Research Catalog

Title

Introduction to virtue ethics : insights of the ancient Greeks / Raymond J. Devettere.

Author

Devettere, Raymond J.

Publication

Washington, D.C. : Georgetown University Press, c2002.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

ix, 195 p.; 22 cm.

Summary

"From Aristotle to Zeno, Introduction to Virtue Ethics examines the foundations on which later philosophers built their understandings of the place - and meaning - of human life. The Greek term arete, which we generally translate as "virtue," can also be translated as "excellence." Arete embraced both intellectual and moral excellence as well as human creations and achievements." "This survey of the development of virtue ethics in the early stages of western civilization deals with a wide range of philosophers and schools of philosophy and speaks to those human attributes that we have come to know as the "stuff" of virtue: desire, happiness, the "good," character, the role of pride, prudence, and wisdom, and stands them against more current or modern conceptions and controversies." "There remains a tension between viewing ethics and morality as something religious or as something essentially rational. A second tension centers on whether we view morality primarily in terms of our obligations or primarily in terms of our desire for what is good. Introduction to Virtue Ethics is for anyone interested in the fundamental question Socrates posed: "What kind of life is worth living?""--Jacket.

Subject

• Ethics, Ancient
• Virtue > History
• Prudence > History
• Ethics > Greece > History

Genre/Form

History

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 174-183) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Desire, Happiness, and Virtue -- The Origin of Ethics -- Desires and Impulses -- Do People Have Nonrational Desires? -- Two Objections -- Desires, Impulses, and Good Things -- Self-Interest and the Good -- The Overriding Good -- Plato and the Overriding Good -- Aristotle and the Overriding Good -- Summary of the Starting Point (the Arche) of Greek Virtue Ethics -- Happiness -- The Greatest Good Is Happiness -- The Prephilosophical Notion of Happiness -- The Prephilosophical Definitions of Happiness -- Transforming the Prephilosophical Definitions of Happiness -- The Philosophical Criteria for Happiness -- Is There a Philosophical Definition of Happiness? -- Character Virtue -- Prephilosophical Ideas about Virtue -- Philosophical Conception of Virtue -- Three Important Distinctions in Virtue Ethics -- Nature of the Authentic Character Virtues -- The Number of Character Virtues -- Pride, the Forgotten Character Virtue -- The Unity of Virtue -- Prudence and Character Virtue -- Prudence in Socrates and Plato -- Wisdom and Prudence in the Socratic Dialogues -- Xenophon's Account of Socrates' Deliberations -- Prudence in the Republic -- Prudence in the Philebus -- Prudence in the Statesman -- Prudence in the Laws -- Prudence in Aristotle -- Prudence in the Rhetoric -- Prudence and Authentic Character Virtue -- Prudence and Autonomy -- Prudence and Prudent People (the phronimoi) -- Prudence and Laws -- Character Virtue without Prudence? -- Prudence in Stoicism -- Prudence and Stoic Determinism -- Prudence as a Skill.

ISBN

0878403728 (pbk : alk. paper)

LCCN

^^2002023630

OCLC

49226191

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library