Transcending Reason: Heidegger on Rationality, 2020
The received view of Martin Heidegger’s work is that he leaves little room for reason in the prac... more The received view of Martin Heidegger’s work is that he leaves little room for reason in the practice of philosophy or the conduct of life. Citing his much-scorned remark that reason is the “stiff-necked adversary of thought”, critics argue that Heidegger’s philosophy effectively severs the tie between reason and normativity, leaving anyone who adheres to his position without recourse to justifying reasons for their beliefs and actions. Transcending Reason is a collection of essays by leading Heidegger scholars that challenges this view by exploring new ways to understand Heidegger’s approach to the relationship between reason, normativity, and the philosophical methodology that gives us access to these issues. The volume points to Heidegger’s novel approach to reason understood in terms of what he calls Dasein’s ‘transcendence’—the ability to occupy the world as a space of normatively structured meanings in which we navigate our striving to be. By examining the strengths and weaknesses of this new and innovative take on Heidegger’s philosophy, this collection considers the possibility that he does not sever but rather reconceives the relation between reason and normativity.
Normativity, Meaning, and the Promise of Phenomenology, 2019
This volume aims to assess the philosophical importance of phenomenology as a method for studying... more This volume aims to assess the philosophical importance of phenomenology as a method for studying the normativity of meaning and its transcendental conditions. Using the pioneering work of Steven Crowell as a springboard, contributors to this volume examine the promise of phenomenology for illuminating long-standing problems in epistemology, the philosophy of mind, action theory, the philosophy of religion, and moral psychology. The essays are unique in that they engage with the phenomenological tradition not as a collection of authorities to whom we must defer, or a set of historical artifacts we must preserve, but rather as a community of interlocutors with views that bear on important issues in contemporary philosophy. Normativity, Meaning, and the Promise of Phenomenology will be a key resource for students and scholars interested in the phenomenological tradition, the transcendental tradition from Kant to Davidson, and existentialism. Additionally, its forward-looking focus yields crucial insights into pressing philosophical problems that will appeal to scholars working across all areas of the discipline.
Cambridge University Press, 2019.
Abstract:
By putting existential phenomenology into conver... more Cambridge University Press, 2019.
Abstract:
By putting existential phenomenology into conversation with virtue ethics, this book offers a new interpretation of human flourishing. It rejects characterizations of flourishing as either a private subjective state or an objective worldly status, arguing that flourishing is rather a successfully negotiated self-world fit – a condition involving both the essential dependence of the self upon the world and others, and the lived normative responsiveness of the agent striving to be in the world well. A central argument of the book is that there is an irreducible normative plurality arising from the different practical perspectives we can adopt – the first, second, and third-person stances – all of which make different kinds of normative claim that we understand ourselves as having reason to meet. Flourishing is human excellence within each of these normative domains (self-fulfillment, moral responsibility, and responsiveness to intersubjective standards) achieved in such a way that success in one domain does not compromise success in another. Existential Flourishing provides a correspondingly transformed interpretation of the virtues as solutions to various existential problems we face in responding to these normative domains. The book also addresses traditional problems in virtue ethics and analyzes the structure of four virtues in detail: justice, patience, modesty, and courage.
