1 Studying virtues

This book is a prolegomenon to a study of human virtues in their connections with emotions and related affective / motivational states. Accordingly, it is a contribution to the broad and diverse field of “ethics,” in particular to the subfield sometimes known as “moral psychology.” Initiated (or rather, revived) fifty years ago by Elizabeth Anscombe’s “Modern Moral Philosophy” (1958) and given increased momentum by several works of Alasdair MacIntyre (1981, 1988, 1990, 1999), the study of virtues is now a major part of moral philosophers’ business. In this introductory chapter I will explore the question of how to study the virtues and defend this book’s approach. To ask how the virtues should be studied immediately raises the more basic question of why study the virtues. Our way of studying them will surely be affected by what we take to be the point of doing so. What is the point of studying the virtues? What do we want to accomplish in studying them? This question, in turn, leads to a broader one: why study moral concepts? Why study the concept of the good, or of obligation, or of supererogation? Maybe we ought to study the virtues for the same reason we ought to study these other concepts. And this question really comes to why we should do moral philosophy – assuming that moral philosophy is in large part the study of moral concepts.