Virtue

Aristotle, Aquinas, and Khajeh Nasir al-Din Tusi are representatives of the three periods and the worlds of thought, and all of them have played an important role in establishing or consolidating their ethical attitudes. In this essay, it was attempted to identify and analyze the highest virtues and the worst ethical vices from the perspective of each of these three wise and expert philosophers. For Aristotle, the highest virtue is justice and greed and the worst vice is oppression to friends. For Aquinas considers Caritas as the highest virtue of and the worst vice is the disappointment. Khajeh Naseer regards grace as the supreme ethical attribute and stinging as the worst, although envy and anger can also be considered as the worst vice in a rather vague interpretation. Comparing the results of the work, firstly, suggests that the views of Khajeh Nasir and Aquinas are close to each other, and secondly, Aristotle's has more sophisticated view to ethics and ethical virtues than two other thinkers.

The concept of "virtual" widely used today is polysemantic, but the reasons for this are not quite clear. The article is devoted to the study of some linguistic (semantic) and philosophical reasons for the existence of “Platonic” (real, imaginary) and “Aristotelian” (possible, effective) meanings in which the sense of the word "virtual" is expressed in Russian. The word "virtual" is derived from the Latin word "virtus". The semantics of the word "virtus" happens to be interconnected with the meanings of the words "ἀρετή", "δύναμις" and "potentia", since the Latin word "virtus", which has two semantic “dominants” — "virtue" is the “Platonic” dominant and "power" is the “Aristotelian” one, — was used to translate two Greek words: "ἀρετή" (virtue) and "δύναμις" (strength, power, might), and the Greek word "δύναμις" was translated by two Latin words: "virtus" (righteous divine power) and "potentia" / "potentialitas" (ability, power). Through Plato’s doctrine of arete-eidos, the concept of "virtus" is also connected with the concept of "εἶδος". Thus, the “Platonic” line of meanings expressing the sense of the word "virtual" is connected with the concepts of "ἀρετή" and "εἶδος", and the “Aristotelian” line — with the concepts of "δύναμις" and "potentia". All meanings of the words "virtus", "ἀρετή", "δύναμις" and "potentia" can be divided into three groups: “Platonic,” “Aristotelian,” and “Platonic-Aristotelian”. The sense of the English word "virtual" is expressed when translated into Russian by the following four meanings: a) factual, real; being something in essence, really (and not formally); b) imaginary; c) possible; d) effective. The meanings "a" and "b" can be attributed to the “Platonic” line, and the meanings "c" and "d" — to the “Aristotelian” one. It is considered how the mutual influence of the meanings of the words "virtus", "ἀρετή", "δύναμις" and "potentia" in the three specified groups could lead to the formation of the four above-mentioned meanings, in which the sense of the word "virtual" is expressed in Russian. Key words: virtus, ἀρετή (virtue), εἶδος, δύναμις (ability / possibility), potentia (power), the virtual, Plato, Aristotle, ontology, semantics.

This article provides a critical analysis of the situationist challenge against Aristotelian moral psychology. It first outlines the details and results from 4 paradigmatic studies in psychology that situationists have heavily drawn upon in their critique of the Aristotelian conception of virtuous characteristics, including studies conducted by Hartshorne and May (1928), Darley and Batson (1973), Isen and Levin (1972), and Milgram (1963). It then presents 10 problems with the way situationists have used these studies to challenge Aristotelian moral psychology. After challenging the situationists on these grounds, the article then proceeds to challenge the situationist presentation of the Aristotelian conception, showing that situationists have provided an oversimplified caricature of it that goes against the grain of much Aristotelian text. In evaluating the situationist challenge against the actual results from empirical research as well as primary Aristotelian text, it will be shown that the situationist debate has advanced both an extreme, untenable view about the nature of characteristics and situations, as well as an inaccurate presentation of the Aristotelian view.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-013-9249-8
https://doctorcroom.com/croom-2014a

... Rather, acts are made right because they are done by a virtuous agent; or because they proceed from a virtuous motive; or because of some similar fact. ... (Q1) An act is right iff it is what a virtuous agent would do in the circumstances [1997: 228]. ...

