Confronting the Hidden Curriculum: A Four-Year Integrated Course in Ethics and Professionalism Grounded in Virtue Ethics

Journal of Medical Humanities - We describe a virtue ethics approach and its application in a four-year, integrated, longitudinal, and required undergraduate medical education course that attempts...     

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.     

Virtue Ethics

I discuss a puzzle that shows there is a need to develop a new metaphysical interpretation of mathematical theories, because all well-known interpretations conflict with important aspects of mathematical activities. The new interpretation, I argue, must authenticate the ontological commitments of mathematical theories without curtailing mathematicians' freedom and authority to creatively introduce mathematical ontology during mathematical problem-solving. Further, I argue that these two constraints are best met by a metaphysical interpretation of mathematics that takes mathematical entities to be constitutively constructed by human activity in a manner similar to the constitutive construction of the US Supreme Court by certain legal and political activities. Finally, I outline some of the philosophical merits of metaphysical interpretations of mathematical theories of this type.     

Virtue Ethics and Confucian Ethics

This essay focuses on the unity of several virtues in pre-Qin Confucians. Confucius maintains the proper application and coherence of such virtues as benevolence, wisdom, trustworthiness, straightforwardness, courage, and firmness. Further, Confucius takes benevolence and nobility as characteristic of human being. Particular attention is paid to the distinction and relationship between virtuous characters and virtuous actions.     

德性伦理论要

德性伦理强调以人类自身的内在品质作为人的一切生活的出发点,这不仅使德性伦理在人类伦理思想的起源处规避着人类伦理生活的方向,而且在现代人类遭遇道德困境的形势下,又指示着人类伦理生活所应该采取的态度。德性伦理最终的理论指向便是将成就德性与明其规范统一起来,从而真正实现人自身的价值。在现代社会价值多元化的背景下,对传统德性伦理资源的挖掘,显得尤为重要。无论是亚里士多德的德性传统,还是原始儒家的德性传统,都可以为现代伦理理论的建设提供丰富的智性资源。     

以行为者为基础的德性伦理

近年来,德性伦理的复兴为伦理界注入了很多有价值的思想资源。致力于这个主题的人主要在关注亚里士多德以及新亚里士多德主义思想。米歇尔.斯洛特教授则认为,某种形式的以行为者为基础的德性伦理也已经有了真正的希望和可能性。因此,在这篇文章中,斯洛特教授详细阐释了以行为者为基础的德性伦理的可能性。作者详细分析了以行为者为基础的德性伦理的基本内涵、分析并反驳了各种可能的对这一思想的反对意见,论证了以行为者为基础的德性伦理的建构方法以及具体的应用性。     

On Virtue Ethics

If one goes beyond the Western perspective, one realizes that most philosophy outside the West has been virtue-ethical in character. But it also turns out that there are simply more historical kinds of virtue ethics than most virtue ethicists recognize. Virtue ethics is mainly of interest because of its contemporary relevance and plausibility, and it is argued here that a virtue ethics that emphasizes empathy is very plausible in contemporary terms. Such an approach can say some strong things in favor of democracy, but it can also criticize Western thought for putting too much emphasis on autonomy rights rather than people’s, and especially women’s, welfare.     

Virtue Ethics,Applied Ethics and Rationality twenty-three years after After Virtue

Abstract

In evaluating the merits and shortcomings of virtue ethics I focus on some central differences between virtue ethics and rival theories such as deontology and utilitarianism. Virtue ethics does not prescribe strict rules of conduct. Instead, the virtue ethical approach can be understood as an invitation to search for standards, as opposed to strict rules, that ought to guide the conduct of our individual lives. This requires a particular method. The importance of this approach in present times will become clear when we investigate the relation between virtue ethics and postmodernity. In our postmodem age moral concepts are no longer perceived as deriving their meaning from larger frameworks. Instead, their meanings are perceived as being derived from the contingencies that define our particular existences. Thus ongoing grassroots moral engagement is required, and virtue ethics is the appropriate moral framework for doing this. This results in a broadening of rationality insofar as the full richness of our situated lives are factored into our accounts of rationality. At the same time virtue ethics prevents relativism, mainly because it does justice to the social embeddedness of human activities. In order to illustrate the virtue ethical approach I will discuss two key concepts in our moral vocabulary: responsibility and integrity. We will see how these basic concepts can be properly understood only if one takes into consideration the contingencies, inherent paradoxes and tensions in human life.     

