Working Virtue: Virtue Ethics and Contemporary Moral Problems - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0199570868 ISBN 13: 9780199570867

Publisher: Oxford University Press, U.S.A., 2009

Synopsis

Working Virtue is the first substantial collective study of virtue theory and contemporary moral problems. Leading figures in ethical theory and applied ethics discuss topics in bioethics, professional ethics, ethics of the family, law, interpersonal ethics, and the emotions. Virtue ethics is centrally concerned with character traits or virtues and vices such as courage (cowardice), kindness (heartlessness), and generosity (stinginess). These character traits must be looked to in any attempt to understand which particular actions are right or wrong and how we ought to live our lives. As a theoretical approach, virtue ethics has made an impressive comeback in relatively recent history, both posing an alternative to, and, in some ways, complementing well-known theoretical stances such as utilitarianism and deontology. Yet there is still very little material available that presents virtue-ethical approaches to practical contemporary moral problems, such as what we owe distant strangers, our parents, or even non-human animals. This book fills the gap by dealing with these and other pressing moral problems in a clear and theoretically nuanced manner. The contributors offer a variety of perspectives, including pluralistic, eudaimonistic, care-theoretical, Chinese, comparative, and stoic. This variety allows the reader to appreciate not only the wide range of topics for which a virtue-ethical approach may be fitting, but also the distinctive ways in which such an approach may be manifested.

About this title

Review:

From the many authors that make up Working Virtue comes a wealth of knowledge that can help a generation of professional people who seek to be informed by ethical theory and guided by ethical principle. (Feminist Review)

This interesting collection of essays on virtue theory at work represents a valuable contribution to a relatively new paradigm of moral inquiry. (S.A. Mason, Choice)

About the Author:

Rebecca Walker is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Philip Ivanhoe is Professor of Philosophy at the City University of Hong Kong.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press, U.S.A.
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0199570868
• ISBN 13: 9780199570867
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336
• Editor: Walker Rebecca