No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Virtue and Character
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 January 2009
Extract
Moral theories which, like those of Plato, Aristotle and Aquinas, give a central place to the virtues, tend to assume that as traits of character the virtues are mutually compatible so that it is possible for one and the same person to possess them all. This assumption—let us call it the compatibility thesis—does not deny the existence of painful moral dilemmas: it allows that the virtues may conflict in particular situations when considerations associated with different virtues favour incompatible courses of action, but holds that these conflicts occur only at the level of individual actions. Thus while it may not always be possible to do both what would be just and what would be kind or to act both loyally and honestly, it is possible to be both a kind and a just person and to have both the virtue of loyalty and the virtue of honesty.
Information
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1989
References
1 Aristotle, , Nicomachean Ethics III, 4, 1113a29–33.Google Scholar
2 McPherson, Thomas, The Philosophy of Religion (London: van Nostrand, 1965), 34–35.Google Scholar
3 Foot, Philippa, ‘Moral Realism and Moral Dilemma’, Journal of Philosophy 80, No. 7 (07 1983), 396–397.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4 Op. cit. note 3, 397.
5 Augustine, , De Bono Viduitatis xx, 26.Google Scholar
6 Compare Bernard Williams's distinction between inconsistent beliefs and conflicting beliefs in ‘Ethical Consistency’, Problems of the Self (Cambridge University Press), 166–167.Google Scholar
7 Aristotle, , Nicomachean Ethics I, 9, 1099b18–20.Google Scholar
8 Op. cit. note 3, 397.
9 Aristotle, , Nicomachean Ethics II, 4, 1105a32–33.Google Scholar
10 Wallace, James D., Virtues and Vices (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1978).Google Scholar
11 Op. cit. note 10, 128.
12 Op. cit. note 10, 90.
13 Op. cit. note 10, 128–129.
14 Kant, Immanuel, Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, trans. Paton, H. J. as The Moral Law (London: Hutchinson, 1948), 66.Google Scholar
15 Hudson, Stephen D., Human Character and Morality (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986), 85, my emphasis.Google Scholar
16 Plato, , Republic 375a–376c.Google Scholar
17 Aristotle, , Nicomachean Ethics II, 3, 1104b3–5.Google Scholar
18 On this see, for example, Hunt, Lester, ‘Character and Thought’, American Philosophical Quarterly 15, No. 3 (07 1978), 177–186Google Scholar; and Dent, N. J. H., The Moral Psychology of the Virtues (Cambridge University Press, 1984), Ch. 1.Google Scholar
19 Burnyeat, Myles, ‘Virtues in Action’, The Philosophy of Socrates, Vlastos, Gregory (ed.) (London: Macmillan, 1972), 229.Google Scholar
20 Aristotle, , Nicomachean Ethics VI, 13, 1144bl–17.Google Scholar
21 Watson, Gary, ‘Virtues in Excess’, Philosophical Studies 46, No. 1 (07 1984), 57–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
22 See, for example, Watson, Gary, op. cit. note 21, 57–58Google Scholar; Foot, Philippa, ‘Virtues and Vices’, in Virtues and Vices (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1978), 14–16Google Scholar; McDowell, John, ‘Virtue and Reason’, The Monist 62, No. 3 (07 1979).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
23 Aristotle, , Nicomachean Ethics, VI, 12, 1144a29–bl; VIGoogle Scholar, 13, 1144b17–1145a11; X, 8, 1178a16–19. See Geach, P. T., The Virtues (Cambridge University Press, 1977), 164.Google Scholar
24 For suggestive remarks in this connection, indicating a degree of independence between ‘principles of wrongdoing’ and ‘standards of vice’, see Trianowsky, Gregory W., ‘Supererogation, Wrongdoing and Vice: On the Autonomy of the Ethics of Virtue’, Journal of Philosophy 83, No. 1 (01 1986), especially 35–40Google Scholar, though I should not want to elaborate the distinction in the way Trianowsky does. See also Maclntyre, Alasdair, After Virtue (London: Duckworth, 1981), 141–142.Google Scholar
25 Plato, , Protagoras 349e.Google Scholar
26 I should like to thank Angela Walker and T. S. Champlin for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper and Renford Bambrough for editorial advice.
- 11
- Cited by