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This chapter returns to the question, postponed in Chapter 2: why, from a three-dimensionalist perspective, the properties of ordinary material objects are not already adequately accounted for by Thomson's modified and weakened version of standard mereology. To this end, the work of Kit Fine is examined, who, in a series of papers, has provided powerful reasons for abandoning the standard conception of composition. In its stead, Fine proposes an alternative, neo-Aristotelian model, which is in some respects close to the positive framework advocated later in this book. The chapter begins by examining Fine's reasons for parting ways with the standard conception; these reasons are found to be utterly persuasive and fatal to the standard conception. The later sections of the chapter provide a detailed discussion of Fine's own positive proposal and indicate in what respects it might be found to be unsatisfactory.

This chapter demonstrates that a structure-based neo-Aristotelian mereology for ordinary material objects can be defended utilizing a single relation of parthood with relatively straightforward formal properties. A substantive restriction on composition can be derived from a comparatively minimal and metaphysically neutral independently motivated ontology of kinds. The thoroughly mereological conception of composition defended here recommends itself based on Leibniz's Law and the Weak Supplementation Principle. Among its benefits are the following: it yields the Uniqueness of Composition as a derived principle; it contributes to the Problem of Constitution and, possibly, the Grounding Problem; and it clarifies the relation between a whole and both its material and its structural components. Finally, it is demonstrated how, on the approach defended here, wholes can be thought of as both ontologically committing and genuinely unified, despite the apparent Aristotelian regress caused by a never-ending demand for further principles of unity.

The main ideas of the book are briefly summarized. The four groups of metaphysical problems tied to ontological questions that were the focus in the book are contrasted with a series of other cases that were left open, and the overall methodology relied upon in the book is reviewed. The resulting view is pro-metaphysical in that it defends that metaphysics has questions of fact that are properly its own, for some of which the book has proposed answers. But it is also anti-metaphysical in that it does not support the same kind of autonomy or subject matter as other metaphysicians that rely heavily on grounding and a metaphysical notion of reality. The position is contrasted with those of neo-Aristotelians as well as neo-Carnapians, and identified as broadly neo-Kantian instead.

This chapter argues against the claim advanced by Daniel Haybron, Daniel C. Russell, and Mark LeBar that human self-perfection is ultimately based on notions of well-being and human flourishing that we bring to our understanding of human nature and in favor of the idea that it is human nature itself that ultimately grounds our understanding of human well-being or human flourishing. In doing so, the question of whether there is some gap between (a) what it is to be a good human being and (b) what is good for a human being is addressed. It is shown that the arguments on behalf of a such a gap fail and that the version of perfectionism that is advanced—that is, individualistic perfectionism—is ideally suited to not only avoid such a gap but also to display their unity, especially when perfection is understood as a process of living things and not as some cosmic or metaphysical process.

This chapter sets out the parameters of the book as a whole, proposing a first-person virtue ethics as a way to understand the moral projects of African American parents caring for children with severe and chronic illnesses and disabilities. It opens with an “experimental” soccer game in which a boy in a wheelchair has been included in a children’s neighborhood soccer league. Drawing upon this example, the chapter outlines the key claims of a virtue ethics framework in which parents struggle over how to provide their children a “best good life” and the dilemmas and tragedies that entail their efforts to care for these “intimate others.” The first-person framework that is offered draws both upon philosophical virtue ethics and hermeneutic phenomenology.

Chapter 2 elaborates what is entailed in a first-person version of virtue ethics in an explicitly debating style. It argues that it is important to look at the contrasts between a first-person virtue ethics and a third-person discursive one inspired especially by Foucault. It examines ways that these positions challenge rather than support one another, despite their many areas of overlap. It particularly highlights conceptual divides regarding the status of the “self.” Although the chapter pays special attention to anthropological voices, the question raised—why we need a first-person version of virtue ethics—speaks to a much broader interdisciplinary conversation.

This chapter uses Nietzsche to reject three defences of morality’s categoricity: Kantian, neo-Aristotelian, and Millian. It then shows how these Nietzschean arguments may generalize against other approaches, from which we can extrapolate a well-motivated scepticism about categoricity quite generally. The upshot is that Nietzsche has a strong case against morality’s central foundational assumption and that his two-pronged attack against categoricity (conceptual and metaphysical) leaves him in a stronger position than most contemporary error theorists.

Although there are many contemporary Humean approaches to efficient causation, there is also an alternative, which can be thought of as broadly Aristotelian in origin. The key ideas that characterize the neo-Aristotelian view are: potentialities and natures; there being a source of change within things (the powers); some form of “conditional” necessity; processes, continuous change rather than discontinuity; mutual manifestations; simultaneity and contiguity of cause and effect; and powers that have to be held back rather than stimulated. Empiricist accounts suggest that powers stand in need of stimulus conditions. But this already suggests that without them, they are passive. The Aristotelian idea, in contrast, is that powers tend to manifest when in propitious circumstances. They are released, indeed they will always be active unless they are held back. The neo-Aristotelian metaphysics favors continuity, with natural causal processes having their various stages essentially.

This chapter argues that the rhetorically conceived poetics of narrative developed by the Chicago school neo-Aristotelians helps to demonstrate that Aristotle’s Poetics was, in several respects, always already a rhetorically oriented theory. Its concern with purposively shaping plots in order to realize a particular audience experience and affect shows an interest not only in ‘making form’ but in ‘making readers’, and an awareness of narratives not only as structures but as communicative acts. Ultimately, however, it is not Aristotle’s theory—either of poetics or rhetoric—that marks this neo-Aristotelian reception as such. It is, instead, Aristotle’s inductive, a posteriori methodology that stands out as the most valuable thing bequeathed and inherited across successive generations of Neo-Aristotelians.