"natural"' (p. 154), and so as being in the Pyrrhonian tradition, advocating leaving one's philos... more "natural"' (p. 154), and so as being in the Pyrrhonian tradition, advocating leaving one's philosophy in the study and getting on with things. The Hume theme is continued in varying degrees through three more papers, '"Gilding or Staining" the World with "Sentiments" and "Phantasms"', 'The Constraints of Hume's Naturalism', and 'Practical Reasoning', which consider, variously, whether there is a problem for Hume in determining the origins of thoughts that represent objects in the world as being virtuous, causally efficacious and so on (there is); the gap between the impressions and ideas we have and the beliefs we form (Hume's approach can't close it); and how thinking about what to do issues in action (the thinking about what to do can be partly someone else's, without thereby destroying the autonomy of my actions). 'The Charm of Naturalism' and 'The Transparency of Naturalism' urge the view that naturalism should be 'relaxed' so as to admit 'anything that is needed' to account for 'the attitudes that people on earth have actually got' (p. 238). Stroud considers difficulties with Hume's conception of naturalism, and the inability of Quine's naturalism to help us because 'there is error or distortion in how [Hume] thinks human beings actually work. And in Quine's case there is a restricted [exclusively extensional] conception of what there is in the world for any "scientific" study […] to discover' (pp. 249-50). In the end the term 'naturalism' is branded unhelpful, with our accounts of it reaching 'the level of platitude'. To the question '"Why would […anyone…] defend naturalism?" the answer seems to be […] that there is good reason to resist a priori philosophical restrictions' (pp. 254-5) on our investigation of how things are. This is acknowledged to be not much of a methodological principle. It also seems, as Stroud hints, not so much like naturalism. I think that assessment is right. At the end of the book are papers on Burge ('Anti-Individualism and Scepticism'), McDowell ('Sense Experience and the Grounding of Thought'), Goldman ('The 'Unity of Cognition' and the Explanation of Mathematical Knowledge'), Fogelin ('Contemporary Pyrrhonism') and Sosa ('Perceptual Knowledge and Epistemological Satisfaction'). These papers are demonstrations of the importance of considering some of the themes we get from the more historical parts of philosophical study and dealing with them in the light of contemporary advances. And indeed vice versa. The book is not one likely to be read cover-to-cover, but considered as a reference resource we can be glad that the papers in it are now more easily accessible.
... not unwittingly remained within the very metaphysics of presence that he sought to go beyond.... more ... not unwittingly remained within the very metaphysics of presence that he sought to go beyond. ... but also because Heidegger's po-litical allegiance to Nazism, and Levinas's pacific response to that ... essence of the West that is re-vealed."2' Lacoue-Labarthe and Nancy speak of ...
In this paper I consider the essential role that public memory plays in the establishment and mai... more In this paper I consider the essential role that public memory plays in the establishment and maintenance of the political arena and its space of appearance. Without this space and the shared memory that allows it to appear, Hannah Arendt argues, transience and finitude would consume the excellence of word and deed—just as the "natural ruin of time" consumes its mortal performer. The modern era displays a kind of mnemonic failure, however, a situation arising not only from technological developments that "outsource" memory but from several normative breakdowns that Arendt describes as characteristic of modernity. The consequence is the individual's loss of personal, living access to the community's memories, and the community's own failure to engage in the difficult choice of what counts as worthy of preservation. In failing to ask this question, however, the community abdicates responsibility for establishing the shared norms by which it will govern itself in times of crisis.
This chapter examines ideals and the role that concrete exemplary value experiences play in both ... more This chapter examines ideals and the role that concrete exemplary value experiences play in both shaping the models through which we are oriented towards ideals, and our understanding of the ideals themselves. It considers how the existentialist emphasis on negative value experiences-specifically, Sartre's notion of the 'slimy'plays a role in viewing the ideal self-world relationship as one of dominance and the corresponding ideal self-relation as one of autonomous self-grounding. The suffocating horror of the slimy gives one a taste of the Sartrean ontological anti-ideal, whereby freedom is consumed by being but still retains the awareness necessary to experience its own dissolution. This experience of suffocation and exile in the midst of hostile being correspondingly grounds Sartre's understanding of the ontological ideal-namely, freedom's triumphant self-grounding. The chapter concludes by considering the implications of a different kind of exemplary value eventnamely, one in which self and world are experienced as existing in a harmony that challenges the hostile model on which Sartre's understanding of the ideal is founded. Positive value experiences such as beauty suggest a different way of understanding the ideal relationship between self and world. By emphasizing the import of such positive value experiences, the sharp divide between autonomous and heteronomous approaches is put in question, and with it, the nihilism and decisionism that continues to haunt existentialist ethics.
For both Levinas and Løgstrup, the moral encounter is characterized by an asymmetrical prioritiza... more For both Levinas and Løgstrup, the moral encounter is characterized by an asymmetrical prioritization of the other over the self. Some take Løgstrup’s account to be an improvement on Levinas’s, however, insofar as it appears to both foreswear the hyperbole of the latter’s view and ground the ethical claim in the natural conditions of human life (thereby avoiding Levinas’s alleged nominalism). This paper argues, in contrast, that Løgstrup’s own account is equally hyperbolic in its characterization of the self as fundamentally evil, and that his attempt to ground the ethical demand in structures of ‘life’ raises serious difficulties. I will argue that Levinas’s stronger commitment to phenomenology both rules out the problematic metaphysical claims on which Løgstrup’s ontological ethics depends and helps explain the methodological function of Levinas’s own hyperbole. Unlike Løgstrup, Levinas insists that the challenge is not eradicating the claims of the self, but rather resisting its ...
