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...
Main Author: | |
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Format: | Electronic Review |
Language: | English |
Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
Journals Online & Print: | |
Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
Published: |
Springer Science + Business Media B. V
2021
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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 Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
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. |
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ISSN: | 1572-8447 |
Contains: | Enthalten in: Ethical theory and moral practice
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Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1007/s10677-021-10170-y |