In this paper we consider how the influence of the meanings of Greek concept of “ἀρετὴ” on the meanings of Latin concept of “virtus” could cause the arising of such meanings of the concept of “virtual” as “being something in essence, really” (and not formally); “factual, real”.
One of the Greek words, translated into Latin as “virtus” in antiquity and the Middle Ages, was the word “ἀρετὴ”. As a result of such a translation, the meanings of the word “ἀρετὴ” and the philosophical (first of all, Platonic) meanings of the concept of “ἀρετὴ” have enriched the meanings of the concept of “virtus”. It is most likely that the first meaning of the concept of “virtual”, that is, “being something in essence, really” (and not formally), comes from the meaning “in essence” of the English word “virtually”, connected with one of the aspects of Plato’s interpretations of “ἀρετὴ” – ἀρετὴ as the essence of a thing (Greek “ούσία”, Latin “essentia”).
Probably, the concept of “virtual” has acquired the meaning “factual, real”, through the mediation of the word “virtually” (in its meaning “in fact, factually”), from the word “actually”, which, on the one hand, means “in fact, indeed, really”, and on the other, is used as a synonym for “virtually”. It is possible that the arising of the meanings “factual, real” of the concept of “virtual” has been reinforced by the connection of the word “virtus” and its derivatives with the abovementioned “Platonic” meaning of the concept of “virtual”, that is the meaning “being something in essence”, which is in some respects close to the meaning “factual, real”.
Key words: virtual, virtus, ἀρετὴ, virtue, courage, power, semantics.

This chapter presents several of the dominant ideas and intellectual debates about human beauty from archaic Greece to early Christianity. At issue are ideals of character, ethical ideals of who one should be and how one should live. What constitutes beauty and why beauty matters change alongside conceptions of body and soul, virtue and happiness, and the relationship between human beings and the divine.

This is an updated version of the preprint "On the Reasons for the Emergence of the "Platonic" and "Aristotelian" Lines of the Development of the Meanings of the Concept of "Virtual"". According to Ekaterina Taratuta, there are two lines of constructing the meanings of the concepts based on the root vir(t)- – “Platonic” and “Aristotelian”. This paper demonstrates that the formation of the polysemanticity of the Latin concept of virtus (virtue; strength, valor, manliness), and then the concept of virtual, has been possible because of the unique semantics of the word virtus, in which there are two “dominants” – 1) virtue and 2) strength. On the basis of the first semantic “dominant”, the “Platonic” group of meanings of virtual has been formed, on the basis of the second – the “Aristotelian” one.
The first cause of the existence of the “Platonic” group of the meanings of virtual is the translation of the Greek word ἀρετὴ by the Latin word virtus in Roman philosophy, biblical texts and Greek-Byzantine patristics, as a result of which the concept of virtus has been enriched with the meanings of the Platonic and Christian concept of ἀρετὴ. The second cause is that through the Plato’s doctrine of arete-eidos the concept of virtus has been enriched with the meanings of the Platonic concept of είδος. As Hans Kremer has shown, in Plato’s doctrine eidos is the source of order and beauty, which is reflected in the empirical world as arete – virtue, goodness; thus, eidos is inextricably linked with arete. As a result, in the “Platonic” sense the virtual is understood as the eidetic, the ideal.
The first cause of the existence of the “Aristotelian” group of meanings of virtual is the translation of the Greek word δύναμις by the Latin word virtus in biblical texts and in Greek-Byzantine patristics, as a result of which the concept of virtus has been enriched with the Christian meanings of concept of δύναμις. The second cause is the translation of the Aristotelian concept of δύναμις by the Latin word potentia: the word δύναμις has become the medium, linking the words virtus and potentia and, under the influence of the latter, differences in the meanings of virtus and potentia (and especially their derivatives virtualis (virtual) and potentialis (potential)) have gradually disappeared. As a result, in the “Aristotelian” sense the virtual is understood as the potential, the possible.
Keywords: the virtual, the ideal, the potential, virtus, ἀρετὴ (virtue), είδος, δύναμις (ability / possibility), potentia (power), Plato, Aristotle.