This innovative volume argues that flourishing is achieved when individuals successfully balance ... more This innovative volume argues that flourishing is achieved when individuals successfully balance their responsiveness to three kinds of normative claim: self-fulfilment, moral responsibility, and intersubjective answerability. Applying underutilised resources in existential phenomenology, Irene McMullin reconceives practical reason, addresses traditional problems in virtue ethics, and analyses four virtues: justice, patience, modesty, and courage. Her central argument is that there is an irreducible normative plurality arising from the different practical perspectives we can adopt - the first-, second-, and third-person stances - which each present us with different kinds of normative claim. Flourishing is human excellence within each of these normative domains, achieved in such a way that success in one does not compromise success in another. The individual virtues are solutions to specific existential challenges we face in attempting to do so. This book will be important for anyone working in the fields of moral theory, existential phenomenology, and virtue ethics.
The received view of Martin Heidegger’s work is that he leaves little room for reason in the prac... more The received view of Martin Heidegger’s work is that he leaves little room for reason in the practice of philosophy or the conduct of life. Citing his much-scorned remark that reason is the “stiff-necked adversary of thought”, critics argue that Heidegger’s philosophy effectively severs the tie between reason and normativity, leaving anyone who adheres to his position without recourse to justifying reasons for their beliefs and actions. Transcending Reason is a collection of essays by leading Heidegger scholars that challenges this view by exploring new ways to understand Heidegger’s approach to the relationship between reason, normativity, and the philosophical methodology that gives us access to these issues. The volume points to Heidegger’s novel approach to reason understood in terms of what he calls Dasein’s ‘transcendence’—the ability to occupy the world as a space of normatively structured meanings in which we navigate our striving to be. By examining the strengths and weaknesses of this new and innovative take on Heidegger’s philosophy, this collection considers the possibility that he does not sever but rather reconceives the relation between reason and normativity.
Transcending Reason: Heidegger on Rationality, 2020
The received view of Martin Heidegger’s work is that he leaves little room for reason in the prac... more The received view of Martin Heidegger’s work is that he leaves little room for reason in the practice of philosophy or the conduct of life. Citing his much-scorned remark that reason is the “stiff-necked adversary of thought”, critics argue that Heidegger’s philosophy effectively severs the tie between reason and normativity, leaving anyone who adheres to his position without recourse to justifying reasons for their beliefs and actions. Transcending Reason is a collection of essays by leading Heidegger scholars that challenges this view by exploring new ways to understand Heidegger’s approach to the relationship between reason, normativity, and the philosophical methodology that gives us access to these issues. The volume points to Heidegger’s novel approach to reason understood in terms of what he calls Dasein’s ‘transcendence’—the ability to occupy the world as a space of normatively structured meanings in which we navigate our striving to be. By examining the strengths and weaknesses of this new and innovative take on Heidegger’s philosophy, this collection considers the possibility that he does not sever but rather reconceives the relation between reason and normativity.
Normativity, Meaning, and the Promise of Phenomenology, 2019
This volume aims to assess the philosophical importance of phenomenology as a method for studying... more This volume aims to assess the philosophical importance of phenomenology as a method for studying the normativity of meaning and its transcendental conditions. Using the pioneering work of Steven Crowell as a springboard, contributors to this volume examine the promise of phenomenology for illuminating long-standing problems in epistemology, the philosophy of mind, action theory, the philosophy of religion, and moral psychology. The essays are unique in that they engage with the phenomenological tradition not as a collection of authorities to whom we must defer, or a set of historical artifacts we must preserve, but rather as a community of interlocutors with views that bear on important issues in contemporary philosophy. Normativity, Meaning, and the Promise of Phenomenology will be a key resource for students and scholars interested in the phenomenological tradition, the transcendental tradition from Kant to Davidson, and existentialism. Additionally, its forward-looking focus yields crucial insights into pressing philosophical problems that will appeal to scholars working across all areas of the discipline.
Cambridge University Press, 2019.
Abstract:
By putting existential phenomenology into conver... more Cambridge University Press, 2019.
