著者

西野 真由美

出版者

日本倫理学会

雑誌

倫理学年報 (ISSN:24344699)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.71, pp.203-217, 2022 (Released:2022-07-11)

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The unity of virtue thesis, which states that the various virtues only hold different names for the same concept, has a long history of controversy and is among the most debated issues in contemporary virtue ethics. This idea, and especially when interpreted as implying that an individual cannot possess a virtue without possessing all the other virtues, sounds implausible from common experiences. One dominant interpretation is that various virtues originate from the same state of soul, from a sort of perceptual capacity. McDowell, one of the leading advocates for the traditional Aristotelian formulation of the thesis, holds that each virtue is a form of reliable sensitivity to a certain sort of requirement from situations. This article aims to explore the role of practical wisdom(phronesis)upon the unity of virtue(s)in contemporary discussions. By showing how the unity of virtue is compatible with the plurality and diversity of virtues under the direction of practical wisdom, I intend to clarify the issue surrounding the unity of virtue from a new perspective, thereby paving a way toward re-constructing a new foundation for moral education, focusing on moral virtues as an integrated entity, rather than as discrete dispositions. First, upon more closely examining the conundrums that the unity of virtue thesis poses for virtue ethics, I identify the problems which may put the feasibility of the virtuous person, the central feature of virtue ethics, at stake. Second, I examine the ideas of two main contemporary virtue-ethicists, Russell and Annas, focusing on their views of the nature of practical wisdom and its relation to the virtues as clusters. Third, I indicate the unity as a unified, open whole, involving practical wisdom which integrates the different moral requirements of a concrete context with the agent’s appreciation of the situation’s features. In conclusion, by drawing from the implications that the advocates of the unity of virtue thesis in contemporary virtue ethics agree that the moral virtues are closely connected, it is worthwhile to conceive virtue cultivation as being based upon the developing of practical wisdom, which involves reflection and insight on how to live well.

著者

西野 真由美

出版者

教育哲学会

雑誌

教育哲学研究 (ISSN:03873153)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.1998, no.77, pp.51-64, 1998-05-10 (Released:2009-09-04)

参考文献数

11

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This paper explores the possibility of reconstructing a theory of moral education in a pluralistic society, on the basis of the discourse ethics of Jürgen Habermas. Toward this end the author examines the “moral point of view” in discourse ethics in order to grasp clearly the idea of morality as the rational procedure of conflict adjudication.Discourse ethics represents an attempt to elucidate the rational basis of consensus formation on moral problems through practical discourse. From the universalistic structure of moralpractical discourse, Habermas sheds new light on the abstractive and co-operative features of the point of view of morality.However, his attempt has given rise to much debate in moral theory. This paper deals with the following issues; first, the conflict between ethics of justice and ethics of care, then, second, the differentiation of justice from good life, and lastly, the elimination of the fruitfulness of plurality by the consensus-focused discourse.By identifying the moral point of view with impersonal perspectives that regulate fair social co-operation in the public sphere, Habermas strives on the one hand, to retrieve the critical power of morality against reality, and, on the other hand, to reconcile the fragility of the human beings as individuated, through socialization.This dual function of morality indicates that moral education has to face two tasks at once. Namely, moral education has to provide children with the moral basis in multicultural society by both developing a moral point of view as a transcendental perspective and by nurturing practical reason, or phronesis, which will pave the way for reconstructing the life-world permeated with justice and solidarity.