The Theory and Practice of Virtue presents a series of connected essays - drawing on the thoughts of such diverse figures as Josef Pieper, Plato, Lawrence, Kohlberg, and Martin Luther- which explore theories of virtue and the practical task of being virtuous.
The Theory and Practice of Virtue Education offers the reader a comprehensive and authoritative account of both the theoretical and practical complexities of cultivating virtue in education and beyond. The book moves beyond the usual philosophical literature that merely discusses virtue in the abstract, and offers scholarly, research-informed suggestions for practice. Drawn from a highly successful international conference organised by the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, the chapters in this volume offer a unique insight into the varieties of approaches that leading scholars have identified for putting the learning and nurturing of virtues into practice. Featured are chapters from internationally acclaimed scholars primarily in the fields of philosophy, psychology and education, which are categorised under three headings: philosophical and theoretical foundations for cultivating virtues; developing virtues in practice; and nurturing specific virtues. Beginning with chapters that examine differing theoretical complexities of virtue education, the book then moves on to explore different approaches to nurturing virtue in the classroom and beyond. This practical approach is further evidenced in the final section, where individual virtues are discussed. The Theory and Practice of Virtue Education highlights the theoretical complexity of putting virtue education into practice and, as a result, is of real use to researchers, academics and postgraduates in the fields of education, philosophy, psychology, sociology and theology. It should also be essential reading for educators in character and virtue.
Equality is the endangered species of political ideals. Even left-of-center politicians reject equality as an ideal: government must combat poverty, they say, but need not strive that its citizens be equal in any dimension. In his new book Ronald Dworkin insists, to the contrary, that equality is the indispensable virtue of democratic sovereignty. A legitimate government must treat all its citizens as equals, that is, with equal respect and concern, and, since the economic distribution that any society achieves is mainly the consequence of its system of law and policy, that requirement imposes serious egalitarian constraints on that distribution. What distribution of a nation's wealth is demanded by equal concern for all? Dworkin draws upon two fundamental humanist principles--first, it is of equal objective importance that all human lives flourish, and second, each person is responsible for defining and achieving the flourishing of his or her own life--to ground his well-known thesis that true equality means equality in the value of the resources that each person commands, not in the success he or she achieves. Equality, freedom, and individual responsibility are therefore not in conflict, but flow from and into one another as facets of the same humanist conception of life and politics. Since no abstract political theory can be understood except in the context of actual and complex political issues, Dworkin develops his thesis by applying it to heated contemporary controversies about the distribution of health care, unemployment benefits, campaign finance reform, affirmative action, assisted suicide, and genetic engineering.
This anthology can be used to cover the virtue ethics component of an ethics course, either in conjunction with one of the larger ethics texts -- many include no material on virtue theory, or very little -- or with free standing editions; as the centrepiece of a course devoted entirely to virtue theory; or as a component of an introductory course that includes a section on ethics. Part 1 includes readings from five classic thinkers with importantly distinct approaches to virtue. Part 2 provides five new essays from contemporary thinkers that apply virtue theories to the resolution of practical moral problems. Jennifer Welchman provides a general Introduction on the history of virtue theory, a short introduction to each selection that highlights the distinctive aspects of the author's view, and suggested further readings for each selection.
Virtues and Virtue Education in Theory and Practice explores questions about the locality versus the universality of virtues from a number of theoretical and practical perspectives. Written by leading international scholars in the field, it considers the relevance of these debates for the practice of virtue and character education. This volume brings together experts from education, philosophy, and psychology to consider how different disciplines might learn from each other and how insights from theory and practice can be integrated. It shows that questions about virtue relativity or universality have not only theoretical significance but also important practical ramifications. The chapters explore different complexities of virtue ethics and different approaches to nurturing virtue and beyond, questioning how well virtues travel across geographical and cultural borders. By examining the philosophical literature and making links between theory and practice in an original way, the book offers scholarly research-informed suggestions for practice. It will be of great interest to researchers and academics and students in educational philosophy, character education, ethics, and psychology.
A central concern in recent ethical thinking is reasons for action and their relation to obligations, rights, and values. This collection of recent essays by Robert Audi presents an account of what reasons for action are, how they are related to obligation and rights, and how they figure in virtuous conduct. In addition, Audi reflects in his opening essay on his theory of reasons for action, his common-sense intuitionism, and his widely debated principles for balancing religion and politics. Reasons are shown to be basic elements in motivation, grounded in experience, and crucial for justifying actions and for understanding rights. Audi's clear and engaging essays make these advanced debates accessible to students as well as scholars, and this volume will be a valuable resource for readers interested in ethical theory, political theory, applied ethics, or philosophy of action.
This volume brings together scholars in classics, political philosophy, and rhetoric to analyze prudence as a distinctive and vital form of political intelligence. Through case studies from each of the major periods in the history of prudence, the authors identify neglected resources for political judgement in today's conditions of pluralism and interdependency. Three assumptions inform these essays: the many dimensions of prudence cannot be adequately represented in the lexicon of any single discipline; the Aristotelian focus on prudence as rational calculation needs to be balanced by the Ciceronian emphasis on prudence as discursive performance embedded in familiar social practices; and understanding prudence requires attention to how it operates thorough the communicative media and public discourses that constitute the political community.
In this Christian take on classical virtue ethics, Kevin J. Brown invites us to explore what it means to live the virtuous life—and why that is so important. Today the word virtue can sound legalistic or old-fashioned, but in the past it was used to describe the fullness of human excellence in accordance with God’s design. This book seeks to recapture that definition, weaving in modern-day examples from economics, politics, and pop culture to create a relevant framework that relates faith to contemporary ethical questions.
Desert and Virtue: A Theory of Intrinsic Value presents a comprehensive examination of desert and what makes people deserve things. Stephen Kershnar demonstrates how desert relates to virtue, good deeds, moral responsibility, and personal change and growth through the life process. He persuasively argues that desert is a function that relates well-being, intrinsic value, and a "ground," which is defined as a person's character or act.
The distinguished philosopher Robert M. Adams presents a major work on virtue, which is once again a central topic in ethical thought. A Theory of Virtue is a systematic, comprehensive framework for thinking about the moral evaluation of character. Many recent attempts to stake out a place in moral philosophy for this concern define virtue in terms of its benefits for the virtuous person or for human society more generally. In Part One of this book Adams presents anddefends a conception of virtue as intrinsic excellence of character, worth prizing for its own sake and not only for its benefits. In the other two parts he addresses two challenges to the ancient idea of excellence of character. One challenge arises from the importance of altruism in modern ethical thought, and the question of what altruism has to do with intrinsic excellence. Part Two argues that altruistic benevolence does indeed have a crucial place in excellence of character, but that moral virtue should also be expected to involve excellence in being for other goods besides the well-being (and the rights) of other persons. It explores relations among cultural goods, personal relationships, one's own good, and the good of others, as objects of excellent motives.The other challenge, the subject of Part Three of the book, is typified by doubts about the reality of moral virtue, arising from experiments and conclusions in social psychology. Adams explores in detail the prospects for an empirically realistic conception of excellence of character as an object of moral aspiration, endeavor, and education. He argues that such a conception will involve renunciation of the ancient thesis of the unity or mutual implication of all virtues, and acknowledgment ofsufficient 'moral luck' in the development of any individual's character to make virtue very largely a gift, rather than an individual achievement, though nonetheless excellent and admirable for that