Virtues and Practices

1984 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
David Miller
Keyword(s):  
Good Life ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Moral Pluralism ◽  
Important Distinction ◽  
The Social ◽  
Narrative Unity

AbstractMaclntyre presents an account of the virtues first in terms of practices and then in terms of the narrative unity of a person’s life. He fails, however, to observe an important distinction between self-contained and purposive practices; if the virtues are to be understood by reference to practices, they must be of the latter kind. By the same token, a defence of the virtues must refer to the social purposes which practices serve rather than to the goods internal to practices. An appeal to the idea of narrative unity does not save the position in the absence of any concrete specification of the good life for man. Maclntyre’s attempt to reconstitute the virtues falls foul of the moral pluralism that he has earlier diagnosed so acutely.

The Measure of Greatness

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Good Life ◽  
Natural World ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Social ◽  
Moral Nature ◽  
Complex Trajectory ◽  
The Many ◽  
Human Excellence ◽  
Ethical Perspectives

Magnanimity is a virtue that has led many lives. Foregrounded early on by Plato as the philosophical virtue par excellence, it became one of the crown jewels in Aristotle’s account of human excellence and was accorded an equally salient place by other ancient thinkers. One of the most distinctive elements of the ancient tradition to filter into the medieval Islamic and Christian worlds, it sparked important intellectual engagements there and went on to carve deep tracks through several later philosophies that inherited from this tradition. Under changing names, under reworked forms, it continued to breathe in the thought of Descartes and Hume, Kant and Nietzsche, and their successors. Its many lives have been joined by important continuities. Yet they have also been fragmented by discontinuities—discontinuities reflecting larger shifts in ethical perspectives and competing answers to questions about the nature of the good life, the moral nature of human beings, and their relationship to the social and natural world they inhabit. They have also been punctuated by moments of controversy in which the greatness of this vision of human greatness has itself been called into doubt. This volume provides a window to the complex trajectory of a virtue whose glitter has at times been as heady as it has been divisive. By exploring the many lives it has lived, we will be in a better position to decide whether and why this is a virtue we might still want to make central to our own ethical lives.

scholarly journals Youth Experiences with Social Norms Feedback: Qualitative Findings from The Drug Prevention Trial the GOOD Life

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (9) ◽  
pp. 3200
Author(s):  
Christiane Stock ◽  
Satayesh Lavasani Kjær ◽  
Birthe Rasmussen ◽  
Lotte Vallentin-Holbech
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Intervention Strategy ◽  
Drug Prevention ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Normative Feedback ◽  
Web Based ◽  
The Social ◽  
Prevention Programmes ◽  
Group Interviews

Background: Normative feedback is an intervention strategy commonly used in drug prevention programmes. This study collected process evaluation data about how programme recipients engage with social norms (SN) feedback in The GOOD Life intervention and how they experience it. Methods: Eight focus group interviews were conducted with a total of 44 adolescents (pupils aged 14–16 years) who have participated in the social-norms-based intervention The GOOD Life. The interviews focused on three topics: (1) interest in and impact of the intervention; (2) perception of the intervention elements; and (3) suggestions for improvement of The GOOD Life. They were transcribed and analysed with content analysis. Results: The analysis revealed that The GOOD Life motivated pupils to re-evaluate their own drug use behaviour and overall met their interest regarding receiving engaging and non-moral forms of drug prevention programmes. While pupils perceived the normative feedback session in the classroom and the posters with SN messages as positive, stimulating and surprising, the web-based application with SN feedback was rarely used and less positively evaluated. Anonymity and confidentiality were regarded as essential to provide honest answers in the poll. The pupils suggested even more variety in ways to engage them and to use more gaming elements. Conclusions: SN feedback was well perceived by adolescents. The intervention met their interest and needs and was able to achieve the intended impact of challenging norm perceptions. Anonymity and confidentiality are key in order to build trust and engage adolescents in the intervention.

What’s good about the good life? Action theory, virtue ethics and modern morality

2020 ◽  
pp. 019145372094837
Author(s):  
Frédéric Vandenberghe
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Action Theory ◽  
Critical Realism ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Research ◽  
The Right

The article explores the scope and the limits of virtue ethics from the perspective of critical theory (Habermas) and critical realism (Bhaskar). Based on new research in moral sociology and anthropology, it ponders how the self-realization of each can be combined with the self-determination of all. The article adopts an action-theoretical perspective on morality and defends the priority of the right over the good. It suggests that in plural and polarized societies, there no longer exists a consensus on any version of the good life. It therefore limits the scope of virtue ethics to personal life and pleads for a minima moralia at the social and political level.

The Scarcity of Social Futures in the Digital Era

Futures ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 280-295
Author(s):  
Arjun Appadurai
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Virtual World ◽  
Good Life ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Political Propaganda ◽  
Digital Era ◽  
The Social ◽  
Human Creativity ◽  
Conditions Of Possibility

This essay explores the paradox that collective, socially imagined visions of the future seem both abundant and scarce. Their abundance is based on the variety of images of possibility, hope, and the good life that emerge from the social and cultural diversity of our world. Yet, imagining the collective future is highly constrained by the limitations imposed by fear, censorship, and commercial and political propaganda. The chapter explores the conditions of possibility of this paradox. It argues that the scarcity of social futures in the digital era is a result of a process of Schumpeterian destruction, in which what is at stake is human creativity, curiosity, and the social relations of the non-virtual world.

