Pagan Virtue : An Essay in Ethics

ISBN-13: 9780198249580 / Angielski / Twarda / 1990 / 256 str.

John Casey

Opis

The study of the virtues has largely dropped out of modern philosophy, yet it was the predominant tradition in ethics fom the ancient Greeks until Kant. Traditionally the study of the virtues was also the study of what constituted a successful and happy life. Drawing on such diverse sources as Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Shakespeare, Hume, Jane Austen, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Sartre, Casey here argues that the classical virtues of courage, temperance, practical wisdom, and justice centrally define the good for humans, and that they are insufficiently acknowledged in modern moral philosophy. He suggests that values of success, worldliness, and pride are active parts of our moral thinking, and that the conflict between these and our equally important Christian inheritance leads to tensions and contradictions in our understanding of the moral life.

Recenzje

Pagan Virtue deserves some of the highest praise which can be accorded to a work of philosophy: it speaks more directly to the general reader than to the specialist philosopher.

Spis treści

Persons; Courage; Temperance; Practical Wisdom; Justice; Pagan Virtues?; Postscript: Homer, Shakespeare, and the Conflict of Values; Bibliography; Index