I. Introduction: The Story of Le Chambon - Character
II. "From the Ethics of Action to the Ethics of Character" (322)
A. "Asking a Different Question" (322)
B. "A Judicial Analogy" (323)
C. "Persons and Principles" (324)
D. "The Temperate and the Continent Person" (325) - Best to Unite Reason and Feeling
1. Kant’s separation of duty and inclination; reason and emotion
2. Aristotle
3. Note: Hinman’s presupposition - feeling and reason
4. Utilitarian problem
III. "Character and Human Flourishing" (326) - Virtues "promote", vices "impede" human happiness
A. "Aristotle on Human Flourishing" (326)
1. "Flourishing and Function" (326)
2. "Flourishing and Uniqueness" (328) - ability to reason - contemplation
3. "The Conception of Flourishing" (328)
a. "Political conception of happiness" (328 ) related to social nature and practical wisdom
b. "Contemplative conception of happiness" (329) related to unique human characteristic of reason
4. "A Pluralistic Approach to Happiness" (329) - Hinman’s View
B. "Assessing Aristotle’s Account of Flourishing" (329)
1. "Antireductionism" (329)
2. "Holism" (330)
3. "Ethics for the Nobility" (330)
C. "Contemporary Accounts of Flourishing" (331)
1. "External Approaches" (331) - economic, architecture
2. "Internal Approaches" (332) - spiritual or psychological
IV. "The Structure of Virtues" (332)
A. "The Definition of Virtue" (332)
1. "Habits of the Soul" (333)
2. "Feeling and Action" (333)
3. "Seeking the Mean Relative to Ourselves" (333)
4. "Defining the Mean Through Reason and the Prudent Person" (334)
B. "Virtues and Spheres of Existence" (334)
C. "Executive and Substantive Virtues" (336)
V. "Courage" (336)
A. "The Everyday Need for Courage" (336)
B. "The Elements of Courage" (337)
1. "Fear and Danger" (337)
2. "Confidence and Risk" (338)
3. "The Extremes" (339) - Cowardice and Foolhardiness
4. "Proper Ends" - "proper confidence" and "rightly ordered fears" (339)
C. "Some Difficult Cases" (340)
1. "The Mountain Climber" (340)
2. "The Terminally Ill" (340)
D. "Courage and Gender" (341) - Aristotle - male in battle
1. "The Under-Recognition of Women’s Courage" (341)
2. "Courage and Gender Roles" (342)
VI. "Compassion" (343) - Feeling and Acting
A. "Responding to the Suffering of Others"(343)
1. "Compassion and Emotion" (343) - suffering with
a. " . . . to recognize the suffering of others as suffering" (343).
b. Sufferers "need the feeling of being cared about"(344).
2. "Compassion, Moral Imagination, and Action" (344) - Analogy: Painting by the numbers vs. one’s own painting (344-45)
3. "Compassion and Pity"(345) - Equality and inequality
B. "The Moral Extremes" (345) - Excess and Defect in Compassion?
1. "Moral Callousness" (346)
2. "Moral Education" (346)
3. "Can We Have Too Much Compassion" - "bleeding hearts" (347)
C. "Gender and Compassion" (348)
1. "Compassion, Courage, and Gender" (348) - masculinity and femininity, not knowing what to do
VII. "Self-Love"(349) - Feeling and Acting
A. Intro - Celie and Shug in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple (349)
B. "The Definition of Self-Love"
1. "Loving Others"- "Love wants to see the other person flourish" (349).
2. "Loving Ourselves" (350)
a. Feelings
b. Acting
C. "The Vices of Deficiency" (351)
D. "The Vices of Excess" (352)
E. "Self-Love and Friendship" (352)
1. "The Obsequious Friend" (352)
2. "The Narcissistic Friend" (352)
F. "Self-Love and Moral Traditions" (353)
1. "Ethical Egoism" (353)
a. Strength: "We ought to value ourselves" (353).
b. Weaknesses:
No "adequate account of how we ought to act to value ourselves" (353).
Valuing onself is not the "whole story" (353).
c. Aristotle’s account preferred: Self-love vs. Self-interest
i. Egoism has limited view of self and the points where it interacts with the world (353)
ii. Most kinds of egoism lack affect/emotion
in concept of self - no self-love (353)
iii. Lack rich notion of human flourishing beyond "satisfying preferences" (353)
2. "Self-Love, Self-Respect, and Kant" (353)
a. Similarities between Kant’s self-respect and self-love
b. Love, however, is broader than respect, has an emotional component, and is more personal.
"Also, love and respect result in different actions because love is more active and concerned about the other person than respect is" (354).
3. "The Place of Self-Love in the Utilitarian Calculus" (354) Utilitarianism "fails to give adequate weight to the individual agent’s fundamental projects" (354, Hinman crediting B. Williams)
4. "Pride, Humility, and the Christian Tradition" - pride and hubris, proper self-love, divergence over humility
VIII. "Practical Wisdom, Ethical Pluralism, and the Good Life"
"phronesis" - application, beyond wooden application of rules (355)
A. "Practical Wisdom" - virtue, situation, concept of the good life (355)
1. "Wisdom and Cleverness" (356) Which ends - "best means" (356)
2. "The Reciprocity of the Virtues" (356) - integration, relation to larger "conception of human flourishing" (356)
3. "The Elusiveness of Practical Wisdom"(357)
B. "Ethical Pluralism and Practical Wisdom" (357)
1. ". . . balance these competing theories in particular situations" (357).
2. Ex. lying-truth (358)
IX. "Conclusion: The Ethics of Character and the Ethics of Action"(358)
A. Aristotle [and Virtue ethics] "fails to tell us how to act" (358) - abortion, euthanasia, etc. Virtue ethics needs traditions such as utilitarianism and Kantianism. Need ethics of action and ethics of character
B. Ethics of Action needs Ethics of Character (359)
1. "applying a moral theory to a particular case" (359 ) - "A morally sensitive character is more likely to insure that we apply a principle with insight and creativity" (359).
2. Wise person knows how to apply different moral traditions and their "competing concerns" - to consider their relevance and priority in deciding how to act (359).