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Before Virtue - Assessing Contemporary Virtue Ethics (Paperback)
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Before Virtue - Assessing Contemporary Virtue Ethics (Paperback)
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Classical virtue ethics, exemplified by Aristotle (d. 322 BC),
asked: what can we know of human nature and the virtues by which it
is perfected in order to live well? Dominant ethical theories today
generally avoid the question of human nature, taking deontological
(non-metaphysical) or utilitarian (maximizing perceived social
benefit) approaches. Elizabeth Anscombe's 1958 article "Modern
Moral Philosophy," sparked a revival of virtue ethics. She
critiqued contemporary ethical theories and exhorted her readers to
recover central features of an Aristotelian approach. Jonathan
Sanford finds that despite the common origins of contemporary
virtue ethics in Anscombe, the literature varies widely not just in
its scope but in its basic commitments. What exactly is
contemporary virtue ethics? In Before Virtue, Sanford develops
strategies for describing contemporary virtue ethics accurately. He
then assesses contemporary virtue approaches by the Anscombean dual
standard which inspired them: the degree to which they avoid the
pitfalls of modern moral philosophy and the extent to which they
exemplify a successful recovery of an Aristotelian approach to
ethics. Sanford finds the results to be mixed. But an underlying
and unifying theme emerges: an adequate virtue theory must
incorporate at least preliminary answers to the questions of the
nature of human beings, our ends, and the principles by means of
which our ends are best pursued. It is only in light of recognizing
the significance of those questions to moral philosophy that one
can begin to appreciate the contribution of Aristotelian ethics.
Ultimately, Anscombe's judgment about the need to eschew what she
designates as modern moral philosophy is vindicated through a
recovery of Aristotelian ethics that goes further in addressing
those more basic questions than has most contemporary virtue
ethics. The concluding chapters of this book contribute to that
recovery.
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