intellectual virtue perspectives from ethics and epistemology nov 2003

[...]... intersection between virtue ethics and virtue epistemology and may illuminate some methodological issues in contemporary epistemology The most interesting parts of works from the virtue ethics tradition are often the detailed, perceptive treatments of specific virtues and vices Our hope is that contemporary virtue epistemology will eventually produce similarly rich discussions of intellectual virtues and vices... of virtue and other key concepts in ethics such as that of a right act, a good motive, emotion, and happiness Virtue epistemologists understandably concentrate on the ways the idea of a virtue can help resolve epistemological questions and leave the conceptual work of explaining value to ethics Clearly, then, virtue epistemology needs virtue ethics But the editors of this volume believe that virtue ethics. .. her work from previous work in epistemology which featured terms such as intellectual virtue or virtue epistemology but which made no appeal to the notion of virtue as that has been developed in the virtue ethics tradition 16 / Julia Annas The issues I shall focus on are those of virtue and skill, and virtue and success In both cases we get a clearer picture if we look at the whole ancient virtue. .. structure it has, and this suggests that virtue ethics might get aid from epistemology, as well as epistemology benefiting from virtue ethics Ethics and epistemology can produce mutual benefit from mutual study III The second issue is that of virtue and success Zagzebski frequently insists that virtue is a success notion’,²⁰ and in this she and others are following not only Aristotle, who insists that the... (1969: 4) Part I Classical Virtue Ethics and Virtue Epistemology This page intentionally left blank 1 The Structure of Virtue Julia Annas I As a long-time worker in the field of virtue ethics I cannot but be pleased by its recent increased importance in ethical theory, and also by the recent emergence of a form of virtue epistemology which takes its inspiration from virtue ethics This has been due to... use of a virtue ethics approach, and I shall be arguing that for these two issues it does In both cases, if we look at the whole virtue tradition, we find important implications for the relation of the moral to the intellectual virtues, and, hence, for the relation of ethics to epistemology II Aristotle rejects the idea that virtue is a skill (Virtue here is moral virtue, as indeed is standardly assumed... framework of the intellectual virtues, then, does not give support to thinking of intellectual virtues as a subset of moral virtues, nor to taking epistemology to be properly subsumed under ethics. ¹⁹ Taking both kinds of virtue seriously, however, may be fruitful in other ways For one thing, taking moral virtue seriously reveals how intellectual a structure it has, and this suggests that virtue ethics might... varieties of virtue ethics and most of them are as yet unexplored There is also the alternative of eschewing theory altogether and adopting an anti-theory model for epistemology. ⁷ Virtue epistemology is a recent movement, but virtue ethics is as old as Western philosophy Ever since Plato, ethicists and historians of ethics have explored the nature of a virtue and the particular virtues, as well as... of virtue in epistemology Unlike Aristotle, the rest of the ancient tradition held that moral virtue is a kind of skill, according to the Stoics, the skill of living Moral virtue shares the same intellectual structure as other skills Intellectual virtues also share this structure, and hence are skills But according to Annas the intellectual virtues are also importantly different from the moral virtues... epistemologists have underutilized some of the key resources of classical virtue ethics, in particular, the role of affect in intellectual virtue, and the role of luck and external goods in achieving knowledge Their chapter, Intellectual Virtue: Emotions, Luck, and the Ancients’, begins by exploring the role of emotion in intellectual virtue, and they defend the Aristotelian position that even though beliefs . Philosophy of Religion and Ethics at the University of Oklahoma. This page intentionally left blank Intellectual Virtue Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology Edited by Michael DePaul and Linda Zagzebski CLARENDON. 1 Linda Zagzebski and Michael DePaul PART ONE. CLASSICAL VIRTUE ETHICS AND VIRTUE EPISTEMOLOGY 13 1. The Structure of Virtue 15 Julia Annas 2. Intellectual Virtue: Emotions, Luck, and the Ancients. value to ethics. Clearly, then, virtue epistemology needs virtue ethics. But the editors of this volume believe that virtue ethics also has some- thing important to learn from virtue epistemology.