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Virtue and Flourishing: Philippa Foot’s Naturalism of Human Reason

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Aristotelian Naturalism

Part of the book series: Historical-Analytical Studies on Nature, Mind and Action ((HSNA,volume 8))

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Abstract

Two cornerstones in the thinking of British philosopher Philippa Foot (∗1920; †2010) were her rigorous rejection of ethical Non-Cognitivism as well as her firm belief that a successful ethics must be based on a plausible explanation of virtues and vices. What Foot had to say about virtues and vices, however, took so many significant turns over the years that it does not seem far-fetched to distinguish, with Gavin Lawrence (Lawrence 1995), an »early Foot«, a »middle Foot« and a »late Foot«. Nevertheless, Foot always held on to the importance of the virtues through all those turns. What changed was her exposition of the relationship between human virtues and a human being’s practical rationality.

Translated by Carolin Böse-Sprenger

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Correspondence to Thomas Hoffmann .

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Hoffmann, T. (2020). Virtue and Flourishing: Philippa Foot’s Naturalism of Human Reason. In: Hähnel, M. (eds) Aristotelian Naturalism. Historical-Analytical Studies on Nature, Mind and Action, vol 8. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37576-8_10

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