Abstract:
By putting existential phenomenology into conversation with virtue ethics, this book offers a new interpretation of human flourishing. It rejects characterizations of flourishing as either a private subjective state or an objective worldly status, arguing that flourishing is rather a successfully negotiated self-world fit – a condition involving both the essential dependence of the self upon the world and others, and the lived normative responsiveness of the agent striving to be in the world well. A central argument of the book is that there is an irreducible normative plurality arising from the different practical perspectives we can adopt – the first, second, and third-person stances – all of which make different kinds of normative claim that we understand ourselves as having reason to meet. Flourishing is human excellence within each of these normative domains (self-fulfillment, moral responsibility, and responsiveness to intersubjective standards) achieved in such a way that success in one domain does not compromise success in another. Existential Flourishing provides a correspondingly transformed interpretation of the virtues as solutions to various existential problems we face in responding to these normative domains. The book also addresses traditional problems in virtue ethics and analyzes the structure of four virtues in detail: justice, patience, modesty, and courage.
"natural"' (p. 154), and so as being in the Pyrrhonian tradition, advocating leaving one's philos... more "natural"' (p. 154), and so as being in the Pyrrhonian tradition, advocating leaving one's philosophy in the study and getting on with things. The Hume theme is continued in varying degrees through three more papers, '"Gilding or Staining" the World with "Sentiments" and "Phantasms"', 'The Constraints of Hume's Naturalism', and 'Practical Reasoning', which consider, variously, whether there is a problem for Hume in determining the origins of thoughts that represent objects in the world as being virtuous, causally efficacious and so on (there is); the gap between the impressions and ideas we have and the beliefs we form (Hume's approach can't close it); and how thinking about what to do issues in action (the thinking about what to do can be partly someone else's, without thereby destroying the autonomy of my actions). 'The Charm of Naturalism' and 'The Transparency of Naturalism' urge the view that naturalism should be 'relaxed' so as to admit 'anything that is needed' to account for 'the attitudes that people on earth have actually got' (p. 238). Stroud considers difficulties with Hume's conception of naturalism, and the inability of Quine's naturalism to help us because 'there is error or distortion in how [Hume] thinks human beings actually work. And in Quine's case there is a restricted [exclusively extensional] conception of what there is in the world for any "scientific" study […] to discover' (pp. 249-50). In the end the term 'naturalism' is branded unhelpful, with our accounts of it reaching 'the level of platitude'. To the question '"Why would […anyone…] defend naturalism?" the answer seems to be […] that there is good reason to resist a priori philosophical restrictions' (pp. 254-5) on our investigation of how things are. This is acknowledged to be not much of a methodological principle. It also seems, as Stroud hints, not so much like naturalism. I think that assessment is right. At the end of the book are papers on Burge ('Anti-Individualism and Scepticism'), McDowell ('Sense Experience and the Grounding of Thought'), Goldman ('The 'Unity of Cognition' and the Explanation of Mathematical Knowledge'), Fogelin ('Contemporary Pyrrhonism') and Sosa ('Perceptual Knowledge and Epistemological Satisfaction'). These papers are demonstrations of the importance of considering some of the themes we get from the more historical parts of philosophical study and dealing with them in the light of contemporary advances. And indeed vice versa. The book is not one likely to be read cover-to-cover, but considered as a reference resource we can be glad that the papers in it are now more easily accessible.
... not unwittingly remained within the very metaphysics of presence that he sought to go beyond.... more ... not unwittingly remained within the very metaphysics of presence that he sought to go beyond. ... but also because Heidegger's po-litical allegiance to Nazism, and Levinas's pacific response to that ... essence of the West that is re-vealed."2' Lacoue-Labarthe and Nancy speak of ...
In this paper I consider the essential role that public memory plays in the establishment and mai... more In this paper I consider the essential role that public memory plays in the establishment and maintenance of the political arena and its space of appearance. Without this space and the shared memory that allows it to appear, Hannah Arendt argues, transience and finitude would consume the excellence of word and deed—just as the "natural ruin of time" consumes its mortal performer. The modern era displays a kind of mnemonic failure, however, a situation arising not only from technological developments that "outsource" memory but from several normative breakdowns that Arendt describes as characteristic of modernity. The consequence is the individual's loss of personal, living access to the community's memories, and the community's own failure to engage in the difficult choice of what counts as worthy of preservation. In failing to ask this question, however, the community abdicates responsibility for establishing the shared norms by which it will govern itself in times of crisis.
