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This chapter first identifies what is extremely valuable and distinctive in the approach to Ethics Glover takes in Humanity. It then goes on to argue that Glover's approach is incomplete, because it is insufficiently empirical and, more importantly because it lacks a conceptual framework capable of identifying the full range of topics for empirically informed Ethics research. The needed conceptual framework must incorporate social moral epistemology, which focuses on the interaction between the moral‐epistemic virtues and vices of individuals and the moral‐epistemic functions of institutions. Through the use of historical examples of the sort Glover appeals to in Humanity, this chapter shows that work in Ethics must pay more attention to the ethics of believing and to the role that institutions play in the formation of systems of belief.

This chapter focuses on the ways moral values are embedded in conceptions of mental disorders and positive health, focusing on when mental health is defined negatively, as in the absence of mental disorders. In the Republic, Plato proposes that the health of the mind consists in exercising the cardinal virtues: practical wisdom in making judgments, courage in confronting dangers, temperance in satisfying appetites, and justice in manifesting inner harmony in desirable conduct. Immorality is the absence of healthy self-governance, whether due to ignorance, cowardice, lack of self-control, or inner chaos. For Plato, “moral health” and “moral sickness” are not mere metaphors. They refer to mental health and pathology as defined by concepts of virtue and vice. Critics of the therapeutic trend denounce Plato's proposal as a dangerous confusion — dangerous, because equating morality with mental health gives health professionals alarming power in moral matters; confusion, because mental health and virtue are entirely different. The chapter affirms Plato's core insight: mental health and moral virtue are significantly interwoven in their meaning and reference. This is true when mental health is defined negatively, as the absence of mental disorders.

This chapter attempts to understand the widespread and plausible treatment of loyal caring for good common projects — for their own sake and not just for their contribution to the well-being of individuals — as a manifestation of a moral virtue. The relation of common projects to human good is explored, and it is argued that being for a good common project for its own sake is commonly an excellent way of being for one's associates as persons, even if not exactly for their well-being as such.

Chapter 8 addresses the relationship between religion and morality. It is argued that both religion and morality share a common evolutionary source: social life. Thus, while religion is certainly not the origin of morality, it is closely related to it. Religion served as an important reinforcement mechanism for morality. In our evolutionary past, religion reinforced morality by virtue of increasing social scrutiny—creating a supernatural inhibition against norm violations. In a more modern context, religion strengthens self-control, thus increasing the likelihood that believers will practice moral self-restraint. The chapter also presents evidence that morality can be viewed as a perfectible skill and that religion provides a venue for “deliberate moral practice,” where moral skills can be elevated to their highest level. A cautionary note is included in this discussion, however. Religion’s evolutionary role in moral development has always been as a reinforcer of within-group morality, and the notion of universally applied moral values is relatively new and not always part of religion’s moral vision.

This chapter examines two issues relative to providing a rich notion of virtue of epistemology: (i) the connection between virtue and skill; and (ii) the relation of virtue to success. It argues that ancient virtue ethicists — regarding virtue ethics — differ from Aristotle in ways that are significant to how the concept of virtue should be applied in epistemology. It also argues for the important differences between intellectual virtues (which aim at truth) and moral virtues (which aim at doing the right thing). The upshot is two-fold: intellectual virtues should not be subsumed under moral virtues and there is an inherent difficulty in trying to define knowledge in terms of virtue. Lastly, because scholars have overly relied upon Aristotle's version of virtue, and thus, neglected much of the ancient tradition, the chapter argues that many have missed a more plausible answer, provided by the Stoics, to the following question: Which kind of aim must be attained for a person to have the kind of success necessary for virtue?

Thomas Aquinas' account of the will, freedom, and happiness makes room for virtues as expressions of free will. Rational agents share a schematic conception of the end. Deliberation must consider the different ends that constitute the ultimate end. These are questions to which virtuous and vicious people give different answers that explain their different choices. These features of the will and of freedom explain why the virtues involve practical reason and deliberation. Aquinas also appeals to his conception of the will to explain why the virtues involve more than rational desire. Once one understands the nature of the passions and the will, one can see how the passions may agree or disagree with the will, and how the will may guide or neglect the passions. The right form of agreement and guidance depends on the moral virtues.

The Appendix examines the relationship between intellectual virtues, conceived as character traits, and what are typically thought of as moral virtues. Three possible accounts of this relation are considered: (1) what we call “intellectual virtues” just are moral virtues; (2) intellectual virtues are a proper subset of moral virtues; and (3) intellectual virtues are fundamentally distinct from moral virtues. A position is defended according to which a trait's being an intellectual virtue depends on its being internally orientated toward distinctively epistemic goods, while a trait's being a moral virtue depends on its being others‐regarding. The result is that there is substantial overlap between the class of intellectual virtues and the class of moral virtues and that consequently a position somewhere between (2) and (3) is correct.