Örgütlerin genel amacı, kar elde etmek ve diğer işletmelere karşı rekabet üstünlüğü sağlamaktır. Küreselleşen dünya ile birlikte örgütlerin amaçları arasında örgüt çalışanlarının istek ve beklentilerini dikkate almak da yer almaktadır. Örgütlerde çalışanların istek ve beklentilerine önem verilmesi ile birlikte karlılık ve verimlilik artacak ve örgütün sağlıklı bir şekilde faaliyetlerini sürdürebilecektir. Örgütlerde verimlilik ile birlikte başarıya ulaşılması hedeflenen önemli unsurlar arasındadır. Örgütteki başarı ve verimlilik, örgütte yer alan çalışanların motivasyonunun yüksek olması ile birlikte maksimum performansla çalışmasıyla mümkün kılınmaktadır. Globalleşen günümüz dünyasında örgütler arasında rekabet kaçınılmazdır. Örgütler, rakiplerinden daha üstün olabilmek ve devamlılıklarını sürdürebilmek için çeşitli yatırımlar yapmaktadır. Bu yatırımlar içerisinde beşeri sermayeye yapılan yatırım en az fiziksel sermayeye yapılan yatırım kadar önem taşımaktadır.

Recent years have seen a rise in those who describe themselves as " spiritual, but not religious ". At a popular level, there has been a lot of debate about this label and what it represents. But philosophers have in general paid little attention to the conceptual issues it raises. What is spirituality, exactly, and how does it relate to religion? Could there be a non-religious spirituality? In this paper, I try to give an outline account of the nature of spirituality and of religion, and then close with some thoughts on the prospects for a non-religious spirituality.

The author first explains wisdom and its importance to moral philosophy. Secondly, he follows with a consideration of the nature of things and the soul as told by Lucretius. Then he presents a brief summary on St. Thomas understanding of soul and how his faculty psychology is a superior explanation of moral philosophy. The author concludes by showing how Lucretius’ ethical system fails and to attain true happiness we must take up a faculty psychology aimed at virtue and the perfection of the soul, the principle form of the human person.

A good way of posing the issue of free will in Machiavelli is to present it as an antinomy. On the one hand, there is the thesis that, in determinate conditions, there are good reasons for thinking that humans have free will. On the other hand, there is the antithesis, according to which free will is not real. In this light, one can wonder whether Machiavelli’s writings present a solution to this antinomy, or if, as many claim, he remained embroiled in an unsolved aporia.
In this article, it is e argued that -- notwithstanding many contrary interpretations and even if he was sometimes hesitant and ambiguous in  his formulations -- Machiavelli believed that the world is not entirely governed by necessity, and that there are cases in which humans can in fact exercise free will. In his view, none of factors that seem to threaten the reality of libertarian free will (divine providence, fortune, astrological influences, and historical-anthropological conditioning) generated a form of determinism -- so that all of them left some space for the exercise of free will.

Education is a process of drawing out human potentialities. Man is capable of developing himself to the fullest and it is in the realization of moral excellence that human fulfillment is attained. When we look deep into the process of man’s becoming morally good or bad, we see education at the helm of the person’s realization of moral excellence and human fulfillment.  The dynamism of education and determining a person’s moral development are all interconnected.  The educational praxis may be shaped and determined by social forces or realities outside the person but must ultimately be based on a profound understanding of the object of its formation: the person. This paper explores the thoughts of Edith Stein confronting the educational problems of her times. Her thoughts on education are perennially useful for examining educational issues already raised in her era, but are resonating anew today albeit in different forms. In this essay,  I examine Stein’s views on how education in being aimed at attaining human fulfillment,  strives ultimately after moral excellence as the highest value that  man can aspire for.

Prepublication version of “In the shadow of virtue. Why ethical personalism needs an ethical impersonalism,” in Ethical Personalism, Frankfurt am Main: Ontos Verlag, 2011, 138-153. This paper attempts to correct certain tendencies in personalistic philosophy, tendencies which seem to at least implicitly denigrate the non-personal dimensions of the human being. I discuss some of the motivations for personalistic philosophy, how some unfortunate tendencies can arise in it, and how one might, with the help of Max Scheler's  phenomenological personalism, correct some of those tendecies.

