I argue that even if divine command theorists can ascribe obligations to non-believers, they cannot ascribe full moral virtue to non-believers, because non-believers do not act for all of the right reasons even when they do the right thing. I focus on the Platonic version of divine command theory proposed by Robert Adams and leverage crucial points from another Platonic moral theorist, Iris Murdoch, to emphasize the importance of one’s aspirational orientations for proper moral motivation. I distinguish an approach to the moral life that is grounded in a responsive aspiration towards a transcendent Good from one that is conditioned to some degree by a comparatively rigid alternative that I, following Adams, describe as moral idolatry. I appeal to this distinction to explain what is lacking in the moral motivation of the non-believer as an improper-aspirer, and thereby define a moral limitation that could apply in principle to avowed believers as well. I ultimately leave open whether or not this argument constitutes an objection to divine command theory, and hope primarily to stress the broad importance of clarifying the roles that central concepts in moral psychology (such as virtue and motivation) play in the structure of metaethical theories.

The language of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly omnipresent in human discourse. Many point out that a growing reliance on AI for communication is intellectually and socially deleterious, but its consequences for our moral lives and identities are even deeper than those that contemporary critique is sometimes capable of recognizing. To illuminate these consequences, I turn to the Roman orator, philosopher, and statesman Cicero, whose rhetorical and ethical theory of decorum shows how, by diminishing our eloquence, AI also diminishes our virtue at a time when rhetoric has become increasingly suspect as inimical to civic virtue and civility itself.

This essay investigates Kant’s various reasons for pessimism about happiness. I argue that some of Kant’s concerns about whether (or to what extent) happiness is possible for us are more pressing than others, and some can be more easily mitigated. Moreover, although he tends to emphasize the difficulties in securing personal happiness, Kant’s texts offer several helpful strategies for ways of acting and living that can help us avoid some key sources of discontent, thereby increasing our chances for being happy in life.

This paper focuses on two important questions about Christianity and sanctification:

• • If Christianity is true, then what can we reasonably predict about the impact of the sanctification process on Christians?

• • Is the empirical research on morally relevant behaviour consistent with such predictions, and in particular, is there evidence consistent with there being better moral character on average in Christians rather than non-Christians?

In addressing the first question, we will focus on whether, if Christianity is true, there is good reason to predict that Christians on average will have a more virtuous character than non-Christians. In addressing the second question, we will see that there is significant empirical evidence that is consistent with this prediction.

In this article, I invite readers to think about what it really means to taste life. I intend this to be an opening to a broader conversation about what it means to be virtuous, to flourish collectively, and even to experience transcendence. Guiding the reader through various existential views and scenarios, I explore the potential to transform both our lives and the fabric of our shared reality. Living such a life entails far more than a mundane and restrained biological, functional existence. In short, we need not ‘merely exist’; we can exist more.

The article argues, using Aristotle’s ethics, that Donald Trump lacks the virtues essential for human flourishing while highlighting the moral responsibility to judge character in politics.

This paper examines the pleasant state of virtue in Kantian eudaimonism. I investigate how Kantian virtue can be eudaimonistic for finite agents, for whom conflict is never eliminated. I argue that the pleasant dimension of virtue is realized not through harmony between reason and sensibility but as a pleasant state that is structurally dependent on a negative sensible moment of displeasure for finite agents. Drawing on Kant’s account of rational feelings, I show how virtue’s pleasantness does not erase conflict but is instead intelligible within a non-harmonizing conflict model of Kantian eudaimonism – one that finite agents inevitably face.

This paper reconceptualizes aesthetic action in John Stuart Mill’s art of life as a distinct, world-regarding action, oriented toward ideals such as justice, beauty, and nobility. While morality is guided by obligations to others and prudence by rationality and the cultivation of virtues, aesthetics concerns the aspirational pursuit of collective human flourishing. Rejecting character-based interpretations, the paper distinguishes aesthetic action by its transformative effect and expressive quality. Though not enforceable, aesthetic ideals expand moral imagination and inspire long-term social progress. Drawing on Mill’s separation between action and character evaluation, the argument clarifies that aesthetic action cannot be reduced to virtue or character. Instead, it completes Mill’s tripartite normative framework by illuminating a third domain that motivates ethical life through nobleness and imagination. Aesthetic action thus becomes essential to understanding Mill’s perfectionist aspiration and his vision of higher happiness.

Scholars have identified a primary goal of legislation in Plato’s Laws: to make citizens virtuous and thereby happy. But in focusing on this goal, they have left unexplored another: to shape how citizens understand and face death. This article shows how these two goals are tied together. I first argue that in book I, Kleinias serves as an example of how legislation can miseducate citizens by leaving them with conflicting views of virtue and thus with conflicting evaluations of death. Then, I turn to two of the Stranger’s statements on virtue, happiness, and death in books I and II and argue that these statements hold a positive teaching on virtue, and thereby death, that he thinks wise law must inculcate in citizens.

This article will argue that Sor Juana develops a revisionary virtue epistemology in her Reply to Sor Filotea in order to counter the oppressive dogmas of her time. Sor Juana’s epistemological reorganization of Catholic Scholasticism helps her epistemically ground and morally justify her lifelong passion for learning. Sor Juana’s virtue responsibilist epistemology posits that properly oriented humility actually motivates studying, even for women; subtly reworks the scope of the supposed vice of curiositas so as to endorse curiosity about the created world as a virtue; and underscores the equal importance of moral and intellectual virtues for persons of any gender. Furthermore, Sor Juana’s system emphasizes grounds for epistemic justification that are accessible third-personally to allow her to move beyond the discriminatory debate about women’s intellectual capacities and demonstrate her epistemic agency through externally observable markers.

Students of Adam Smith’s views on virtue typically look to The Theory of Moral Sentiments. But in fact, the Wealth of Nations contains a strikingly robust theory of the relationship between virtues and institutions, one centered on the question of how the incentive systems created by various institutional structures encourage or impede the moral development of both individuals and societies. This essay documents this underappreciated approach and aims to demonstrate its ubiquity in the Wealth of Nations across multiple institutional contexts.

Economists have provided multiple pictures of how human beings’ aims work. Some have claimed that preferences are identical between all human beings. Others propose desires are in some measure under the desirer’s own control. I propose that the contemporary moral theory of exemplarism provides a way to combine the advantages of these views while allowing economists to have empirical input into moral discourse. Furthermore, the previous views imply their own particular defenses of free societies, and I argue exemplarism does as well. I articulate an argument that out of tradition-based, planning-based, and market-based societies, market-based societies best permit the freedom necessary for moral exemplars to arise. In the process of exploring this argument, I flesh out some of the details of how human beings change themselves that are left out of earlier accounts.