解读作为美德的感恩德性

作为美德的感恩德性蕴含了三重维度伦理关系.感恩美德德性的生成不是一个自发过程,而是在三重维度的感恩伦理关系交互作用下,经过主体一系列的伦理心理环节而生成.如何增强人们对于感恩美德的认知,自觉地履行感恩美德?如何让青少年学会感恩?一是须区分作为美德的感恩与建立在利益计较、物物往来关系之上的人与人交往中的感恩;二是引导人们特别是青少年对于感恩美德的认知,激励人们作为美德的感恩情感;三是对于社会组织而言,须增强感恩美德的制度供给机制.     

德性伦理学的行为者中心论

当代德性伦理学认为,德性伦理学的根本特征在于以行为者为基础或中心。斯罗特认为,以行为者为基础的德性伦理学仅仅诉诸于行为者本身,或者说是一种有着普遍仁爱动机的德者。以行为者为中心的基本论点则认为,德性伦理学强调具有一定德性品格的行为者在某种情形下一定会有的行为。并且认为,品格德性本身具有规范的意义。     

Demandingness as a Virtue

Philosophers who complain about the ‹demandingness’ of morality forget that a morality can make too few demands as well as too many. What we ought be seeking is an appropriately demanding morality. This article recommends a ‹moral satisficing’ approach to determining when a morality is ‹demanding enough’, and an institutionalized solution to keeping the demands within acceptable limits.     

Responsibility as a Virtue

Philosophers usually discuss responsibility in terms of responsibility for past actions or as a question about the nature of moral agency. Yet the word responsibility is fairly modern, whereas these topics arguably represent timeless concerns about human agency. This paper investigates another use of responsibility, that is particularly important to modern liberal societies: responsibility as a virtue that can be demonstrated by individuals and organisations. The paper notes its initial importance in political contexts, and seeks to explain why we now demand responsibility in all spheres of life. In reply, I highlight the distinctively institutional character of modern liberal societies: institutions specify many of the particular responsibilities each of us must fulfil, but also require responsibility to sustain them and address their failings. My overall argument is that the virtue of responsibility occupies a distinctive place in the moral needs, and moral achievements, of liberal societies; and this, in turn, explains why it now occupies such a prominent place in our moral discourse.

Tolerance as a Primary Virtue

The commonly perceived tension between authentic moral and ethical action and action involving tolerance is held to be the illusory product of an unduly individualistic frame of thought. Moral and ethical actions are produced not by independent individuals but by participants in cultural traditions. And even the wholly routine continuation of a single homogeneous tradition must always and invariably involve mutual tolerance: participants must interact not as independent individuals but as tolerant members. Tolerance deserves recognition, accordingly, as a primary virtue, not merely compatible with authentic moral and ethical action, but required by it. An explicit rhetoric enjoining tolerance needs to be understood as performative discourse employed to change, or else to sustain, the systems of tolerances in which all cultures, whether simple or differentiated, homogeneous or diverse, unified or fragmented, invariably consist. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Cosmopolitanism as a Corrective Virtue

This paper defends an account of cosmopolitanism as a corrective virtue of the sort endorsed by Philippa Foot. In particular, it argues that cosmopolitanism corrects a common and dangerous tendency to form overly strong identifications with political entities such as countries, nations, and cultures. The account helps to unify the current heterogeneous collection of cosmopolitan theories, as is illustrated by a discussion of the cultural cosmopolitanism of Jeremy Waldron, and the political cosmopolitanism of Simon Keller. The account also helps distinguish cosmopolitans from their critics, most of whom share the cosmopolitan’s commitment to respect for human rights: for example, liberal patriots, liberal nationalists and liberal culturalists.     

Open-Mindedness as a Critical Virtue

This paper proposes to examine Daniel Cohen’s recent attempt to apply virtues to argumentation theory, with special attention given to his explication of how open-mindedness can be regarded as an argumentational or critical virtue. It is argued that his analysis involves a contentious claim about open-mindedness as an epistemic virtue, which generates a tension for agents who are simultaneously both an arguer and a knower (or who strive to be both). I contend that this tension can be eased or resolved by clarifying the nature of open-mindedness and by construing open-mindedness in terms of its function. Specifically, a willingness to take a novel viewpoint seriously is sufficient for making open-mindedness both an epistemic and a critical virtue.     

Mercy as a Public Virtue

James F. Keenan defines mercy as “the willingness to enter the chaos of another.” Mercy thus defined, he argues, is the distinctive characteristic of Christian morality. This essay asserts that mercy is, in fact, a public virtue, one that can be affirmed across a broad range of religious and moral traditions. As a public virtue, mercy ought to shape both affective and effective responses to the Syrian refugee crisis in the United States.     