Virtue Epistemology and the Democratic Life

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Farrelly
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
Good Life ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Intellectual Humility ◽  
Social Existence ◽  
Original Meaning ◽  
The Social ◽  
Democratic Life

Integrating insights from the Ancient Greeks (e.g. concerning virtue, eudaimonia, and the original meaning of “democracy”), John Dewey, and recent work in virtue epistemology, this chapter develops a virtue-based defense of democracy, one that conceives of democracy as an inquiry-based mode of social existence. This account of democracy is developed by responding to three common concerns raised against democracy, which the author calls the Irrationality Problem, the Problem of Autonomy, and the Epistocracy Objection. Virtue epistemology can help elucidate the link between democracy and human flourishing by drawing attention to democracy’s potential for cultivating and refining the “intellectual virtues” (e.g. intellectual humility, fairness in evaluating the arguments of others, the social virtue of being communicative, etc.) constitutive of the good life.

Nationalism in Tropical Africa

1954 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 404-426 ◽  
Author(s):  
James S. Coleman
Keyword(s):  
Good Life ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Political Consciousness ◽  
Tropical Africa ◽  
The Awakening ◽  
The Social ◽  
Active Interest ◽  
Social Anthropologist ◽  
Objective Research

Postwar uprisings and nationalist assertions in Tropical Africa—that part of the continent south of the Sahara and north of the Union—have directed increased attention towards the nature and implications of the awakening of the African to political consciousness. Among scholars this neglected area has long been the preserve of the scientific linguist or of the social anthropologist; only recently have American sociologists, economists, and political scientists developed an active interest in its problems. As a consequence, apart from certain efforts by anthropologists to popularize their findings and insights we have been obliged to rely primarily upon the somewhat contradictory accounts of colonial governments seeking to explain imperial connections, or of African nationalists determined to achieve self-government and the good life of which national self-determination has become the symbol. Thus, we have been placed in the uncomfortable position of having to formulate opinions and policy and to render judgments without sufficient knowledge, or, what could be worse, on the basis of evaluations provided by participants in the nationalist struggle. There is, therefore, a very real need for independent and objective research regarding the character and probable course of African nationalist development.

scholarly journals Reworking the Social Order: Skam as an Instance of Public Moral Education

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ole Andreas Kvamme
Keyword(s):  
Moral Education ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Active Role ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Publicly Funded ◽  
The Public ◽  
Open Questions ◽  
Pluralistic Societies ◽  
The Social

AbstractThe Norwegian high-school drama series Skam is produced and published by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, a publicly funded institution distinguished by an explicit obligation to the public interest, not only serving their audience as consumers but even as citizens. Generally, the normativity expressed in Skam may be summarized by treating all with respect, involving not only moral considerations of what is right, but also ethical conceptions of what is good, offered, opened up and obstructed by the living social order established there. In season three, given attention here, the plot revolves around issues concerning same-sex relationships, mental disorder and religion. Here Skam becomes interesting for the field of moral education, elaborating on how to encounter the challenges of pluralistic societies that undergo continuous changes and in which common values have become open questions. In this paper attention is drawn toward Skam’s ethical dimension, considering Skam as an instance of public moral education. Faced with tensions, hindrances and conflicts, the norm of treating all with respect, irrespective of how trivial it may appear outside of context, becomes loaded with meaning, while the actualization of the good life is at risk. Appalling is the way hegemonic religion is transformed in the living social order. Decisive is the active role taken by the youths in the series, recontextualizing the norm. The social order here is not a static, given condition, but a continuous, moving, cultivating project. In that respect, a certain democratic aspect of the public moral education of Skam also becomes visible. Together, the youths portrayed in the series seem to accommodate a variety of expressions of life emerging within their community.

scholarly journals Aristotle and the Ọmọlúwàbí Ethos: Ethical Implications for Public Morality in Nigeria

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Sunday Olaoluwa Dada
Keyword(s):  
Good Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Democratic Governance ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Public Morality ◽  
The Public ◽  
Ethical Implications ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Government

This essay explores the philosophical affinity between Aristotle’s concept of virtue as character habituation and the Yorùbá ethical and ontological understanding of ọmọlúwàbí as the foundation for re-examining the philosophical foundation of democratic governance in Nigeria. Based on the Aristotelian insistence that the good life is the end of politics, the essay argues for a rethinking of the concept of public morality as character-based political dynamics that enables politicians to think more about the social contract between the government and the governed, rather than an amoral understanding of politics that eschew morality and undermines the well-being of the citizens. The absence of public morality, the essay argues, has resulted in a neopatrimonial framework within which the political elite willfully circumvent constitutional rules and regulation in order to vitiate the public interest. The essay concludes by arguing for a rigorous public enlightenment as well as a reform of the educational curriculum through an injection of virtue ethics.

scholarly journals Inner Peace as a Contribution to Human Flourishing

2021 ◽  
pp. 435-481
Author(s):  
Juan Xi ◽  
Matthew T. Lee
Keyword(s):  
Good Life ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Psychometric Evaluation ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Instrument ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Complete Form

Although philosophers and theologians have emphasized the centrality of inner peace for the good life, this concept has not generally been included in research on human flourishing. The authors argue that inner peace contributes to a more complete form of flourishing for both religious and secular people. They then propose a new instrument, the Inner Peace Scale, to measure inner peace, and they provide an initial psychometric evaluation of the instrument based on five empirical studies. The authors distinguish their scale from related measures, such as contentment, serenity, or tranquility. Engagement with literature from the social sciences and the humanities, along with the authors’ research findings, suggest that inner peace is comprised of three dimensions: acceptance of loss, transcendence of hedonism and materialism, and inner balance and calmness. Greater attention to the dimension of transcending hedonism and materialism may prove especially helpful in advancing the field, particularly in consumeristic societies.

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