Virtues and vices

By Hurka, Thomas

The concepts of virtue and vice identify a distinctive set of goods and evils, ones that are aspects of human excellence unlike, say, the values of feeling pleasure ...

Virtues and vices

By Williams, Bernard

The concept of a virtue can make an important contribution to a philosophical account of ethics, but virtue theory should not be seen as parallel to other ‘ethical ...

La Mettrie, Julien Offroy de (1709–51)

By Wellman, Kathleen

La Mettrie is best known as the author of the eighteenth-century materialist manifesto, L’Homme machine (1747). His interest in philosophical issues grew out of his preoccupation with medicine, ...

Evil

By Kekes, John

Evil is serious unjustified harm inflicted on sentient beings. Two types of evil can be distinguished: ’natural evil’, which is the product of nonhuman agency, and ’moral evil’, ...

Hutcheson, Francis (1694–1746)

By Norton, David Fate

Francis Hutcheson is best known for his contributions to moral theory, but he also contributed to the development of aesthetics. Although his philosophy owes much to John Locke’s ...

Supererogation

By Trianosky, Gregory Velazco Y

Supererogatory actions are usually characterized as ‘actions above and beyond the call of duty’. Historically, Catholic thinkers defended the doctrine of supererogation by distinguishing what God commands from ...

Normativity

By Darwall, Stephen

Something is said by philosophers to have ‘normativity’ when it entails that some action, attitude or mental state of some other kind is justified, an action one ought ...

Intellectual virtue

By Battaly, Heather

Intellectual virtues are qualities that make one an excellent thinker. The contemporary literature offers two different analyses of intellectual virtues: virtue reliabilism and virtue responsibilism. Virtue reliabilism argues ...

Family, ethics and the

By Ruddick, William

Do obligations to children take priority over filial and other family obligations? Do blood kin have stronger moral claims than relatives acquired through marriage? Whatever their origin, do ...

Moral scepticism

By Nelson, Mark T.

Scepticism in general is the view that we can have little or no knowledge; thus moral scepticism is the view that we can have little or no moral ...

Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179)

By Murphy, Claudia Eisen

Hildegard of Bingen saw herself as a prophet sent by God to awaken an age in which great troubles were besieging the Church and people no longer understood ...

Egoism and altruism

By Kraut, Richard

Henry Sidgwick conceived of egoism as an ethical theory parallel to utilitarianism: the utilitarian holds that one should maximize the good of all beings in the universe; the ...

Ethics in Islamic philosophy

By Fakhry, Majid

The study of Islamic ethics, whether philosophical or theological, grew out of early discussions of the questions of predetermination (qadar), obligation (taklif) and the injustices of temporal rulers, ...

Murdoch, Iris (1919–99)

By Norgaard, Thomas

Iris Murdoch was an Oxford moral philosopher and a prolific novelist. Her philosophy was marked by a strong sense of the moral significance of our inner lives: the ...

Self, Indian theories of

By Rukmani, T.S.

Hindu thought traces its different conceptions of the self to the earliest extant Vedic sources composed in the Sanskrit language. The words commonly used in Hindu thought and ...

Virtue epistemology

‘Virtue epistemology’ is the name of a class of theories that focus epistemic evaluation on good epistemic properties of persons rather than on properties of beliefs. The former ...

Virtue ethics

Virtue ethics has its origin in the ancient world, particularly in the writings of Plato and Aristotle. It has been revived following an article by G. E. M. ...

Virtue ethics

By Crisp, Roger

Virtue ethics has its origin in the ancient world, particularly in the writings of Plato and Aristotle. It has been revived following an article by G.E.M. Anscombe critical ...

Abelard, Peter (1079–1142)

By Tweedale, Martin M.

Among the many scholars who promoted the revival of learning in western Europe in the early twelfth century, Abelard stands out as a consummate logician, a formidable polemicist ...

Augustine (AD 354–430)

By Matthews, Gareth B.

Augustine was the first of the great Christian philosophers. For well over eight centuries following his death, in fact until the ascendancy of Thomas Aquinas at the end ...

al-Sijistani, Abu Sulayman Muhammad (c.932–c.1000)

By Atiyeh, George N.

Al-Sijistani was one of the great figures of Baghdad in the fourth century AH (tenth century ad). He assembled around him a circle of philosophers and ...

Smith, Adam (1723–90)

By Haakonssen, Knud

Despite his reputation as the founder of political economy, Adam Smith was a philosopher who constructed a general system of morals in which political economy was but one ...

Cudworth, Ralph (1617–88)

By Hutton, Sarah

Ralph Cudworth was the leading philosopher of the group known as the Cambridge Platonists. In his lifetime he published only one work of philosophy, his True Intellectual System ...

Emotions, philosophy of

By Solomon, Robert C.

Emotions have always played a role in philosophy, even if philosophers have usually denied them centre stage. Because philosophy has so often been described as first and foremost ...

Theological virtues

By Mann, William E.

The three theological virtues of faith, hope and love, referred to frequently by the apostle Paul in his letters, play an indispensable role in Christian theorizing about a ...