The Value of the Virtues

Bibliographic Data

ID12228010
AuthorsBrian Mcelwee (University of St Andrews, corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume27
Issue1
Pages61-81
Publication date2014-08-15
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueUtilitas (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0953-8208 • E-ISSN: 1741-6183
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s095382081400020x
OpenAlexW2150938716
LanguageEN
References cited15

I argue that debates about virtue are best settled by clearly distinguishing two questions: (a) What sort of character trait is there reason to cultivate? (b) What sort of character trait is there reason (morally) to admire? With this distinction in mind, I focus on recent accounts of what consequentialists ought to say about virtue, arguing that: (1) The instrumentalist view of virtue accepted by many prominent consequentialists should not be accepted as the default view for consequentialists to hold. (2) The main rival view, the appropriate response account, not only avoids the major objection facing the instrumental view, but gives the correct diagnosis of where it goes wrong. (3) Two objections that seem to face the appropriate response account can in fact be convincingly met in ways which leave it looking stronger. (4) The appropriate response account is also to be preferred to a disjunctive view or a mixed view

Character (mathematics · Character traits · Economics · Epistemology · Face (sociological concept · Instrumentalism · Metaphysics · Philosophy of mind · Positive economics · Sociology · sort · Trait · Value (mathematics · Virtue · Computer Science · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Free Will and Agency · Mathematics · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology

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