The remarkable quality of what it is to be human is exactly what enables us to adapt to a changing, uncertain and complex environment. And hand-in-hand with the ability to learn and adapt is the choice of humility. In the early Greco-Roman world, humility was considered a sign of weakness, and for some that continues today. Yet, humility is very much a virtue that facilitates learning, expansion and connection to others. It is essential for empathizing with others. Communication without empathy may be useful for transmitting data, but not for reaching minds. This little book explores the value of humility in terms of the past, and as an essential quality to move us into the future.
This is the 20 th in a series of 22 short books, what we call Conscious Look Books, that are conversational in nature, taking full advantage of the reader's lived experience to share what can sometimes be difficult concepts. We live in a world that is tearing itself apart, where people are out of control and wanting to control others, rebelling from years of real and perceived abuse and suppression of thought. Yet, this chaos offers us as a humanity the opportunity to make a giant leap forward. By opening ourselves to ourselves, we are able to fully explore who we are and who we can become. With that exploration comes a glimmer of hope as we begin to reclaim the power of each and every mind developed by the lived human experience! These 22 concepts are part of the learning journey of which we are all a part, the Intelligent Social Change Journey (ISCJ). This is a developmental journey of the body, mind and heart, moving from the heaviness of cause-and-effect linear extrapolations, to the fluidity of co-evolving with our environment, to the lightness of breathing our thought and feelings into reality. Grounded in development of our mental faculties, these are phase changes, each building on and expanding previous learning in our movement toward intelligent activity. These little books share 22 large concepts from the Profundity and Bifurcation of Change (which is written from an academic viewpoint). Each book is independent and includes seven ideas offered for the student of life to help us become the co-creators that we are. These books, available in soft cover from Amazon, support idea exploration, class discussion, other discussion groups or can be used as special occasion gifts.

Dalam artikel ini, peneliti berargumentasi bahwa kegagalan (bila ada) dari pendidikan nilai di Indonesia disebabkan karena gagal dipahaminya pendidikan karakter dan Pancasila masing-masing sebagai kontrak psikologis (informal, tidak tertulis) dan kontrak sosial. Oleh karena itu, penelitian ini melakukan penyelidikan empiris terhadap hubungan antara kedua basis kontrak, yakni keutamaan karakter dan nilai-nilai Pancasila. Penelitian ini menggunakan desain korelasional, dengan sampel 1000 mahasiswa sebuah Perguruan Tinggi Negeri di Jakarta (449 laki-laki, 551 perempuan; Musia = 17,79 tahun; SDusia = 1,01 tahun).  Hasil penelitian menunjukkan adanya kompatibilitas berupa korelasi positif antar sejumlah dimensi Keutamaan/Kekuatan Karakter dan Keber-Pancasila-an yang diteliti. Sebagai penelitian awal yang bersifat indigenous, penelitian ini memberikan perspektif baru dalam memandang pendidikan karakter.
Kata kunci: karakter, Pancasila, kontrak, nilai

In this article, I consider the claim that we ought to be grateful to nature and argue that this claim is unjustified. I proceed by arguing against the two most plausible lines of reasoning for the claim that we ought to be grateful to nature: 1) that nature is a fitting or appropriate object of our gratitude, and 2) that we ought to be grateful to nature insofar as gratitude to nature enhances, preserves or indicates in us the virtue of gratitude, a character trait we morally ought to have. My arguments against the first line of reasoning show it to be unsound, and my arguments against the second reveal that we actually have reasons to avoid being grateful to nature. If we have reasons to treat nature well, I show, those may be rooted in the appropriateness of attitudes like praise, appreciation or compassion, but not gratitude. I conclude by highlighting several implications my arguments entail about gratitude to entities other than nature and about environmental virtues other than gratitude.

This paper is a review of the book: Habiger Institute for Catholic Leadership, The Heart of Culture (Providence, R.I.: Cluny, 2020). The author highlights that the book (1) takes a chronological view of western education, beginning from its roots in ancient Greece, through its development by Christianity, up to its present crisis, and (2) stresses that what western education needs today to correct its errors is not a specific plan of action, but a set of principles, including the cultivation of wisdom and virtue.