This chapter examines ideals and the role that concrete exemplary value experiences play in both ... more This chapter examines ideals and the role that concrete exemplary value experiences play in both shaping the models through which we are oriented towards ideals, and our understanding of the ideals themselves. It considers how the existentialist emphasis on negative value experiences-specifically, Sartre's notion of the 'slimy'plays a role in viewing the ideal self-world relationship as one of dominance and the corresponding ideal self-relation as one of autonomous self-grounding. The suffocating horror of the slimy gives one a taste of the Sartrean ontological anti-ideal, whereby freedom is consumed by being but still retains the awareness necessary to experience its own dissolution. This experience of suffocation and exile in the midst of hostile being correspondingly grounds Sartre's understanding of the ontological ideal-namely, freedom's triumphant self-grounding. The chapter concludes by considering the implications of a different kind of exemplary value eventnamely, one in which self and world are experienced as existing in a harmony that challenges the hostile model on which Sartre's understanding of the ideal is founded. Positive value experiences such as beauty suggest a different way of understanding the ideal relationship between self and world. By emphasizing the import of such positive value experiences, the sharp divide between autonomous and heteronomous approaches is put in question, and with it, the nihilism and decisionism that continues to haunt existentialist ethics.
For both Levinas and Løgstrup, the moral encounter is characterized by an asymmetrical prioritiza... more For both Levinas and Løgstrup, the moral encounter is characterized by an asymmetrical prioritization of the other over the self. Some take Løgstrup’s account to be an improvement on Levinas’s, however, insofar as it appears to both foreswear the hyperbole of the latter’s view and ground the ethical claim in the natural conditions of human life (thereby avoiding Levinas’s alleged nominalism). This paper argues, in contrast, that Løgstrup’s own account is equally hyperbolic in its characterization of the self as fundamentally evil, and that his attempt to ground the ethical demand in structures of ‘life’ raises serious difficulties. I will argue that Levinas’s stronger commitment to phenomenology both rules out the problematic metaphysical claims on which Løgstrup’s ontological ethics depends and helps explain the methodological function of Levinas’s own hyperbole. Unlike Løgstrup, Levinas insists that the challenge is not eradicating the claims of the self, but rather resisting its ...
This innovative volume argues that flourishing is achieved when individuals successfully balance ... more This innovative volume argues that flourishing is achieved when individuals successfully balance their responsiveness to three kinds of normative claim: self-fulfilment, moral responsibility, and intersubjective answerability. Applying underutilised resources in existential phenomenology, Irene McMullin reconceives practical reason, addresses traditional problems in virtue ethics, and analyses four virtues: justice, patience, modesty, and courage. Her central argument is that there is an irreducible normative plurality arising from the different practical perspectives we can adopt - the first-, second-, and third-person stances - which each present us with different kinds of normative claim. Flourishing is human excellence within each of these normative domains, achieved in such a way that success in one does not compromise success in another. The individual virtues are solutions to specific existential challenges we face in attempting to do so. This book will be important for anyone working in the fields of moral theory, existential phenomenology, and virtue ethics.
The received view of Martin Heidegger’s work is that he leaves little room for reason in the prac... more The received view of Martin Heidegger’s work is that he leaves little room for reason in the practice of philosophy or the conduct of life. Citing his much-scorned remark that reason is the “stiff-necked adversary of thought”, critics argue that Heidegger’s philosophy effectively severs the tie between reason and normativity, leaving anyone who adheres to his position without recourse to justifying reasons for their beliefs and actions. Transcending Reason is a collection of essays by leading Heidegger scholars that challenges this view by exploring new ways to understand Heidegger’s approach to the relationship between reason, normativity, and the philosophical methodology that gives us access to these issues. The volume points to Heidegger’s novel approach to reason understood in terms of what he calls Dasein’s ‘transcendence’—the ability to occupy the world as a space of normatively structured meanings in which we navigate our striving to be. By examining the strengths and weaknesses of this new and innovative take on Heidegger’s philosophy, this collection considers the possibility that he does not sever but rather reconceives the relation between reason and normativity.
