We are excited to announce that Prof. Christof Rapp, professor at LMU, will give us a talk on Ancient Virtue Ethics.
Everyone is welcome to join, but to help us estimate attendance, please sign up here if you plan to come. If you want to prepare, Prof. Rapp recommends this reading.
The event will take place on Tuesday 22.07 at 19:00. Location: seminar room N0314 at TUM main campus.
Nowadays, virtue ethics is supposed to represent a genuine, irreducible approach to moral philosophy. As opposed to deontology (which focuses on rules, dos and don’ts) and consequentialism (which focuses on the outcomes of our actions), virtue ethics is mostly concerned with the development of good character traits. Virtue ethics is less interested in the moral assessment of particular actions (e.g. whether they comply with or violate a duty, whether they are likely to promote the best possible outcome), but in the assessment of a person’s stable character or attitude, i.e. in the question of what kind of person someone is: whether she is just, generous, benevolent, empathic, etc. or whether she is mean, egocentric, opportunistic, etc.
The modern, contemporary interest in virtue ethics originates from a criticism of the moral theories that seem to be prevailing in the second half of the 20th century (namely, Kant’s deontology in the Germanophone world and consequentialism/utilitarianism in the Anglophone world). This criticism highlighted, among other things, that the then prevailing moral theories neglect important parts of what makes up our moral life, for example, the question of what role these duties and long-term consequences are supposed to play in the agent’s life. Why should any agent be motivated to act morally – provided that morality is restricted to compliance with rules (deontology) and maximisation of total utility (consequentialism). What is the connection between rules or maximisation of utility with the agent’s life as whole and with the pursuit of her happiness? Influential philosophers of the late 20th century (G.E.M. Anscombe, Bernard Williams, Alasdair MacIntyre, Philippa Foot, Julia Annas) therefore suggested to compensate for these shortcomings by reviving the (Greek/Latin) ancient approach to moral philosophy, which differs from the modern one in significant respects, most probably because ancient moral philosophers started from the questions of how we should live and what happiness consists in (and not from the question of which duties we must obey or which moral dilemmas we should avoid).
This is the background for the attention that ancient virtue ethics receives nowadays. In my talk I will present some of the sources of ancient virtue ethics. In particular, I will deal with the relation of moral integrity and wellbeing in Socrates/Plato and with the first fully developed virtue ethical system in Aristotle.
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Philosophia Munich is an interdisciplinary, student-run philosophy society, officially accredited at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), but we are open to everyone (including non-students). We aim to foster discussions and awareness of core philosophical themes in Munich. The themes include ethics, epistemology, language, free will, and social & political philosophy among others.
We meet weekly to discuss - in most cases modern and impactful - philosophical works. Our meetings usually take place at TUM main campus, Arcisstraße. You can find the exact schedule here. Our discussions are mostly based on academic papers that you have to read before our meetings. But don’t be afraid if there’s something you don’t understand - we help each other out and discuss as a team! 🙂 You can find more information about our meeting structure here. We also mix things up by including socialising events, such as film nights and hikes, and other academic events, such as guest speaker events.
We chose English as the language of discourse. Depending on the demand, we may arrange a German discussion group on site. Knowledge of academic philosophy is a plus but by no means a pre-requisite to becoming a member - everyone is welcome.
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