Biliographical essays are drawn from Lawrence M. Hinman, Ethics: A Pluralistic Approach to Moral Theory, 3rd Edition [Wadsworth, 2002] © 2002
Contemporary Virtue Theory
The contemporary resurgence of interest in the virtues begins with:
Philippa Foot’s “Virtues and Vices” in her Virtues and Vices and Other Essays In Moral Philosophy(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1978), pp. 1-18 and
Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue, 2nd edition (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984).
Several reviews of the recent literature are noteworthy:
Arthur Fleming’s “Reviewing the Virtues,” Ethics, Vol. 90 (1980), pp. 587-95;
Gregory Pence’s “Recent Work on the Virtues,” American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 4 (October, 1984), pp. 281-97 and his “Virtue Theory,” A Companion to Ethics, edited by Peter Singer (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991), pp. 249-58;
Marcia Baron’s “Varieties of Ethics of Virtue,” American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 22 (January, 1985), 47-53;
Gregory Trianosky’s “What Is Virtue Ethics All About?” American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 27, No. 4 (October, 1990), pp. 335-44;
Phillip Montague, “Virtue Ethics: A Qualified Success Story,” American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 29, No. 1 (January, 1992), pp. 53-61.
For an insightful analysis into historical views of virtue,
Richard White, “Historical Perspectives on the Morality of Virtue,” The Journal of Value Inquiry, Vol. 25 (1991), pp. 217-31.
Also see the excellent bibliography inThe Virtues, edited by Robert B. Kruschwitz and Robert C. Roberts (Belmont, California: Wadsworth, 1987).
Other collections of contemporary articles on virtues and vices include:
Sommers and Sommers, Vice and Virtue in Everyday Life, 3rd Edition (San Diego: Harcourt, Brace and Jovanovich, 1992); Vol. XIII of Midwest Studies in Philosophy (1988) on virtue theory;
the special double issue on the virtues in Philosophia, Vol. 20 (1990);
Flanagan and Rorty’s Identity, Character, and Morality(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1990);
Halberstam’s Virtues and Values (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1988);
Virtue, edited by John W. Chapman and William A. Galston (New York: New York University Press, 1992)
John Deigh’s Ethics and Personality: Essays in Moral Psychology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).
On the more popular front, see:
William Bennett, The Book of Virtues (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993).
Joel Kupperman’s Character (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991) presents a character-based ethical theory that places the discussion of particular virtues and vices within the context of the individual’s character.
For a utilitarian approach to virtue, see
John Kilcullen, “Utilitarianism and Virtue,” Ethics, Vol. 93, No. 3 (April, 1983), pp. 451-66.
