important, has received little attention in virtue ethics. In this paper we propose a virtue-ethical model of moral transformation as character transformation by tracking the development of new identity-defining (‘core’) character traits, their expressions, and their priority structure, through the change in what appears as possible or impossible to the moral agent. We propose that character transformation culminates when what previously appeared as morally possible to the agent now appears impossible, i.e. unconceived and unthinkable, (...) moving through stages of transformation where some possibilities gradually disappear while others open up. While we show an example of moral transformation towards virtue, we allow that such transformation can occur in the opposite direction, hence we make claims about ‘character traits’ rather than virtues of vices. Through the example of former slave-trader Rodrigo’s transformation in the film The Mission, we follow the parallel development of new objects of value and ways of valuing (with respect to a group of indigenous people of South America) with the closing down of the possibility of disrespecting and harming them, to the end-point of transformation, where allowing their capture is for Rodrigo both unconceived and, when conceived, unthinkable. (shrink)

In this paper, I aim to shed some light on the nature and value of this neglected but important virtue of trustfulness. First, I briefly introduce the nature of trust and trust relationships and explain why they are essentially risky. Second, I examine the nature of trustfulness mainly by comparing it with other traits such as distrustfulness, gullibility, and prudent reliance. I then argue that its attitudinal element of respecting the trustee as a person—that is, respecting her as an agent (...) capable of free choice—is what distinguishes trustfulness from other traits. I also show why trustfulness is not only intrinsically admirable but also necessary for building a harmonious community. Then I add some further remarks on trustfulness that might help better understand this virtue. Finally, I conclude this paper after addressing some possible objections. (shrink)