Burdened Virtues: Virtue Ethics for Liberatory Struggles

by Lisa Tessman

Overview

Lisa Tessman's Burdened Virtues is a deeply original and provocative work that engages questions central to feminist theory and practice, from the perspective of Aristotelian ethics. Focused primarily on selves who endure and resist oppression, she addresses the ways in which devastating conditions confronted by these selves both limit and burden their moral goodness, and affect their possibilities of flourishing. She describes two different forms of "moral trouble" prevalent under oppression. The first is that the oppressed self may be morally damaged, prevented from developing or exercising some of the virtues; the second is that the very conditions of oppression require the oppressed to develop a set of virtues that carry a moral cost to those who practice them—traits that Tessman refers to as "burdened virtues." These virtues have the unusual feature of being disjoined from their bearer's own well being.

Tessman's work focuses on issues that have been missed by many feminist moral theories, and her use of the virtue ethics framework brings feminist concerns more closely into contact with mainstream ethical theory. This book will appeal to feminist theorists in philosophy and women's studies, but also more broadly, ethicists and social theorists.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195179149
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	10/06/2005
Series:	Studies in Feminist Philosophy
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	9.56(w) x 6.34(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

Lisa Tessman is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies, Binghamton University.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Moral Trouble.
1. Regretting the Self One Is.
2. The Damage of Moral Damage.
3. The Ordinary Vices of Domination.
4. Between Indifference and Anguish.
5. The Burden of Political Resistance.
6. Dangerous Loyalties.
Conclusion: Eudaimonistic Virtue Ethics under Adversity.
Works Cited.
Index.