a theory of virtue excellence in being for the good dec 2006

[...]... as excellent ways of being for (and against) things However, I think that courage and some of the other virtues are not essentially ways of being for the good Rather they are excellent strengths to have in governing one’s life with a view to whatever one is for, and in that way are traits that can be part of excellent ways of being for the good The articulation and defense of these conceptions of virtue. .. that standing for something symbolically can have as a way of being for it The point that there are broadly intellectual forms of being for something requires both emphasis and qualification Believing that something is good or right or honorable is normally a way of being for it, and believing it is bad or wrong is a way of being against it Conversely, if you say that you are for socialism, or ‘ in favor... presented in chapter 3 1 BEING FOR When I speak of ‘ being for the good, ’’ being for is meant to cover a lot of territory There are many ways of being for something They include: loving it, liking it, respecting it, wanting it, wishing for it, appreciating it, thinking highly of it, speaking in favor of it and otherwise intentionally standing for it symbolically, ² This is argued in Adams, Finite and In nite... for instance, are not, in the relevant sense, for disease Their causing disease is not sufficient for being for it Nor is being a cause of the object necessary, in all cases, for being for it One can be for and against goods and evils that one cannot affect causally, such as those belonging to past history The centrality of intentionality in the phenomena that concern us is underlined by the importance... be said that the ethics of character has attained parity with the ethics of action as a preoccupation of moral philosophers These departments of ethics are not unrelated Doing the right thing is an important part of having a good character, and considerations of character are sometimes relevant to our choice of actions On the face of it, however, the ethics of virtue and the ethics of action are about... intellectual aspects of their being for and against things Excellence in Being for the Good 17 The main qualification this point requires is that being for x must involve dispositions to favor x in action, desire, emotion, or feeling In that broad sense it must engage the will Thinking Smith is the best candidate is normally a way of being for her—but not if you really care not at all about Smith and... something to be said for thinking of the good as one, or at any rate for trying to think of it as integrated in some way.⁵ But we will be concerned, in most of our concrete thinking about virtue, with a great variety of particular goods What is most important about these goods, for the structure of my theory of virtue, is indeed their diversity I hold a very broad view of the goods that virtue is for, including... not at all about the election, and are not disposed to do anything about it Largely cognitive states, such as believings, assents, and views, can be ways of being for something, but only if they engage the will in the indicated way If they do so engage the will, however, they can constitute ways of being for something, and traits of moral character Moral virtue is an excellence of the will, in the indicated... pull the latter sorts of excellence over onto the ‘‘moral’’ side of the line too? A broad conception of moral virtue has an attraction in promising to facilitate integration of character It offers a comprehensive ideal of excellence in valuing, ⁵ I have argued in Adams, Finite and In nite Goods (especially chapters 1, 2, and 7) for an identification of the good itself with God, seen as a unifying object... taste in aesthetic matters is morally virtuous For it is certainly a way of being for some humanly important goods, and an excellent way of being for them But is it really a moral virtue, a virtue in the same sense in which kindness and honesty are virtues? The conventional answer to that question is, ‘No; it’s not a virtue in the same sense as kindness and honesty At most it’s an aesthetic virtue, . exist at all. Much the same can be said of the students in my graduate seminars on virtue at Yale in the spring of 2000 and the fall of 2001, and at Oxford in the fall of 2004. As the preceding narrative. this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available Typeset by Laserwords Private. class="bi x0 y0 w0 h0" alt="" ATHEORYOFVIRTUE This page intentionally left blank ATheoryofVirtue Excellence in Being for the Good ROBERT MERRIHEW ADAMS CLARENDON PRESS · OXFORD 1 Great Clarendon