RT Article
T1 Complementing (Personal) Sustainability: Toward a Contemporary Virtue Ethics Approach to Frugality
JF Annali di studi religiosi
VO 12
SP 47
OP 61
A1 Hein, Rudolf Branco
LA English
YR 2011
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1776221524
AB In normative ethics, the concept of sustainability has recently gained undisputed respect, especially referring to its ecological, economical or social impact. This particular perspective of social ethics has narrowed down the horizon in which sustainability can be seen and reflected. This paper stresses various aspects of sustainability for the individual within the context of a virtue ethics that is aware of the critical remarks from its normative counterpart. Understood as a preventive ethics, a virtue concept of sustainability focuses on a) the historical context of patterns of (moral) conduct reflected by its socio-historical rootedness; b) the general moral capability envisaged in its teleological dimension; c) the potential of the individual, which can be optimized (optimum potentiae). In this threefold sense, the virtue concept of sustainability transcends mere parenetics. This concept cannot be unfolded without a notion of frugality that is developed from a historical background (a). Frugality includes human participation in the provisional activity of God (b). With a deep respect for the limitedness of resources, the ‘virtue ethics of saving’ has a potential to trigger a onscientization’ of our economic development (c).