Virtue Ethics / Edition 1

by Stephen Darwall

Overview

Virtue Ethics collects, for the first time, the main classical sources and the central contemporary expressions of virtue ethics approach to normative ethical theory. Edited and introduced by Stephen Darwall, these readings are essential for anyone interested in normative theory.

• Introduced by Stephen Darwall, this collection brings together classic and contemporary readings which define and advance the literature on virtue ethics.
• Includes six essays which respond to the classic sources.
• Includes a contemporary discussion on character and virtue by Gary Watson.
• Includes classic essays by Aristotle, Francis Hutcheson and David Hume, and recent reactions to this work by philosophers including Philippa Foot, John McDowell, Alasdair MacIntyre, Annette Baier, Rosalind Hursthouse, and Michael Slote.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780631231141
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	11/08/2002
Series:	Wiley Blackwell Readings in Philosophy
Pages:	270
Sales rank:	935,378
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.85(d)

About the Author

Stephen Darwall is the John Dewey Collegiate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan. He has written widely on moral philosophy and its history, and is the author of Impartial Reason (1983), The British Moralists and the Internal 'Ought': 1640–1740 (1995), Philosophical Ethics (1998), and Welfare and Rational Care (2002). He is the editor, with Allan Gibbard and Peter Railton, of Moral Discourse and Practice (1997).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements vi

Introduction 1

Part I Classical Sources 5

1 Aristotle From The Nicomachean Ethics 7

2 Francis Hutcheson From An Inquiry into the Original of Our Idea of Virtue 51

3 David Hume From Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals 63

Part II Contemporary Expressions 103

4 Philippa Foot Virtues and Vices 105

5 John McDowell Virtue and Reason 121

6 Alasdair MacIntyre The Nature of the Virtues 144

7 Annette Baier What Do women Want in a Moral Theory? 168

8 Rosalind Hursthouse Normative Virture Ethics 184

9 Michael Slote Agent-Based Virtue Ethics 203

Part III Contemporary Discussion 227

10 Gary Watson On the Primacy of Character 229

Index 251

Editorial Reviews

Finally, here's a book that can get one well launched on the study of virtue ethics. Containing classical texts and groundbreaking contemporary essays, it reprints some of the great pivotal pieces that showcase the theory's appeal. Unlike other readers, it represents both the Aristotelian and sentiment-based virtue traditions. It is high time we had such a unique and useful collection available.” Rachel Cohon, The University at Albany, State University of New York

From the Publisher