While Aristotle’s and St. Thomas’s teachings about economics are often ridiculed today, this article argues that actually what they had to say about this issue, especially about the nature of sound currency, backed up by force of law, is quite profound. According to both of them, sound money plays an essential role in the preserving commutative justice within States. By so doing, it preserves communication between talented people who make qualitatively unequal contributions to a State’s continued existence and welfare.

Taking into account and responding to two sets of objections to Thomas Aquinas' credentials as political philosopher, the essay examines his political philosophy, its presupposed understanding of human nature, and its portrayal in his philosophy of law. Analysing the defining features of law in Aquinas places before the reader features of human nature, namely, rationality, relationality and religiosity. These traits enable one to find responses to what Charles Taylor has identified as "three malaises" of contemporary society and culture, namely, individualism, instrumental reason, and the political consequences of both.

Political Theory is the study of the ideas, concepts, and arguments that historical political figures have used to make sense of and influence their social, political, and cultural worlds. Studying these ideas, concepts, and arguments (many of which might sound quite foreign to our ears) allows us to, as Hannah Arendt puts it, “think what we are doing” politically – that is, to shed light on and suggest solutions to some of the biggest political problems facing the world today. In this course, students will gain a familiarity and fluency with the main traditions, themes, and debates that shape how we think about and participate in politics. Students will be challenged to reconsider their political preconceptions and commitments in light of reading, discussing, and writing about authors from diverse historical backgrounds and ideological perspectives. In this way, students will themselves participate in the tradition of Political Theory.

This writing-intensive course proceeds in four roughly chronological thematic units. In Unit 1, “Virtue vs. Virtù,” we read works by Plato and Machiavelli that question the role of knowledge and morality in political life. Unit 2, “The Social Contract and its Critics” turns to John Locke, Carole Pateman, and Charles Mills to explore the foundations and limitations of the modern liberal state. In Unit 3, “Freedom, Colonialism, Violence,” we read the work of John Stuart Mill and Frantz Fanon to determine the meaning and value of individual freedom in a world marked by colonial and racial violence. Unit 4, “Power, Identity, Resistance” turns to Friedrich Nietzsche and Judith Butler to investigate how power operates to create modern political subjectivities, particularly the sexed and gendered subject.

El optimismo de los filósofos ilustrados sobre la humanidad o sobre «el estado de naturaleza» no casa bien con la tozudez de la realidad histórica a poco que se analice fríamente y de forma rigurosa. Pero tampoco se pueden sustentar las visiones nihilistas que solo reparan en «el horror», en lo más oscuro del alma humana, desechando como fruto de farisaicas «convenciones sociales» o inconfesables «recovecos psicológicos» todo acto desinteresado, todo altruismo, toda filantropía, en definitiva, toda bondad. Más allá de constatar un océano de sufrimiento del ser humano por obra de otros seres humanos, se puede encontrar un sentido a la historia humana, sea este trascendente o inmanente. Ante la inhumanidad hubo un momento en la historia humana en el que surgió la respuesta, profundamente espiritual y no biológica, de la compasión, que no es más que una empatía sin matices con el sufrimiento ajeno. Esta obra intenta hacer inteligible el conmovedor heroísmo ético de tantos miles de seres humanos que hicieron el bien en situaciones «infernales» a lo largo de la historia. Si la historia humana nos muestra, como magistra vitae, que el dictum pesimista homo hominis lupus es el que ha imperado en la gran mayoría de las situaciones y sociedades, también nos permite descubrir, de cuando en cuando, rayos de luz en forma de una minoría significativa de seres humanos que hicieron, contra viento y marea, del
homo hominis sacra res su norma absoluta de comportamiento. Algunas de ellos cambiaron el mundo al introducir una ética de la compasión en sus sociedades que modificó actitudes y estructuras, aliviando en no poca medida la tendencia depredadora de sus congéneres. El fin de la esclavitud, del sacrificio humano o de la tortura judicial parten de las semillas que ellos plantaron hace milenios. Esta obra también gira en torno a su lucha épica contra la iniquidad. Es, por así decirlo, una historia de los padres fundadores de la compasión.

