Aristotle’s Account of Moral Perception (EN.VI.8) & Nussbaum’s Priority of the Particular Thesis

2021 ◽  
Vol 77 (1) ◽  
pp. 357-380
Author(s):  
Benjamin Hole
Keyword(s):  
Moral Epistemology ◽  
Ethical Principle ◽  
Martha Nussbaum ◽  
Moral Perception ◽  
Virtuous Person ◽  
Moral Deliberation ◽  
The World ◽  
Perceptual Skill ◽  
Priority Thesis ◽  
Virtuous Activity

Consider a contemporary retrieval of Aristotle’s account of moral perception. Drawing from EN.VI.8, Martha Nussbaum argues that we perceive moral particulars prior to ethical principles. First, I explain her priority of the particular thesis. The virtuous person perceives value in the world, as part of her moral deliberation. This perceptual skill is an important aspect of her virtuous activity, and hence also part of her eudaimonia. Second, I present her priority thesis with a dilemma: our perception of moral particulars is either non-inferential or it is inferential. If Nussbaum accepts a non-inferential interpretation, then she is committed to an unsavory view about moral epistemology –one that invites intuitionism and relativism. But if she accepts a non-inferential account, then the moral particular is no longer prior to the ethical principle. I suggest that her better option is to grab the second horn. This move avoids the problems of the first horn without sacrificing her neo-Aristotelian commitments or her overarching view that the perception of moral particulars is ineliminable to moral deliberation (and eudaimonia). At the same time, this move renders her priority thesis trivial.

scholarly journals THE EASTERN PHILOSOPHER AND THE WESTERNIZED PROPHET

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (2 (24)) ◽  
pp. 129-140
Author(s):  
Vicky Tchaparian
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Gospel Of Matthew ◽  
Golden Rule ◽  
Ethical Principle ◽  
The West ◽  
Prose Poems ◽  
Unique Structure ◽  
The World ◽  
Human Sense

Gibran Khalil Gibran is one of the few Lebanese authors who has bridged the East and the West and is justifiably considered a citizen of the world. His book of highly estimated prose poems, The Prophet is one of the most widely read books of the 20th century. It reveals Gibran’s philosophy about different aspects of life, mainly the precept in the Gospel of Matthew about the importance of the human sense of mutuality which summarizes a Christian’s duty towards his/her neighbor and states a fundamental ethical principle. In addition to this golden rule, The Prophet reflects Gibran’s beliefs in Christianity. Being a true mirror of the Sufi mysticism of Islam, it also shows his idealistic opinion on pantheism. From this perspective, the research will focus on the combination of his beliefs in Christianity, Islam, and pantheism in The Prophet, as well as his firm conviction in creating the united and unique structure of a Christian-Muslim synthesis which he deeply adhered to.

Cosmopolitanism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moriah Maresh
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Martha Nussbaum ◽  
Economics Education ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Education Literature ◽  
The World ◽  
Francisco De Vitoria

Cosmopolitanism is the ideology that all people are “citizens of the world” (Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers, under General Overviews) and can be traced back to ancient Greek and Roman philosophers, with the addition of the Egyptian pharaoh, Akhanoton (“The Greek Origins of the Idea of Cosmopolitanism,” cited under Influence and Origins). With increasing global interconnectedness thanks to technological advancements, the ideology of cosmopolitanism is perhaps now more relevant than ever before. Thanks to thinkers and writers such as Immanuel Kant, Francisco de Vitoria, Anthony Kwame Appiah, and Martha Nussbaum, to name a few, cosmopolitanism and its implications continue to influence theoretical visions of society, politics, economics, education, literature, and art.

What Are You Guarding?

2021 ◽  
pp. 20-48
Author(s):  
Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Virtuous Person ◽  
False Self ◽  
Desert Fathers ◽  
The World ◽  
Virtuous Life ◽  
Christian Thought ◽  
The Right

What role should anger play in a virtuous life? If anger’s rightful target is injustice, and the world is marked by persistent injustice, is it virtuous to be habitually angry? Or, on the contrary, if Christlike character is marked by gentleness, should a virtuous person have little to no anger? To address this puzzle, DeYoung incorporates insights from two strands in Christian thought—one drawing on counsel from the desert fathers and mothers to eschew anger as a manifestation of the false self, and the other from Aquinas, who argues that some anger can be virtuous, if it has the right object and mode of expression. Next, she examines ways that formation in virtuous anger depends on other virtues, including humility, and other practices, such as lament and hope. Finally, she argues for appropriate developmental and vocational variation in anger’s virtuous expression across communities and over a lifetime.

Traditional Moral Knowledge and Experience of the World

2008 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Benedict Smith
Keyword(s):  
Moral Epistemology ◽  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Moral Reasons ◽  
John Mcdowell ◽  
The World ◽  
Moral Demands

AbstractMacIntyre shares with others, such as John McDowell, a broad commitment in moral epistemology to the centrality of tradition and both regard forms of enculturation as conditions of moral knowledge. Although MacIntyre is critical of the thought that moral reasons are available only to those whose experience of the world is conceptually articulated, he is sympathetic to the idea that the development of subjectivity involves the capacity to appreciate external moral demands. This paper critically examines some aspects of MacIntyre’s account of how knowledge is related to tradition, and suggests ways in which the formation of moral subjectivity involves the ability to experience the world.

scholarly journals Divinity, Noēsis, and Aristotelian Friendship

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 01-29
Author(s):  
John A. Houston
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Other Minds ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Intellectual Activity ◽  
Human Community ◽  
Rational Nature ◽  
Living Together ◽  
The World ◽  
Virtuous Activity

