Charles R. Lightner

Material quoted here is drawn from the paper by Owen Flanagan, Professor of Philosophy, Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University, which was published in “Cultivating Virtue: Perspectives from Philosophy, Theology and Psychology” edited by Nancy E. Snow, Oxford University Press, 2015. Professor Flanagan opens his paper with a conveniently clear pointer: “This is my topic. Budd...

In his paper on the “Situationist Critique and Early Confucian Virtue Ethics” which we discussed in a recent post, Professor Slingerland, in his conclusion, makes the following statement: “…the early Confucian form of virtue ethics seems as if it could survive even the strongest and most plausible form of the situationist critique, which means that proclamations of the death of virtue...

Material quoted here is drawn from the paper by Edward Slingerland, Professor of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia, Canada, which was published in “Cultivating Virtue: Perspectives from Philosophy, Theology and Psychology” edited by Nancy E. Snow, Oxford University Press, 2015. The first part of Slingerland’s paper discusses situationism and the “situationist critiqu...

Material quoted here is drawn from the paper by Christine Swanton, professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, which was published in “Cultivating Virtue: Perspectives from Philosophy, Theology and Psychology” edited by Nancy E. Snow, Oxford University Press, 2015. The two problems for virtue ethics that Swanton addresses in this paper are: ...

Material quoted here is drawn from the paper by Adam Cureton, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tennessee and Thomas E. Hill, Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina, which was published in “Cultivating Virtue: Perspectives from Philosophy, Theology and Psychology” edited by Nancy E. Snow, Oxford University Press, 2015. This is a most useful pa...

Slote: The Roots of Empathy Material quoted here is drawn from the paper by Michael Slote, UST Professor of Ethics in the Philosophy Department at the University of Miami, which was published in “Cultivating Virtue: Perspectives from Philosophy, Theology and Psychology” edited by Nancy E. Snow, Oxford University Press, 2015. Professor Slote is, in his words, a “care ethicist”. He w...

Material quoted here is drawn from the paper by Julia Driver, Professor of Christian Ethics at Yale Divinity School, which was published in “Cultivating Virtue: Perspectives from Philosophy, Theology and Psychology” edited by Nancy E. Snow, Oxford University Press, 2015. Driver opens her paper with a quote from John Stuart Mill: “Does the utilitarian doctrine deny that people desir...

This material is drawn from the paper by Daniel C. Russell, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona, which was published in “Cultivating Virtue: Perspectives from Philosophy, Theology and Psychology” edited by Nancy E. Snow, Oxford University Press, 2015. According to Russell we can summarize Aristotle’s approach to virtues as follows: • Moral development consists of a...

I’ve spent quite a bit of time on philosophical views that fall into either the consequentialist or teleological camp and the rules-based or deontological camp. In the case of the consequentialist, those of the utilitarians particularly. In the case of the deontological or rules-based camp, those of Kant, Scanlon and Rawls. As I’ve noted previously, though, there is a third approach t...