A virtue-ethical approach to moral conflicts involving the possibility of self-sacrifice

Journal of Social Philosophy

Volumn 35, Issue 1, 2004, Pages 21-33

  Stuart, Jim ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ALTRUISM; ARTICLE; BENEFICENCE; BIOETHICS AND PROFESSIONAL ETHICS; CHARACTER; DECISION MAKING; ETHICAL THEORY; ETHICS; HUMAN; MORALITY; PERSONAL AUTONOMY; PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACH; SOCIAL BEHAVIOR;

BIOETHICS AND PROFESSIONAL ETHICS; PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACH;

ALTRUISM; BENEFICENCE; CHARACTER; DECISION MAKING; ETHICAL THEORY; HUMANS; MORAL OBLIGATIONS; PERSONAL AUTONOMY; SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY; VIRTUES;

EID: 2342615601     PISSN: 00472786     EISSN: 14679833     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9833.2004.t01-1-00212.x     Document Type: Article

References (12)

1. Slote, "From Morality to Virtue", in Virtue Ethics: A Critical Reader, ed. D. Statman (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997), 128-44, at 134
2. (extract from his From Morality to Virtue, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992).
3. Hursthouse, "Virtue Theory and Abortion", Philosophy and Public Affairs 20(1991):223-46; reprinted in Statman, Virtue Ethics, 227-44, at 228. I examine a refinement of this definition later in the paper.
4. see Harold Alderman, "By Virtue of a Virtue", Review of Metaphysics 36(1982):127-53;
5. reprinted in Statman, Virtue Ethics, 145-64.
6. Judith Jarvis Thomson, "A Defense of Abortion", Philosophy and Public Affairs 1(1971):47-66.
7. For a discussion of tragic dilemmas, see Rosalind Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 63-87. 1
8. See her "Virtue Ethics and the Emotions", in Statman, Virtue Ethics, 99-117, at 99.
9. See Christine Swanton, "Virtue Ethics and Sacrificing Rationality", in Statman, Virtue Ethics, 82-98, at 95, from which most of this list of vices is derived.
10. (Swanton's chapter is a revised version of "Satisficing and Virtue", Journal of Philosophy 90(1993):33-48.)
11. See Michael Slote, Beyond Optimizing (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989)
12. and Swanton, "Virtue Ethics and Sacrificing Rationality." My remarks here are indebted to Swanton's discussion and extension of Slote's original claim that antiperfectionism is a virtue. Swanton defines "best action" as follows: The best action in circumstances C is the one that best fits C, and what makes an action fit C has to do with either or both the intrinsic features of the action (e.g., its being the keeping of a promise, or an act of truth telling) or the consequences of the action ("Virtue Ethics and Sacrificing Rationality, "85).