PHIL 726

Ethics 1

Please note: this is archived course information from 2017 for PHIL 726.

Description

The revival of virtue ethics in recent years has been met with enthusiastic support in some quarters and passionate opposition in others. This course will look at three important challenges that have been raised for virtue ethics. The first is the problem of right action. Can virtue ethics provide an adequate account of right action? A number of theorists – both supporters and detractors – have argued that it cannot. The first part of the course will investigate this question.

The second challenge is the problem of enumeration. In response to the observation that, for example, the same person might be a good father and a bad soldier, many theorists have suggested that an adequate list of virtues will include virtues of many different types. However, the more virtues there are, the harder it becomes to coordinate them in an account of what is virtuous overall. The second part of the course will explore the questions, "How many virtues are there?" and "How many is too many?". 

The third challenge is situationism. Drawing upon research in social psychology, a number of theorists have argued that, even if virtue ethics can answer the first two challenges, it should still be rejected because it is built around a false conception of human nature. The third part of the course will take up this challange. Do we really have the kinds of character traits that virtue ethics presupposes, or are our actions mostly the result of features in our social environment that push or pull us in one direction rather than another? 

Availability 2017

Not taught in 2017

Lecturer(s)

Lecturer(s) Dr Glen Pettigrove

Reading/Texts

Daniel Russell, Practical Intelligence and the Virtues (Oxford 2009)

Points

PHIL 726: 15 points