This paper focuses on one of the major criticisms made to Aristotle's virtue ethics, namely that it lacks explicit moral action guidance. The same criticism has been addressed to later developments of virtue ethics. There have been several attempts to overcome this objection and to demonstrate that modern theories of virtue ethics do provide principles of right action. In this paper, I discuss mainly two such major attempts: the exemplarist approach and the virtue rules approach. My aim is to examine whether, if applied to Aristotle’s virtue ethics, these two approaches can provide a convincing answer to the criticism that Aristotle’s ethics does not offer explicit moral action guidance .

Virtue epistemologists of the responsibilist persuasion have rejected the classical Aristotelian and Thomistic distinction between the intellectual and moral virtues. They prefer to think of the intellectual virtues as a subset of the moral virtues. Thomas Aquinas defends the distinction and its importance. By Aquinas’ lights, Linda Zagzebski, one of the most prominent responsibilists, not only denies the distinction between moral and intellectual virtues but collapses the one into the other. Aquinas would likely regard all of the virtues that Zagzebski describes as intellectual virtues. I argue that the Thomistic distinction between the intellectual and moral virtues remains significant. In this paper, I compare Zagzebski’s and Aquinas’ accounts of virtue and show why these differences matter, particularly for a consideration of the virtues of modern science.

Positive and humanistic psychology overlap in thematic content and theoretical presuppositions, yet positive psychology explicitly distances itself as a new movement, despite the fact that its literature implicitly references its extensive historical grounding within humanistic psychology. Consequently, humanistic psychologists both celebrate diffusion of humanistic ideas furthered by positive psychology, and resent its disavowal of the humanistic tradition. The undeniably close alignment of these two schools of thought is demonstrated in the embracing of eudaimonic, in contrast to hedonic, conceptions of happiness by positive psychology. Eudaimonic happiness cannot be purely value-free, nor can it be completely studied without using both nomethetic and idiographic (i.e., quantitative and qualitative) methods in addressing problems of value, which identifies positive psychology clearly as a humanistic approach, despite its protestations.

In this article, I explore the complex and unappreciated relationship
between the moral and political thought of Cicero and Adam Smith.
Cicero’s views about justice, propriety, and the selfish love of praise find
new expression in Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments. I illustrate the
important ways in which Smith adopts – often without attribution –
Cicero’s precepts and moral judgments. I then go on to demonstrate
how Smith strips those Ciceronian conclusions from their original
justifying grounds in teleology and natural law. In their place, Smith
injects his own psychology based in sentiments as a new account of
why it is that we prefer virtue and justice to their opposites. By
exploring this relationship, I hope to shed light on an important
dynamic whereby modern thought has creatively adapted classical
moral and political concepts.

Taking into account and responding to two sets of objections to Thomas Aquinas’ credentials as political philosopher, the essay examines his political philosophy, its presupposed understanding of human nature, and its portrayal in his philosophy of law. Analysing the defining features of law in Aquinas places before the reader features of human nature, namely, rationality, relationality and religiosity. These traits enable one to find responses to what Charles Taylor has identified as “three malaises” of contemporary society and culture, namely, individualism, instrumental reason, and the political consequences of both.

Throughout the history, a surfeit of intellectuals have propounded modus on how a leader should conduct himself and lead his charges, with every one dwelling on specific characteristics and traits, either ingrained or acquired. Italian realist Niccolò Machiavelli was one of them. He believed that his knowledge of the actions of eminent individuals was his forte; and therefore decided to offer it to Lorenzo di Piero de' Medici in his literary work, The Prince. In his “how- to” manual for political success, Machiavelli proposes a number of thought-provoking insights into leadership and how any leader who hopes to acquire new territory, retain existing dominions or regain lost principalities must act. He specifies rules of conduct for princes and rulers in a period of constant warfare and power struggles. Therefore, quite naturally and realistically, the guiding principle of the Prince is that “All armed prophets have conquered, while all unarmed prophets have been destroyed” (Machiavelli 24). Machiavelli's remark feeds off of ubiquitous atrocities and aggression—it is based upon the “realities” of the “real” world he observed, and due to those realities, his remark remain relevant even today.

