Teleological Hospitality

2021 ◽  
pp. 88-96
Author(s):  
Richard Kearney ◽  
Melissa Fitzpatrick
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Practical Wisdom ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Moral Philosopher

This chapter will explore what I take to be the post-Kantian practical-possible ethics par excellence: contemporary virtue ethics. In the spirit of Aristotle, contemporary virtue ethics seeks to provide an account of ethics that is relevant to life, as we know it—and for our purposes, an ethics of hospitality that is more than armchair theory. Elaborating on the two preceding chapters, I will critically interpret Talbot Brewer’s recent and remarkably comprehensive Aristotelian-inspired approach to re-imagining the task of moral philosophy and the moral philosopher, ultimately illustrating that a vital aspect of human flourishing—eudaimonia, a life of practical wisdom—is hospitality to the strange and strangers.

Virtue Ethics and Medical Law

2019 ◽  
pp. 11-25
Author(s):  
Robert Gay
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Medical Practice ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Moral Life ◽  
Best Interests ◽  
Medical Law ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Course Of Action ◽  
Medical Teams

Virtue ethics is a way of viewing the moral life in terms of the necessary dispositions which shape human action towards the good, and towards human flourishing. Thinking of the moral life in terms of virtue was the dominant approach to moral philosophy in ancient and medieval thought. Although largely absent as a major strand of thought in moral philosophy after the Enlightenment, it has key features which challenge the dominant approaches in moral philosophy. The second half of the twentieth century saw a revival in virtue ethics, inspired by philosophers such as Anscombe and MacIntyre. The Hippocratic tradition provides a virtue framework for medicine, and the revival of virtue ethics has led to further work to explore the importance of virtue in medical practice. In the morally and technically complex world of medical practice, the virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance are necessary for the doctor to act according to the best interests of the patient, which are in line with the proper ends of medicine. The law has a role in prohibiting acts which are not in accordance with the ends of medicine, which cannot be virtuous. It also has a role in helping to arrive at prudential decisions in cases where there are disputes between patients or their families and medical teams about a best course of action. Finally, medical law should have a role in cultivating virtue within medicine for the benefit of patients and doctors.

scholarly journals Justice as Lawfulness

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 262-278
Author(s):  
TRISTAN J. ROGERS
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Practical Wisdom ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Tradition ◽  
Individual Justice ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractWhat is the relationship between justice as an individual virtue and justice as an institutional virtue? The latter has been exhaustively explored by political philosophers, whereas the former remains underexplored in the literature on virtue ethics. This article defends the view that individual justice is logically prior to institutional justice, and argues that this view requires a conception of individual justice I call ‘justice as lawfulness’. The resulting view consists of three claims. First, just institutions are composed of the relations between just persons. Second, the just person has a disposition to act in accordance with the legal and social norms (collectively, thenomoi) of the existing political tradition. Third, departures from thenomoirequire that the just person act with practical wisdom to reform thenomoiaccording to an implicit standard of justice in the political tradition.

scholarly journals Concepts of Ethics and Their Application to AI

2021 ◽  
pp. 19-33
Author(s):  
Bernd Carsten Stahl
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Ethical Evaluation ◽  
Ai Ethics ◽  
Profit Maximisation

AbstractAny discussion of the ethics of AI needs to be based on a sound understanding of the concept of ethics. This chapter therefore provides a brief overview of some of the key approaches to ethics with a particular emphasis on virtue ethics and the idea of human flourishing. The chapter reviews the purposes for which AI can be used, as these have a bearing on an ethical evaluation. Three main purposes are distinguished: AI forefficiency, optimisation and profit maximisation, AI forsocial control and AI for human flourishing. Given the focus on human flourishing in this book, several theoretical positions are introduced that provide insights into different aspects and ways of promoting human flourishing. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the currently widespread principle-based approach to AI ethics.