Aristotle's NE X claim that the best human life is one devoted to contemplation (theoria) seems in tension with his emphasis elsewhere on our essentially political nature, and more specifically, his claim that friendship is necessary for our flourishing. For, if our good can be in principle realized apart from the human community, there seems little reason to suggest we 'need' friends, as he clearly does in NE VIII & IX. I argue that central to Aristotle's NE X discussion of contemplation is the claim that our chief good accords with whatever is 'most divine' in us, viz. our rational nature (NE 1177b2-18). Thus, the best human life involves the excellent exercise of our rational capacities. I distinguish two ways in which human beings flourish through exercising their rationality. The first is in the activity of theoria. The second, I argue, can be found in the virtuous activity of complete friendship (teleia philia). For Aristotle the truest form of friendship is an expression of rationality. It is characterized not merely by our living together, but conversing, and sharing one another's thoughts (NE 1170b12-14). Examining Aristotle's notion of a friend as 'another self (alios autos), I argue that through friendship human beings come to better know themselves and the world in which they live. Complete friendship involves a (uniquely human) second-order awareness of oneself in another, and through this awareness our understanding of ourselves and the world in which we live is enriched, confirmed, and enjoyed through the presence of other minds. Thus, the highest form of Aristotelian friendship is an intellectual activity through which we attain an analogue of the divine contemplation of the unmoved mover, thereby living with respect to what is most divine in us, but doing so in accordance with our uniquely rational-political nature.

scholarly journals Reading for the dignity of all: Overcoming the troubling legacy of the Old Testament

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
L Juliana Claassens
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Martha Nussbaum ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Religious Intolerance ◽  
The World ◽  
Politics Of Fear ◽  
Equal Respect

In light of the numerous instances in the Hebrew Bible in which the dignity of its characters are threatened, violated or potentially violated, this article seeks to identify a number of strategies that may be used to read the Bible for the dignity of all so overcoming the Old Testament’s troubling legacy. These strategies have been inspired by the work of Martha Nussbaum who, in one of her recent books, The New Religious Intolerance: Overcoming the Politics of Fear in an Anxious Age, names three principles that may help a society to become more compassionate in nature and to transcend, what she calls, a narcissistic notion of fear: (1) Political (and I would add religious) principles that express equal respect and dignity for all people (2) Rigorous critical thinking that criticizes inconsistencies that may lead to human rights violations (3) Developing an empathetic or participatory imagination, in which one is able to consider how the world looks from the point of view of a person of a different cultural or religious point of view.

Comment on Karen Jones and François Schroeter

2012 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Hills
Keyword(s):  
Moral Epistemology ◽  
Virtuous Person ◽  
Moral Understanding

AbstractIn this comment I defend my account of moral understanding and its role in morally worthy action and claim that a fully virtuous person would have moral understanding. This means that deference to moral experts is not always appropriate. But there is still room for a social moral epistemology, whereby moral experts pass on moral understanding.

Technoscience, transhumanism, telos

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natasha Vita-More
Keyword(s):  
Human Condition ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
Moral Perception ◽  
Future Scenarios ◽  
Social Construct ◽  
Use Of Technology ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Key Events ◽  
The Human Condition

This chapter focuses on human achievements accomplished with the use of technology and science as methods to explore humanity’s most daunting challenges. Each era of human achievement reveals previously unimaginable goals that, once attained, impact and positively transform the world and the future of humanity. Transhumanism offers a social construct for action-oriented strategies to inform and mitigate many of these threats. These strategies stem from diverse fields of inquiry, research, and analysis of possible future scenarios, and suggest the processes for implementing them. Notably, counterarguments to an intervention in the human condition—the characteristics and key events concerning human existence—often expose themselves as biases in moral perception that, in due course, fall short. Yet humans continue to be fueled by curiosity and a need for amelioration to transcend limits. What is lacking and most imminently necessary to address the exponentially increasing technology in our midst, and society’s varied perceptions and reactions, is straightforward guidance in navigating towards the telos of our humanity.

Can There be a Religion of Reasons? A Response to Leiter's Circular Conception of Religious Belief

2010 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-56
Author(s):  
Jeffrey M. Lipshaw
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
Martha Nussbaum ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Religion And Science ◽  
Bright Line ◽  
The World ◽  
Definition Of Religion ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Special Respect

This article comments on a definition of religion recently proffered by Brian Leiter. Leiters definition first appeared in a paper arguing that there is no principled reason for the Constitution to single out religion as one of many forms of conscience for special tolerance. Martha Nussbaum then suggested that we owe something more than mere tolerance for religious belief; in our efforts to make sense of the world, we owe “a special respect for the faculty in human beings in which they search for life's ultimate meaning.” In a later paper, Leiter uses the same definition of religion to argue that Nussbaum is wrong. My argument can be expressed positively: if Nussbaum is right, she is also right that the concept of religious belief (as opposed to particular conceptions or instantiations of it) is entitled to as much respect as any other kind of belief, because once we are talking about any kind of belief it is difficult to draw a principled line. Stated negatively, Leiter's attack is ultimately circular: the problem with religion is that it is not science. Exposing the circularity requires identifying the trick, which is that Leiter employs an appeal to common sense to distinguish religion and science under a bright line definition. Nevertheless, the very belief in common sense Leiter employs here is the same as the belief in religion Leiter attacks: it is categorical and insulated from further reasons.

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