The Virtue of Gossip

abstract

The moral status of gossip is generally defmed negatively from a Western perspective and, I argue, is or should be accorded a more positive role in African accounts of ethics. In a broadly communitarian vein, I argue that a characteristically Western approach to gossip is problematic - in that it casts a fundamental aspect of human life as moral wrongdoing, does not provide an adequate fit between wrongness and censure, and excludes significant morally positive values realised through gossip - and argue for a more nuanced account. Examining and responding to five arguments for the viciousness of gossip, and proposing four candidate virtues, I develop an account that distinguishes vicious from virtuous forms of gossip.     

The Continence of Virtue

Many recent writers in the virtue ethics tradition have followed Aristotle in arguing for a distinction between virtue and continence, where the latter is conceived as an inferior moral condition. In this paper I contend that rather than seeking to identify a sharp categorical difference between virtue and continence, we should see the contrast as rather one of degree, where virtue is a continence that has matured with practice and habit, becoming more stable, effective and self‐aware.     

The Virtue of Care

There have been many attempts to define care in terms of the virtues, but meta‐analyses of these attempts are conspicuously absent from the literature. No taxonomies have been offered to situate them within the broader care ethical and virtue theoretical discourses, nor have any substantial discussions of each option's merits and shortcomings. I attempt to fill this lacuna by presenting an analysis of the claim that care is a virtue (what I call the “virtue thesis” about care). I begin by distinguishing weaker and stronger versions of the virtue thesis, arguing that the weaker version is an orthodox view among care ethicists. I then go on to develop a taxonomy of approaches available to care ethicists seeking to flesh out the virtue thesis. The three I identify are analogical approaches, according to which care is analogous to some existing virtue; supplementalist approaches, according to which care is a novel virtue; and cardinalist approaches, according to which care is a cardinal virtue. Following this, I defend the virtue thesis from some foreseeable objections and argue that its most promising version is analogical.     

美德复兴的历程与医学美德的复苏

美德伦理的复兴是20世纪伦理学研究的重要转向和理论图景,国外美德伦理研究以麦金太尔为代表,迈克尔•斯洛特的情感主义美德伦理学最具代表性,国内在译介国外研究的基础上提出美德与规范的互补。在医学领域也开始复兴美德伦理,内因在于美德伴随医学的产生,比规范伦理有更悠久的历史,外因在于扭转社会的去道德化倾向,美德伦理与规范伦理同样重要,甚至某些情况下更重要。但在美德伦理的复兴过程中,也面临着内在与外在的阻力,美德伦理复兴任重而道远。

     

Virtue in Virtue Ethics

This paper represents two polemics. One is against suggestions (made by Harman and others) that recent psychological research counts against any claim that there is such a thing as genuine virtue (Cf. Harman, in: Byrne, Stalnaker, Wedgwood (eds.) Fact and value, pp 117–127, 2001). The other is against the view that virtue ethics should be seen as competing against such theories as Kantian ethics or consequentialism, particularly in the specification of decision procedures.     

善治的德性诉求

善治的魅力在于公共事务管理中公共利益最大化的目的性和公共事务管理的民主化,但西方善治的路径却建立在社团利益最大化利益博弈的基础之上,因此,所面对的困境是善活而不善.善治的中国化和追求善治的善果,需要确立善治的德性基础和德性民主的合理化路径.     

The Virtue of Dialogue,Dialogue as Virtue in Plato's Protagoras

Abstract

This article interprets Plato's Protagoras as a defense, against the claim of the sophists to possess a skill of teaching virtue, of Socrates’ claim in the Apology (38a) that the greatest good for a human being is examining oneself and others every day with regard to virtue. Attention to the often-neglected complex series of prologues as well as the dispute about method at the dialogue's center shows both the erotic and the dialogical character of Socratic virtue. Specifically, human virtue turns out to be a process of becoming as opposed to being good that can be carried out only in constant dialogue with others. In this context, the ‘science of measurement’ Socrates describes on behalf of Protagoras and the other sophists is exposed for what it is: a delusion that continues to exert its power over us today on account of the recurrent human wish to possess a skill or technique that could save us by guaranteeing the goodness and happiness of our lives.     

The Virtue of Nussbaum's Essentialism

This paper shows that Nussbaum's Aristotelian essentialism effectively combines resources for constructive social criticism (even in "traditional" societies) with concern for the concrete particulars of realized ways of life. Many critics of Nussbaum's views have failed to appreciate its many virtues in this regard. Yet Nussbaum's confidence in the broad possibilities of internal social criticism demands a better account of the moral openness of human cultures than anything Nussbaum has herself provided. Even Nussbaum's reading of Aristotle – as well as the ethical antirelativism on which it depends – demands a richer account than Nussbaum has so far offered of the essential openness of human world interpretations.     

Against The Bifurcation Of Virtue

It has become customary in the virtue epistemological literature to distinguish between responsibilist and reliabilist virtue theories. More recently, certain problems affecting the former have prompted epistemologists to suggest that this distinction in virtue theory maps on to a distinction in virtue, specifically between character and faculty virtue. I argue that we lack good reason to bifurcate virtue in this manner, and that this moreover counts in favor of the virtue reliabilist.     

The Limits of Virtue Jurisprudence

In response to Lawrence Solum's advocacy of a 'virtue–centred theory of judging', I argue that there is indeed important work to be done in identifying and characterising those qualities of character that constitute judicial virtues – those qualities that a person needs if she is to judge well (though I criticise Solum's account of one of the five pairs of judicial vices and virtues that he identifies – avarice and temperance). However, Solum's more ambitious claims – that a judge's vice necessarily corrupts her decisions, and that in at least some contexts we must define a legally correct decision as one that would be reached by a virtuous judge – should be rejected: we can undermine the former by attending to the requirements of due process, and the latter by attending to the ways in which a judge would try to justify her decision.     

The Limits of Virtue Jurisprudence

In response to Lawrence Solum's advocacy of a 'virtue–centred theory of judging', I argue that there is indeed important work to be done in identifying and characterising those qualities of character that constitute judicial virtues – those qualities that a person needs if she is to judge well (though I criticise Solum's account of one of the five pairs of judicial vices and virtues that he identifies – avarice and temperance). However, Solum's more ambitious claims – that a judge's vice necessarily corrupts her decisions, and that in at least some contexts we must define a legally correct decision as one that would be reached by a virtuous judge – should be rejected: we can undermine the former by attending to the requirements of due process, and the latter by attending to the ways in which a judge would try to justify her decision.     

The Pursuit of Happiness: The Virtue of Consumption and the Consumption of Virtue

Abstract : In a consumer culture we seek fulfillment and happiness through the act of consumption, often conflating purchasing power with freedom. The Christian tradition, however, teaches us that our telos is nothing less than friendship with God. It is through incorporation into a community of faith that we participate in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and thereby receive a foretaste of true happiness.     

The Virtue of Epistemological Dualism

The article tries to answer the following question: what is the most promising epistemological strategy if my objective is the construction of a theory which gives me the opportunity to decrease the risk of getting to what is actually absolute, that is, to irreversible negative actions (irreversible as a theory might not be, but as an action often is)? The answer proposed is a form of epistemological dualism which means that I metaphysically believe (that is, I programmatically and systematically believe, without certainly knowing it) that the epistemological relationship between any theory and any reality is dualistic. More specifically, I metaphysically believe that the epistemological relationship between any theory and any reality is not saturated: in any theory there is an ideal error, because there is no theory which is totally saturated by reality, and any reality can actualize the ideal error, because there is no reality which is totally saturated by theory.