Virtues and Vices

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

PHIL 44402 - Virtues & Vices Same as PHIL 24546 - Virtues & Vices, with additional work required. This course aims to provide a critical reading of the most important classical texts on virtue and vice in antiquity and examine their influence on current theories of virtue ethics and moral knowledge. It begins with Socratic considerations of "How should one live?" and questions about what constitutes well-being, the human good and happiness (eudaimonia). In the first half of the semester, we will analyze and evaluate arguments on the virtues of temperance (sophrosyne), prudence (phronesis), courage (andreia), and justice (dikaiosyne) in Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. These texts introduce questions about moral perception, parts of the soul, the unity of the virtues, and distinctions between the moral and intellectual virtues. Special attention will be given to reading ancient philosophical texts closely, always using precise Stephanus and Bekker numbers to identify and clarify arguments and counterarguments. Classic articles and commentaries will be consulted as a guide to competing interpretations. With this training in the art of reading a text critically, in the second half of the semester we will consider contemporary issues in virtue theory which at points embrace or challenge Platonic and Aristotelian ideas about virtue and vice. A number of important questions will be analyzed and discussed. What is the nature of virtue and vice? What is the relation between virtue and happiness? Can virtue be taught? What is the distinction between the moral and the intellectual virtues? What is meant by a unity of the virtues? Is there a special relationship between virtue and knowledge, virtue and practical judgement, vice and error? Do virtues only apply to individuals, or can governments, political institutions and regulatory bodies embody virtues? By the end of the course, students will have acquired an in-depth knowledge of how considerations of virtue and vice play an important role in ancient and contemporary ethical theory, and how evaluations of human flourishing can be assessed in terms of non-relative virtues.