Outing and Virtue Ethics

The paper argues that the two dominant approaches towards the moral issues surrounding outing are too weak to handle the latter's complexity and would benefit from being made part of a broader and richer framework, namely, that of virtue ethics. One dominant approach begins by arguing that people do not have the right to privacy in matters of sexual orientation (not behaviour), and so outing gay people does not violate such a right. It continues by arguing that living a dignified life requires the agent to refuse to keep secret the gay sexual orientation of others. The second dominant approach, opposed to the first, argues that gay people have a right to the privacy of sexual orientation, and so outing them is prima facie wrong. Both approaches, the paper argues, are too weak to handle the complexity of outing: the first suffers from emphasizing only one subset of the virtues (dignity, pride, and so on), while the second is too weak to explain fully why in some cases outing is permissible. Virtue ethics is a much richer framework from which to address the complexity of outing.     

Virtue Ethics and Elitism

Abstract

Because of its reliance on a basically Aristotelian conception of virtue, contemporary virtue ethics is often criticised for being inherently elitist. I argue that this objection is mistaken. The core of my argument is that we need to take seriously that virtue, according to Aristotle, is something that we acquire gradually, via a developmental process. People are not just stuck with their characters once and for all, but can always aspire to become better (more virtuous). And that is plausibly the basic normative requirement of virtue ethics.     

德性论与伦理学

伦理学中有价值论、规范论或义务论,但没有专门研究德性问题的德性论.德性问题是一个重要的人生问题,也是一个重要的社会问题,尤其是当代社会的严重问题,而且只有伦理学才能从理论和实践的结合上给予系统的回答.因此,应该建立德性论专门研究德性问题.德性论研究什么是德性以及如何形成德性的问题,其主要任务是确立伦理学的德性原则.德性论与价值论、规范论一起分别从人的品质、目的、行为方面解释和回答人生问题,它们是相对独立、相互补充的,共同给人生提供伦理学原则并研究回答人生的伦理学问题.德性伦理学属于德性论的研究,但德性伦理学是西方伦理学的一个流派,而不是伦理学的一个相对独立的分支.     

医师专业精神与医学伦理学

医学伦理学与医师专业精神的历史发展轨迹都本源于医学,基础都是医学。二者不是同时出现的。在很长时期内,医学伦理学是以医师的个人品德的面貌面世的,医学的宗旨和使命,是通过医师的执业动机与态度表现的,两者的使命和主旨内涵是同一的。但医学伦理学不能等同于医师专业精神,作为谋生手段的职业性能和发展医学的历史使命同时也蕴藏于医师专业精神中。两者的差异处理不当可能造成医学伦理学与医师专业精神的矛盾和纠葛。医学伦理学旨在“言”,医师专业精神旨在“行”,医学伦理学有赖于忠于医学职业操守的医生的实践。“言”与“行”的统一,好医学目标的实现,是两者的理想归宿。

     

Applying Virtue to Ethics

Virtue ethics is sometimes taken to be incapable of providing guidance for an individual's actions, as some other ethical theories do. I show how virtue ethics does provide guidance for action, and also meet the objection that, while it may account for what we ought to do, it cannot account for the force of duty and obligation.     

Social Psychology and Virtue Ethics

Several philosophers have recently claimed to have discovered a new and rather significant problem with virtue ethics. According to them, virtue ethics generates certain expectations about the behavior of human beings which are subject to empirical testing. But when the relevant experimental work is done in social psychology, the results fall remarkably short of meeting those expectations. So, these philosophers think, despite its recent success, virtue ethics has far less to offer to contemporary ethical theory than might have been initially thought. I argue that there are plausible ways in which virtue ethicists can resist arguments based on empirical work in social psychology. In the first three sections of the paper, I reconstruct the line of reasoning being used against virtue ethics by looking at the recent work of Gilbert Harman and John Doris. The remainder of the paper is then devoted both to responding to their challenge as well as to briefly sketching a positive account of character trait possession.     

John Calvin and Virtue Ethics

Many scholars have argued that the Protestant Reformation generally departed from virtue ethics, and this claim is often accepted by Protestant ethicists. This essay argues against such discontinuity by demonstrating John Calvin’s reception of ethical concepts from Augustine and Aristotle. Calvin drew on Augustine’s concept of eudaimonia and many aspects of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, including concepts of choice, habit, virtue as a mean, and the specific virtues of justice and prudence. Calvin also evaluated the problem of pagan virtue in light of traditional Augustinian texts discussed in the medieval period. He interpreted the Decalogue as teaching virtue, including the cardinal virtues of justice and temperance. Calvin was not the harbinger of an entirely new ethical paradigm, but rather a participant in the mainstream of Christian thinkers who maintained a dual interest in Aristotelian and Augustinian eudaimonist virtue ethics.