The notion of radical evil plays a more important role in Kant's moral theory than is typical... more The notion of radical evil plays a more important role in Kant's moral theory than is typically recognized. In Religion Within the Limits of Mere Reason, radical evil is both an innate propensity and a morally imputable act – a paradoxical status that has prompted commentators to reject it as inconsistent with the rest of Kant's moral theory. In contrast, I argue that the notion of radical evil accounts for the beginning of moral responsibility in Kant's theory, since the act of attributing radical evil to one's freedom is an inauguration into the autonomous stance.
This paper argues that an essential and often overlooked feature of jealousy is the sense that on... more This paper argues that an essential and often overlooked feature of jealousy is the sense that one is entitled to the affirmation provided by the love relationship. By turning to Sartre's and Beauvoir's analyses of love and its distortions, I will show how the public nature of identity can inhibit the possibility of genuine love. Since we must depend on the freedom of others to show us who we are, the uncertainty this introduces into one's sense of self can trigger anxiety and pathological attempts to control those others upon whom one's self-value depends. In jealousy one tries to possess the other person's freedom in the hopes that a constant positive evaluation can be thereby secured. The belief that one is entitled to the self-perfection that such affirmation promises reveals both the important existential role that the beloved plays in the jealous person's psychic structure and the manner in which gender inequalities can promote such distortions of love.
There are two ways to read the phrase "transcending reason" as it concerns the place of rationali... more There are two ways to read the phrase "transcending reason" as it concerns the place of rationality in Heidegger's thought. The first, which can be called the received view, holds that Heidegger-across much of his writings but especially in his later works-rejects reason as a contemptible by-product of the history of metaphysics. Metaphysics, as the unending nihilistic endeavor of applying the principle of sufficient reason, robs mortals of their roots and condemns them to a technological desert. Thus, reason must be transcended, that is, left behind, so that human beings are open to, in Heidegger's terminology, the call for thinking. As enumerated by the editors in the introduction to this volume, the adherents of this reading, which casts Heidegger as an enemy of reason, are legion, and they are frank about where this reading leads. Karl Löwith and Herbert Marcuse come to dismiss Heidegger's thought as "vacuous fascist fodder" that offers no support for the rational aims of society (2). Ernst Tugendhat claims that Heidegger relativizes truth to the historical horizon of understanding, and since different world
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Books by Irene McMullin
Abstract:
By putting existential phenomenology into conversation with virtue ethics, this book offers a new interpretation of human flourishing. It rejects characterizations of flourishing as either a private subjective state or an objective worldly status, arguing that flourishing is rather a successfully negotiated self-world fit – a condition involving both the essential dependence of the self upon the world and others, and the lived normative responsiveness of the agent striving to be in the world well. A central argument of the book is that there is an irreducible normative plurality arising from the different practical perspectives we can adopt – the first, second, and third-person stances – all of which make different kinds of normative claim that we understand ourselves as having reason to meet. Flourishing is human excellence within each of these normative domains (self-fulfillment, moral responsibility, and responsiveness to intersubjective standards) achieved in such a way that success in one domain does not compromise success in another. Existential Flourishing provides a correspondingly transformed interpretation of the virtues as solutions to various existential problems we face in responding to these normative domains. The book also addresses traditional problems in virtue ethics and analyzes the structure of four virtues in detail: justice, patience, modesty, and courage.
Papers by Irene McMullin
Abstract:
By putting existential phenomenology into conversation with virtue ethics, this book offers a new interpretation of human flourishing. It rejects characterizations of flourishing as either a private subjective state or an objective worldly status, arguing that flourishing is rather a successfully negotiated self-world fit – a condition involving both the essential dependence of the self upon the world and others, and the lived normative responsiveness of the agent striving to be in the world well. A central argument of the book is that there is an irreducible normative plurality arising from the different practical perspectives we can adopt – the first, second, and third-person stances – all of which make different kinds of normative claim that we understand ourselves as having reason to meet. Flourishing is human excellence within each of these normative domains (self-fulfillment, moral responsibility, and responsiveness to intersubjective standards) achieved in such a way that success in one domain does not compromise success in another. Existential Flourishing provides a correspondingly transformed interpretation of the virtues as solutions to various existential problems we face in responding to these normative domains. The book also addresses traditional problems in virtue ethics and analyzes the structure of four virtues in detail: justice, patience, modesty, and courage.