The chapter opens with a review of classical-mereological and (neo-)Aristotelian ontologies of ordinary objects, thus setting the stage for the introduction of quasi-hylomorphism. While q-hylomorphism follows classical mereology in viewing complex material objects as mereological sums of smaller material objects, it denies that ordinary objects are material objects. Moreover, while q-hylomorphism follows Aristotelian hylomorphism in distinguishing between an ordinary object’s matter and form, it construes forms as having a very different nature and at least a partly different function than Aristotelian forms. According to q-hylomorphism, an ordinary object is a compound of a material object and a complex, kind-realizing fact about this material object—a compound of matter and form. The most significant aspect of this account is that the qualitative profile of an ordinary object’s matter and the qualitative profile of the same object’s form may diverge. In short, there may be hylomorphic divergence.

Aristotle’s view, as understood in Chapters 1–6, is summarized and then distinguished from several more recent theories of psychological phenomena, such as various versions of functionalism and non-reductionist materialism. His hylomorphic theory of natural objects is also differentiated from various forms of neo-Aristotelian hylomorphism. Aristotle, it is argued, is attempting to account for the causal role of form, its being definitionally prior to matter, and its role in grounding the unity of natural objects in a way different from that suggested in these contemporary theories. The ontological nature of Aristotle’s forms is further discussed. The aim of this chapter is to emphasize the distinctness of Aristotle’s account from several recent theories, not to argue for its superiority.

The Introduction summarizes the basic tenets of Target Centred Virtue Ethics. It begins with an account of the fundamental concepts of virtue ethics in general and shows that virtue ethics is a family of normative ethical theory with several genera and species. The target-centred version of virtue ethics developed in the book is one species of virtue ethics opposed to the orthodox neo-Aristotelian version in many respects. Central to all forms of virtue ethics is ‘Thick Concept Centralism’, and the ‘Centrality of Virtuousness’, whether the notion of virtuousness is applied to character, actions, rules or motives. The Introduction outlines these theses, and the notion of the targets of virtues, before summarizing the contents of the book, including the metaphysics of Target Centred Virtue Ethics, the nature of Target Centred Virtue Ethics, and broad issues surrounding the application of Target Centred Virtue Ethics.

This introduction contrasts two different pictures of the relationship of virtue to human imperfection. On the first sort of picture, the only real virtue is perfect virtue, and the only right actions are perfectly virtuous ones. Any failure to meet the exacting standards of perfect virtue will amount to vice, and any less than perfectly virtuous actions will be wrong. On the second sort of picture, there can be actions that are right even if they are not maximally virtuous and there can be people who are profoundly virtuous even if they are not perfect. This book urges the attractions of a virtue ethics committed to the second sort of picture. Doing so allows it to make two major innovations: First, it will construct and defend neo-Aristotelian accounts of supererogation and suberogation. Second it will show that self-improvement itself can be morally excellent, and that the disposition to seek and engage in it, where appropriate, can itself be a virtue. The introduction lays out the plan of the book, previewing the argument for these claims.

This chapter develops and defends the following neo-Aristotelian account of supererogation: An action is supererogatory iff it is overall virtuous and either (1) the omission of an overall virtuous action in that situation would not be overall vicious, or (2) there is some overall virtuous action that is less virtuous than it and whose performance in its place would not be overall vicious. This account is non-ad-hoc insofar as it is based on virtue ethical accounts of right and wrong action that are motivated from within the tradition, and thus fully deserving of the label “neo-Aristotelian.” And it is intuitively defensible: it correctly identifies both heroic and saintly actions as supererogatory and gives a plausible explanation of their status as supererogatory. It also correctly identifies those instances of more mundane supererogation as supererogation and explains their status as supererogatory.

This chapter develops and defends the following account of neo-Aristotelian suberogation: an action is suberogatory iff it fails to hit the target of a relevant virtue, but is not overall vicious. This account implies that all true instances of suberogation are only trivially bad. Thus, pace influential defenders of suberogation, there are no instances of truly villainous suberogation. This chapter argues that this implication counts in favor of the account insofar as the supposed cases of villainous suberogation offered by those who defend its existence are, unlike those offered in defense of trivial suberogation, wholly unconvincing. So the account correctly identifies just those actions that are suberogatory as suberogatory, and gives a plausible explanation of their suberogatory status.

This chapter considers and responds to five objections to the internal coherence of a neo-Aristotelian account of supererogation. I particular, it considers the objections that the account is incompatible with the doctrine of the mean, that it makes virtue optional, that supererogation requires a logical relation among ethical concepts that Aristotelians cannot make sense of, that it is problematically non-action-guiding, and that it is incompatible with Aristotle’s claim that the virtuous person is the measure of right action. In each case, it argues that the most plausible interpretation of the Aristotelian claim under discussion is compatible with the neo-Aristotelian account of supererogation defended in the book.

This chapter begins with the observation that there is something about a virtue of self-cultivation that is, in Christine Swanton’s apt phrase, “seemingly paradoxical.” This seeming paradox calls for an explanation, and in this chapter, I take on this explanatory task. That is, I show as clearly as possible why it might seem paradoxical, or even impossible, to recognize a virtue concerned with self-improvement, and I argue that, nonetheless, this seeming is a mere seeming. The key issue for the neo-Aristotelian, I argue, is whether a disposition to self-cultivation can be an excellence for human beings. And, contrary to appearances, it can. Thus, there can be such a virtue after all.