Aristotle and Expertise: Ideas on the Skillfulness of Virtue

Many philosophers working on virtue theory have resisted the idea that the virtues are practical skills, apparently following Aristotle’s resistance to that idea. Bucking the trend, Matt Stichter defends a strong version of this idea in The Skillfulness of Virtue by marshaling a wide range of concep...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Birondo, Noell (Author)
Format: Electronic Review
Language:English
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Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 2021
In: Ethical theory and moral practice
Year: 2021, Volume: 24, Issue: 2, Pages: 599-609
Further subjects:B Book review
B Skill
B Technê
B Practical Intelligence
B Virtue
B Phronêsis
B Expertise
B Aristotle
Online Access: Presumably Free Access
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Summary:Many philosophers working on virtue theory have resisted the idea that the virtues are practical skills, apparently following Aristotle’s resistance to that idea. Bucking the trend, Matt Stichter defends a strong version of this idea in The Skillfulness of Virtue by marshaling a wide range of conceptual and empirical arguments to argue that the moral virtues are robust skills involving the cognitive-conative unification of Aristotelian phronêsis (‘practical intelligence’). Here I argue that Aristotle overlooks a more delimited kind of practical intelligence, strongly analogous to his own account of phronêsis, that unifies complex forms of expertise such as medicine or even high-level sports. Insofar as the skill model of virtue is compelling, it must draw on a robust conception of practical expertise (technê) like the one developed here rather than the ordinary, anemic conception of practical skills.
ISSN:1572-8447
Contains:Enthalten in: Ethical theory and moral practice
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10677-021-10170-y