Abstract
So far as Anglophone academic study is concerned, interest in the idea of virtue as a central concept in ethical theory only dates from the late 1950s beginning with Elizabeth Anscombe’s “Modern Moral Philosophy” but getting its first specific discussion in Georg Von Wright’s 1963 book The Varieties of Goodness in which he writes: “Virtue is a neglected topic in modern ethics”. As the present essay shows, these words became a common refrain through the 1970s, 80s and 90s. The rise to prominence of ideas of virtue in philosophy and then in educational theory and in psychology, as well as in schemes for establishing good practice in various fields of professional and public life raises questions about how a focus on virtue relates to other ways of evaluating agents and actions, and of how virtue itself may be identified and assessed.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
- 3.
Anscombe (1958, pp. 4–5).
- 4.
- 5.
Anscombe (1958, pp. 14–15).
- 6.
See Thompson (2008 Chaps. 1–4, 10 and 11).
- 7.
Von Wright (1963, pp. 136–137).
- 8.
MacIntyre (1966, pp. 262–263).
- 9.
Foot (1965, p. 242).
- 10.
Foot (1978, pp. 2–3).
- 11.
Geach (1977, pp. 1 and 16.)
- 12.
Hursthouse (1999, pp. 1–5).
- 13.
- 14.
Summa Theologiae, Ia, IIae, q 94, a 2 responsio.
- 15.
Summa Theologiae, Ia, IIae, q 6, prologue.
- 16.
Summa Theologiae, Ia, IIae, q 58, a 4 responsio.
- 17.
Summa Theologiae Ia, IIae, q. 18, a 9 responsio.
- 18.
For a discussion of these themes see Snow, Wright, and Warren forthcoming.
- 19.
Jubilee (2017, p. 2).
- 20.
On the last see (Ross 1977), and for philosophical applications of this to the case of virtue see Doris (1998, 2002) and Harman, (1998–99, 1999–2000). In the face of this kind of skepticism it is worth noting the enormous range of terms for character traits, and in particular for virtues. Talk of the four cardinal virtues may distract from the very large number identified, for example, in the Analects of Confucius—many more than are named in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Indeed Confucian moral direction would be impossible if these terms were removed.
- 21.
Jubilee (2017, p. 3).
- 22.
Frege (1892).
- 23.
- 24.
Mill (1859 Chaps. 2, 5).
- 25.
For further discussion see Haldane (1996).
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Haldane, J. (2019). Some Questions About Virtue. In: Grimi, E. (eds) Virtue Ethics: Retrospect and Prospect. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15860-6_1
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