The Philosophy of Moral Development

2007 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-86
Author(s):  
Anna Abram
Keyword(s):  
Moral Development ◽  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Developmental Psychology ◽  
Philosophy Of Education ◽  
Moral Failure ◽  
Personal Interaction ◽  
Interdisciplinary Study

This article presents a view of moral development based on the interdisciplinary study of moral psychology and virtue ethics. It suggests that a successful account of moral development has to go beyond what the developmental psychology and virtue ethics advocate and find ways of incorporating ideas, such as “moral failure” and “unpredictability of life.” It proposes to recognize the concept of moral development as an essential concept for ethics, moral philosophy and philosophy of education, and as a useful tool for anyone who wants to engage constructively in dialogues of religions, cultures and personal interaction.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Maxwell A. Cameron
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Practical Wisdom ◽  
Institutional Analysis ◽  
Contemporary Literature

Institutions are powerful forces in our lives because they exert an influence over our choices and actions, giving them meaning and significance. Whereas much of the contemporary literature on institutions stresses the importance of interests and rights, less attention has been given to the goods that institutions deliver. This chapter defines what we mean by institutions, and introduces the idea of practical wisdom from the tradition of virtue ethics. Linking institutional analysis to virtue ethics helps us to better appreciate the need for wise practitioners and to understand why the aims (or goods) of institutions cannot be achieved without them.

Virtue, Rule-Following, and Absolute Prohibitions

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-97
Author(s):  
JEREMY REID
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Virtuous Person ◽  
Rule Following ◽  
Moral Rules ◽  
Seminal Article ◽  
Modern Moral Philosophy ◽  
Taking Responsibility

AbstractIn her seminal article ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’ (1958) Elizabeth Anscombe argued that we need a new ethics, one that uses virtue terms to generate absolute prohibitions against certain act-types. Leading contemporary virtue ethicists have not taken up Anscombe's challenge in justifying absolute prohibitions and have generally downplayed the role of rule-following in their normative theories. That they have not done so is primarily because contemporary virtue ethicists have focused on what is sufficient for characterizing the deliberation and action of the fully virtuous person, and rule-following is inadequate for this task. In this article, I take up Anscombe's challenge by showing that rule-following is necessary for virtuous agency, and that virtue ethics can justify absolute prohibitions. First, I offer a possibility proof by showing how virtue ethics can generate absolute prohibitions in three ways: by considering actions that directly manifest vice or that cannot be performed virtuously; actions that are prohibited by one's institutional roles and practical identities; and actions that are prohibited by the prescriptions of the wise. I then seek to show why virtue ethicists should incorporate rule-following and absolute prohibitions into their theories. I emphasize the central role that rules have in the development of virtue, then motivate the stronger view that fully virtuous agents follow moral rules by considering the importance of hope, uncertainty about consequences, and taking responsibility for what eventuates. Finally, I provide an account of what Anscombe called a ‘corrupt mind’, explaining how our understanding of virtue is corrupted if we think that virtue may require us to do vicious actions.

Aristotelian Virtue and Its Limitations

Philosophy ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 69 (269) ◽  
pp. 291-316 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christipher Cordner
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Moral Virtue ◽  
Ethical Thought ◽  
Living Well ◽  
The World ◽  
Good Will ◽  
The Will

‘Virtue ethics’ is prominent, if not pre-eminent, in contemporary moral philosophy. The philosophical model for most of those urging a ‘virtues approach’ to ethics is of course Aristotle. Some features, at least, of the motivation to this renewed concern with Aristotelian ethical thought are fairly clear. Notoriously, Kant held that the only thing good without qualification is the good will; and he then made it difficult to grasp what made the will good when he denied that it could be its preoccupation with or attention to anything in the world. The idea of the good will then seems to be an idea of something which transcends the world, and therefore to be no easier to make sense of, or to believe in, than Plato′s form of the good is usually thought to be. The first obvious attraction of Aristotle′s ethics, then—at least to those of an empiricist or worldly cast of mind—is that it promises an understanding of the ethical which locates that robustly within the world. Aristotle′s virtues are real this-worldly existences. They are, moreover, qualities whose place in our lives seems to be explained readily, and attractively, in Aristotelian terms. Moral virtue is essentially connected with eudaimonia, a concept variously construed as happiness, as living well, or even as flourishing. Morality is important because of the contribution it makes to the living of a fully human life. And a ‘fully human’ life is characterizable in what modernity calls ‘humanist’, or sometimes ‘naturalistic’, terms: it requires no invocation of transcendence or other-worldliness.

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