This section presents the English translation of Eudemian Ethics, which offers reflections on happiness—described in the text as the noblest, the best, and the most pleasant of human goods—and how it is acquired and attained. Eudemian Ethics also addresses two kinds of virtue, one intellectual and one moral, and goes on to argue that man alone is an originating principle of action. It also discusses examples of moral virtue such as courage, temperance, liberality, pride, and magnificence, as well as the five intellectual virtues: knowledge, craftmanship, wisdom, intelligence, and understanding. Other arguments in the text relate to justice and injustice, continence and incontinence, pleasure, friendship, good fortune, and gentlemanliness.

Modern moral philosophy developed especially in England, Scotland, and Germany, in areas where the Reformation was widely accepted, in its Lutheran, or Calvinist, or Anglican forms. Since mediaeval moral philosophers were also theologians, expounding the doctrines and practices of the mediaeval Latin Church, and since the Reformers rejected some of these doctrines and practices, it is worth considering whether the religious and theological disputes connected with the Reformation affect prevalent attitudes to mediaeval moral philosophy. Martin Luther and John Calvin assert that the Scholastics are mistaken in their views about the acquired moral virtues and their relation to the moral demands of the Christian faith. These Scholastic errors are connected to errors about free will. The Reformers oppose these errors through their distinctive doctrines of predestination, election, grace, and faith. Though the Reformers attack Scholasticism, it is not always easy to see what these attacks imply about Thomas Aquinas. Thus, the chapter compares the views of the Reformers with Aquinas' actual position, not simply with the Scholastic position as they interpret it.

This chapter offers an alternative to the standard success-oriented epistemological theories by arguing that the highest epistemic good is a state which includes much more than the achievement of true beliefs and the avoidance of false ones. Indeed, it includes much more than knowledge: it requires understanding of important truths. For some of the intellectual virtues are best understood as directed at understanding rather than truth or knowledge. Whether the goal of the intellectual virtues is truth or understanding, reliable success cannot be necessary for the possession of an intellectual virtue given that some of the most impressive intellectual giants such as Aristotle, Newton, and Galileo are not noted for their success. The intellectual virtues should therefore be understood in terms of the values at which they aim, not the values they reliably bring about. The upshot of giving up success oriented approaches in epistemology will provide greater clarity in understanding intellectual virtues.

This chapter investigates the idea of unity of virtues by analyzing justice. The nature of justice cannot be appreciated without a prior understanding of the limited scope of the word and of the concerns that are related to it. Justice is an artificial virtue that has to be qualified. To be a just person is to make appropriate decisions in some of the areas in which one deals with other people. Virtues can have important and visible links with other areas of a person's character. Virtue-ethics would be immune from the criticisms and would have no more disadvantages than does character-ethics. However, it is likely to say that there are people who, by the highest standards, genuinely possess some virtues but lack others. Virtue requires that one have all virtues. Virtues cannot be treated as essentially separate from one another.

This chapter examines how Plutarch combines Aristotle's definition of friendship, as expressed in the Nicomachean Ethics, with Plato's conception of the soul to describe the ideal marriage, and heterosexual relationships in general, as based on a mutual love of character (philia) supported by an enduring erotic attraction. It first examines the Aristotelian and Platonic background to the essay On Moral Virtue, where Plutarch sets forth his own ethics of friendship, erotic attachment, enkrateia (self-control), and sōphrosynē (temperance). Then it explores the forceful argument that he makes for the virtue of women, and thus for their ability to be the objects of both virtuous philia and erōs, in his Dialogue on Love (Amatorius). Turning to the Lives, the chapter shows how Plutarch has based his narrative of the relationships between Brutus and Porcia, and between Pericles and Aspasia on principles set forth in the philosophical essays.

This chapter focuses on the moral dimensions of leadership in Catholic schools. The chapter unfolds in two steps. First, it offers a description of four moral virtues—prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance—and how important it is for people to acquire all four, especially if they are to be good leaders. Second, it looks at five specific challenges that confront leaders of Catholic high schools. These are the shift to lay leadership; the formation of lay boards; lay spirituality; the hiring and forming of faculty and staff; and the teaching of religion. To meet these challenges adequately, leaders in Catholic schools need to develop the four moral virtues.

In this English translation of Nicomachean Ethics, the discussion begins with the statement that all human activities aim at some good: some goods are subordinate to others. The text then considers the notion that human good is generally equated with happiness, which in turn is identified with pleasure. It also reflects on moral virtues such as courage, temperance, liberality, pride, and magnificence, ambitiousness, and good temper; praise and blame in relation to voluntary actions; three kinds of friendship based on utility, pleasure, and virtue; and whether pleasure is a good or the good. It concludes with the assertion that happiness is the exercise of the highest virtue.

The chapter shows how the dialogue with ancient moral philosophy prompted John Stuart Mill's reflection on modernity. To cultivate the “quality of life”—a Millian expression that echoes Aristotle's care for the good life—the moderns ought to be equally attentive to virtues as they are to norms. Ancient moral philosophy, he thought, embodied an idea of happiness that is quite in disagreement with the functionalist logic of modern society, yet not impossible for the moderns to appropriate in their own way. His attempt to link virtues and norms explains his dissatisfaction with both utilitarianism and the idea of well-being purported by classical economy and his positive view of a stationary state of society as an opportunity for inaugurating a new social order, a “liberal social utopia.”