Applied Ethics Commons^™

From Theory To Practice: Locating Moral Exemplars In Aristotelian Virtue Ethics, Joseph A. Murray

McNair Summer Research Program

Abstract

This research examines mentorship within Aristotelian virtue ethics. Aristotle holds that moral excellence develops through habituation, guided practice that forms stable dispositions, rather than through knowledge or rules alone. Central to this process are virtuous mentors who model good character and cultivate practical wisdom (phronesis). Although Aristotle stresses the necessity of such examples, he offers little practical guidance on who they are or how they may be identified. This omission raises a practical challenge: if virtue depends on guidance from the genuinely virtuous, identifying those individuals is essential to the theory’s implementation.  My research investigates whether society provides accessible …

The Story Game: Dissuading The Abolition Of Man With Narrative Intellectual Virtue & The Hunger Games, Camille Bewley

Harding Undergraduate Research Conference

Relativism in modern America is leading society toward the fruition of C.S. Lewis’ warning of the abolition of man. This nation once founded on freedom inches closer to the dystopia which Suzanne Collins depicts in her Hunger Games series. This paper recognizes the growing need for humanity to realign with truth and universal values, first by reorienting itself to narratives. Through intellectual virtues of understanding and prudence as defined by Aristotle, society can translate stories into their inherent purpose; seeing truth and reality within the bottle of imagination. Stories contain the answers, narratives are the way humanity subscribes to reality. …

The Cost Of Happiness: The Implications Of Utilitarianism On Economics, Adam Opp

Liberty University Journal of Statesmanship & Public Policy

Bentham and Mill proposed the utilitarian theory, which has moral and economic applications. Bentham and Mill differed slightly in their ideologies, as Mill critiqued Bentham and argued that man is in a separate category from beasts. To assess this, one must study human nature and if man really is different from the beasts. To this end, utilitarianism will be discussed, but also Aristotle’s discussion on virtue, the magnanimous man, and generosity. The next critical area to discuss is what differentiates humans from beasts, and if humans are distinct. Several characteristics that differentiate men from beasts include mental, psychological, moral, and …

“Meddling In The Work Of Another”: Πολυπραγμονεῖν In Plato’S Republic, Brennan Mcdavid

Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research

The second conjunct of the Republic’s account of justice—that justice is “not meddling in the work of another”—has been neglected in Plato literature. This paper argues that the conjunct does more work than merely reiterating the content of the first conjunct—that justice is “doing one’s own work.” I argue that Socrates develops the concept at work in this conjunct from its introduction with the Principle of Specialization in Book II to its final deployment in the finished conception of justice in Book IV. Crucial to that concept’s development is the way in which the notion of “another” comes to …

Beyond Mental And Physical Pain: A Non-Reductive Account Of Suicide, Aya Aly Ragheb

Theses and Dissertations

What is the stigma behind our understanding of suicide? What causes this stigma? Should suicide only be viewed in relation to physical pain, as medicine often views it, or mental pain, as psychiatry views it? Or is it a more complex phenomenon? Can we think of suicide as a rational act that is, on the one hand, independent of pain, without, on the other hand, reducing it to mental illness? I will argue that if we can, we can give a less reductive account of suicide. In this paper, we shall attempt to give an answer to the above questions …

Defending The Genetic Selection Of Intelligence: A Moral Exploration Of Principle, Chase Opperman

Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics

This paper assumes a basic understanding of Aristotelian philosophy, but that which I draw from is both explicated and articulated in the paper in a way which makes the philosophy salient. One can look to Book II of The Nicomachean Ethics, the edition to which I referred is listed in the works cited, to further their understanding of the philosophy from which I am drawing, but to do so is not necessary. In what follows, I wrestle with the ethical issues related to the subject of the genetic selection of intelligence, both in its positive and negative forms, and offer …

Moral Education In The Classroom: A Lived Experiment, Rebecca Konyndyk Deyoung

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

What would a course on ethics look like if it took into account Alasdair MacIntyre’s concerns about actually teaching students ethical practices? How could professors induct students into practices that prompt both reflection on their cultural formation and self-knowledge of the ways they have been formed by it? According to MacIntyre, such elements are prerequisites for an adequate moral education. His criticism of what he terms “Morality” includes the claim that most courses don’t even try to teach the right things. He charges that academic teaching has little if anything to do with character formation, whereas thick practices can transform …

Learning To Live And Love Virtuously, Henry Deruff

CMC Senior Theses

John Stuart Mill and Immanuel Kant authored two of the most famous pieces of work in ethical theory (Utilitarianism and Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, respectively), yet both fail for various reasons to give us direction by way of living good lives. This thesis begins by outlining those shortcomings, before offering Aristotelian virtue ethics as the solution. Virtue ethics, as conceived by Aristotle, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Julia Annas, delineates a process – grounded in our real lives – by which we may improve as people and therefore flourish, or live good, moral lives: the habituation of the …

Practicing Hope, Rebecca Konyndyk Deyoung

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

In this essay, I consider how the theological virtue of hope might be practiced. I will first explain Thomas Aquinas's account of this virtue, including its structural relation to the passion of hope, its opposing vices, and its relationship to the friendship of charity. Then, using narrative and character analysis from the film The Shawshank Redemption, I examine a range of hopeful and proto-hopeful practices concerning both the goods one hopes for and the power one relies on to attain those goods. In particular, I show how the film's picture of the role friends and friendship play in catalyzing …

Review Of The Psychology And Character Of Virtue, Ed. Craig Steven Titus, Rebecca Konyndyk Deyoung

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Between God And Man: Community's Place In Virtue, Practical Reason, And Transcendent Good, Jordan Herz Davis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Talbot Brewer's Retrieval of Ethics and Robert Adams's Finite and Infinite Goods present distinct theories in ethics and metaethics. Brewer begins with the fundamental ethical perspective of the practical deliberator who experiences his practical deliberations as a continuous, unified, and constantly revised activity which begins with inchoate intimations of goodness and proceeds better or worse to understand and pursue the goodness which pervades his evaluative outlook. From this Brewer aims to account for how we achieve excellence in practical deliberation and arrive at a more tenable and self-consistent evaluative outlook which informs our ethical deliberations. Alternately, Adams begins in the …