While many of Bernard Mandeville's contemporary critics read him as trying to ridicule and subvert all ideas of morality and virtue, others criticized him for insisting on too demanding a conception of virtue as self-denial. In this article, I take the latter line of criticism as my point of departure and evaluate whether Mandeville's ‘origins of virtue’ thesis can be reconciled with his claims about virtue requiring self-denial. To do so, I trace the changes to Mandeville's account of virtue between the different editions of The Fable of the Bees and An Enquiry Into the Origin of Honour, placing particular emphasis on the conceptual distinctions introduced in the 1723 edition of the Fable. I show that there are important tensions in Mandeville's argument and I evaluate potential ways in which they might be resolved. The most important inconsistency, I argue, is that it is unclear whether Mandeville's speculative historical explanation of the origins of virtue can support the strongest claims he makes about virtue requiring a complete conquest of the passions, even if it can support weaker conceptualizations of virtue as self-denial.

Foot argues that there are certain things that all human beings - perhaps all rational agents - need.  This gives a sense in which certain values and disvalues can be called 'objective'.  I suggest that, with certain relatively minor adjustments, her argument can be made cogent but that it cannot be used to show that there are objective answers to questions about what one should do when values conflict.  If Foot's own virtue ethics, utilitarianism, Kantian ethics or any other first-order moral system were to be established as objectively valid, this would require some completely different form of argumentation. 


Almost sixty years ago Philippa Foot published an article that began: To many people it seems that the most notable advance in moral philosophy during the past fifty years or so has been the refutation of naturalism; and they are a little shocked that at this late date such an issue should be reopened. It is easy to understand their attitude: given certain apparently unquestionable assumptions, it would be about as sensible to try to reintroduce naturalism as to try to square the circle. Those who see it like this have satisfied themselves that they know in advance that any naturalistic theory must have a catch in it somewhere, and are put out at having to waste more time exposing an old fallacy. This paper is an attempt to persuade them to look critically at the premises on which their arguments are based. 1 The paper in question was one of a number written by Foot around the time that were highly successful in reopening the issue of naturalism in ethics. Nowadays no one can just take it for granted that naturalism has been refuted, that there is a sharp distinction (or indeed any clear distinction) between fact and value or that it is impossible to derive an 'ought' from an 'is'. This is not to say that the naturalists have been completely victorious, of course; only that naturalism is today a live option. I shall argue that Foot's paper contains an important insight and an equally important mistake; and that the insight and the mistake are linked. I believe that the thinking behind it has influenced the subsequent course of moral philosophy to a quite remarkable extent and that this has been in some ways beneficial and in some ways harmful – not surprisingly, if I am right in seeing it as containing both truth and error. I do not want to exaggerate the influence of this one paper 2 but I do not know of any other that so neatly encapsulates the coupled insight and mistake. The anti-naturalism that Foot is attacking she characterises as follows: It would not be an exaggeration to say that the whole of moral philosophy, as it is now widely taught, rests on a contrast between statements of fact and evaluations, which runs something like this: The truth or falsity of statements of fact is shewn by means of evidence; and what counts as evidence is laid down in the meaning of the expressions occurring in the statement of fact … It follows that no two people can make the same statement and count completely different things as evidence; in the end one at least of them could be convicted of linguistic ignorance. It also follows that if a man is given good evidence for a factual conclusion he cannot just refuse to accept the conclusion on the ground that in his scheme of things this evidence is not evidence at all. 3 But, on the view she is criticising, [w]ith evaluations, however, it is different. An evaluation is not connected logically with the factual statements on which it is based. One man may say that a thing is good because of some fact about it, and another may refuse to take that fact as any evidence, for nothing is laid down in the meaning of 'good' which connects it with one piece of 'evidence' rather than another. It follows that a moral eccentric could argue to moral conclusions from quite idiosyncratic premises; he could say, for instance, that a man was a good man because he clasped and unclasped his hands and never turned NNE after

At a time when my sons were involved with the Boy Scouts, I got inspired by the intellectual content of the Boy Scouts movement and its connection to the Aristotle (and Plato) I had been studying for the past 10 years. I decided to apply for job and so planned to write a one-page cover letter explaining the relevance of my background. I ended up producing this. By the time I was finished, I was disillusioned with the leadership, concluding they were mainly bureaucrats who did what was easy. I never met them, however. So perhaps I was wrong. But they seemed to handle people accused of molesting children in the same way the Church had.