Virtue Narrative And Self

Virtue, Narrative, and Self connects two philosophical areas of study that have long been treated as distinct: virtue theory and narrative accounts of personal identity. Chapters address several important issues and neglected themes at the intersection of these research areas. Specific examples include the role of narrative in the identification, differentiation, and cultivation of virtue, the nature of practical reasoning and moral competence, and the influence of life’s narrative structure on our conceptions of what it means to live and act well. This volume demonstrates how recent work from the philosophy of mind and action concerning narrativity and our understanding of the self can shed new light on questions about the nature of virtue, practical wisdom, and human flourishing. This book will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in virtue theory, moral philosophy, philosophy of mind and action, and moral education.

This volume features new findings by nine interdisciplinary teams of researchers on the topics of self, motivation, and virtue. Nine chapters bringing together scholars from the fields of philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, and sociology advance our substantive understanding of these important topics, and showcase a variety of research methods of interdisciplinary interest. Essays on Buddhism and the self in the context of romantic relationships, the development of personal projects and virtue, the notion of self-distancing and its moral impact, virtues as self-integrated traits, humility and the self in loving encounter, the importance of nation and faith in motivating virtue in western and non-western countries, roles for the self and virtue in eudaimonic growth, overcoming spiritual violence and sacramental shame in Christian communities, and an investigation into the moral self highlight the range and diversity of topics explored in this volume. The concept of deep integration also characterizes this work: each member of the interdisciplinary teams was fully and equally invested in their project from inception to completion. This approach invites teams to examine their disciplinary assumptions, rethink familiar concepts, and adjust methodologies in order to view their topics with fresh eyes. The result is not only new findings of substantive and methodological interest, but also an interesting glimpse into the thinking of the researchers as they sought interdisciplinary common ground in their research. Self, Motivation, and Virtue will be of interest to scholars in philosophy, moral psychology, neuroscience, and sociology who are working on these topics.

Virtue ethics in its contemporary manifestation is dominated by neo Aristotelian virtue ethics primarily developed by Rosalind Hursthouse. This version of eudaimonistic virtue ethics was ground breaking, but has been subject to considerable critical attention. Christine Swanton shows that the time is ripe for new developments and alternatives. The target centred virtue ethics proposed by Swanton is opposed to orthodox virtue ethics in two major ways. First, it rejects the 'natural goodness' metaphysics of Neo Aristotelian virtue ethics owed to Philippa Foot in favour of a 'hermeneutic ontology' of ethics inspired by the Continental tradition and McDowell. Second, it rejects the well -known 'qualified agent' account of right action made famous by Hursthouse in favour of a target centred framework for assessing rightness of acts. Swanton develops the target centred view with discussions of Dancy's particularism, default reasons and thick concepts, codifiability, and its relation to the Doctrine of the mean. Target Centred Virtue Ethics retains the pluralism of Virtue Ethics: A Pluralistic View (2003) but develops it further in relation to a pluralistic account of practical reason. This study develops other substantive positions including the view that target centred virtue ethics is developmental, suitably embedded in an environmental ethics of dwelling; and incorporates a concept of differentiated virtue to allow for roles, narrativity, cultural and historical location, and stage of life.

Highly controversial when it was first published in 1981, Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue has since established itself as a landmark work in contemporary moral philosophy. In this book, MacIntyre sought to address a crisis in moral language that he traced back to a European Enlightenment that had made the formulation of moral principles increasingly difficult. In the search for a way out of this impasse, MacIntyre returns to an earlier strand of ethical thinking, that of Aristotle, who emphasised the importance of 'virtue' to the ethical life. More than thirty years after its original publication, After Virtue remains a work that is impossible to ignore for anyone interested in our understanding of ethics and morality today.

Dominant cultural narratives about later life dismiss the value senior citizens hold for society. In her cultural-philosophical critique, Hanne Laceulle outlines counter narratives that acknowledge both potentials and vulnerabilities of later life. She draws on the rich philosophical tradition of thought about self-realization and explores the significance of ethical concepts essential to the process of growing old such as autonomy, authenticity and virtue. These counter narratives aim to support older individuals in their search for a meaningful age identity, while they make society recognize its senior members as valued participants and moral agents of their own lives.

Since its publication in 1981, Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue has been recognised as a classic. Primarily a work of moral philosophy, it also draws on sociology, classics, political science and theology to effect a unique intellectual synthesis, and its combination of erudition and challenging, even provocative argument has made a significant impact throughout the humanities disciplines. This volume of new essays unpacks the influence of After Virtue on ethical and political theory, sociology and theology, and offers a multi-faceted exploration of its significance. The essays offer a way into MacIntyre's philosophy, and demonstrate how, rather than waning in influence over the past forty years, his most seminal text has found an ever-wider audience and continues to inspire controversy and debate in the humanities.

In Self, Value, and Narrative, Anthony Rudd defends a series of interrelated claims about the nature of the self. He argues that the self is not simply a given entity, but a being that constitutes or shapes itself. But it can only do this non-arbitrarily if it has a sense of the good by which it can be guided as it chooses to endorse some of its desires or dispositions and repudiate others. This means that there is an essentially ethical or evaluative dimension to selfhood, and one which has an essentially teleological character. Such self-constitution takes place in narrative terms, through one's telling—and, more importantly, living—one's own story. Versions of some or all of these ideas have been developed by various influential writers (including Frankfurt, Korsgaard, MacIntyre, Ricoeur, and Taylor) but Rudd develops these ideas in a way that is importantly different from others familiar in the literature. He takes his main inspiration from Kierkegaard's account of the self, and argues (controversially) that this account belongs in the Platonic rather than the Aristotelian tradition of teleological thinking. Through close engagement with much contemporary philosophical work, Rudd presents a convincing case for an ancient and currently unfashionable view: that the polarities and tensions that are constitutive of selfhood can only be reconciled through an orientation of the self as a whole to an objective Good.

Seminar paper from the year 2018 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,0, University of Wuppertal, language: English, abstract: This paper aims to show the Franklinian way of thinking towards a virtuous life in Frederick Douglass' Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and display how this adaptation is noteworthy with respect to slave narratives. Therefore, we will start by looking at several keywords and defining them in order to understand the concept of the Art of Virtue in Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography and then divide the thirteen given virtues into categories. We will continue to apply one category to Frederick Douglass' slave narrative and see in which extent Douglass adopts the Art of Virtue to become a self-made man.