[lit-ideas] Re: virtue-practical example of being taught

  • From: Robert Paul <robert.paul@xxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sun, 01 Jan 2006 21:32:10 -0800

John McCreery wrote:

Re Robert's remark that taking care of others should be more than
prudential. Here again, I certainly agree. But isn't it, I wonder, one
of the roles of institutions to make doing what's right doing what is
prudential as well? Habits born of prudence may ripen into principles.
Principles proclaimed—even skillfully defended—in classroom settings
alone remain where classroom exercises leave them.

Yes, this needs talking about. It may be one of the roles of institutions to do this, but as there's no guarantee that the (merely) prudent person will ever advance to a principle some might see the grasping of one as supererogatory,* as long as the right actions are carried out.

On the other hand, (Western) ethical theory has never recovered from Kant's insistence that moral action excludes prudential considerations, so that questions like 'Why should I be moral?' have, or seem to have,
a sense that Plato and Aristotle wouldn't have understood.

Plato thought that justice had to benefit the just person, or else, as Thrasymachus says, justice is a fraud. Kant dissolves this problem by saying justice not only needn't but shouldn't. I'd like to be able to show that it does and must benefit the just person but I'm not smart enough to show how it does. ('It makes me feel all warm inside,' isn't a very good answer to 'Why should I be just, etc.?]

Robert Paul
The Reed Institute

*Mike Geary challenged me to use this word in a sentence.
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