Gossip as a Burdened Virtue

Gossip is often serious business, not idle chitchat. Gossip allows those oppressed to privately name their oppressors as a warning to others. Of course, gossip can be in error. The speaker may be lying or merely have lacked sufficient evidence. Bias can also make those who hear the gossip more or less likely to believe the gossip. By examining the social functions of gossip and considering the differences in power dynamics in which gossip can occur, we contend that gossip may be not only permissible but virtuous, both as the only reasonable recourse available and as a means of resistance against oppression.     

论德性

德性是人优秀品质中的一种,是由理智或智慧在正确道德观念的前提下根据有利于具有者和他活动于其中的共同体及其成员更好生存的根本要求培育的,通常以心理定势对人的活动发生作用并使人的活动及其主体成为善(好)的道德意义上的善(好)品质,即道德的品质.它具有指向性、意向性、多维性、统一性、稳定性和普适性等主要特征.德性从直觉的层次看是社会道德要求的内化,但从批判的层次上看则根源于人更好生存的需要.德性一般都体现为德目或德性要求,因而具有规范性,但德性规范是构成性规则,与作为规范性规则的道德规范有所不同.     

Educating Virtue as a Mastery of Language

That only those who have mastered language can be virtuous is something that may strike us as an obvious truism. It would seem to follow naturally from, indeed simply restate, a view that is far more commonly held and expressed by philosophers of the virtues, namely that only those who can reason can be virtuous properly said. My aim in this paper is to draw attention to this truism and argue its importance. In doing so, I will take the starting point for my reflections from a couple of concrete occasions in which the desire to offer a foothold to the language of the virtues encounters an obstacle that might be described as a recalcitrance of language: certain intuitions that seem decidedly linguistic get in the way to suggest that this vocabulary is out of place or out of order. Taking my cue from the discomfort of our linguistic intuitions, what I will be suggesting is that certain difficulties do indeed attend our use of the vocabulary of the virtues, and that there is a particular way of understanding their inevitability, one which is closely connected to the context of moral education. My hope is that reflecting on these difficulties and on the task of moral education with which they are associated can help us illuminate and recover the insight that a mastery of language may be indispensable for a mastery of virtue.     

Cosmopolitanism as Virtue

This paper explores cosmopolitanism, not as a position within political philosophy or international relations, but as a virtuous stance taken by individuals who see their responsibilities as extending globally. Taking as its cue some recent writing by Kwame Anthony Appiah, it argues for a number of virtues that are inherent in, and required by, such a stance. It is critical of what it sees as a limited scope in Appiah's conception and enriches it with Nigel Dower's concept of ‘global citizenship’. It then seeks to overcome a distinction that Appiah draws between a ‘thin’ moral conception of justice and a ‘thick’ ethical conception of our obligations to those with whom we have identity-forming relationships. It argues that a richer conception of the virtue of justice, as suggested by Raimond Gaita, can fully articulate the ideals of cosmopolitanism.     

简论经济德性

经济德性不是经济和德性或经济和道德之间的简单、机械的相加,经济和德性或经济和道德正如一枚硬币的两面一样,是社会现象的两个方面.经济是人之经济,是人际关系之经济,它必然蕴含着生产责任意识、经营境界、经济行为规范和经济品质等德性内涵.而且,这些德性有着其他经济因素所不可替代的功能.     

环境美德论

建构环境美德伦理,首要问题是确认人在自然界面前是一个什么样的人。人在自然面前的自我画像不同,人对自然界的道德态度与道德行动也就不同。通过人在宇宙中位置的本体论论证,澄明人是自然界的看护者,看护自然界由此成为人的基本美德。在这个世界上,从来还没有一个物种能够做到看护自然界,唯有人才能够担当如此神圣大任。看护自然界需要人充分运用大智慧,对自然界既要有所作为,又避免胡作非为,因而看护自然界既是对自然界的美好行动,又是对自然界的正确行动。通过看护自然界实现了环境美德伦理与环境规范伦理的有效结合,实现了对自然界道德品质与对自然界正确行动的统一。     

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。     

理智德性辨

亚里士多德将灵魂的理性部分分为两个部分,一是科学的部分,一是计算的部分.灵魂的科学的部分是关于不变对象的,形成的是普遍的理论知识,亦即intellect.灵魂的计算部分是关于可变对象的,它主要是实践智慧,亦即intelligence.Intellect与intelligence有着种类的差异,不能混为一谈.但是,近现代认识论流行的教条却忽视两者的差别,正是在理智主义的传奇的影响下,人们使用intellectual virtue翻译亚里士多德所谓的与灵魂的理性部分相对应的德性.理智主义的传奇反映在伦理学中,表现为伦理学忽视实践智慧,道德被简化为理论活动.     

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.