Philosophy 2133 F
Graduate Seminar -- Moral Psychology of Virtue
Fall 2002
Professor Gopal Sreenivasan
(416) 978-2824
This seminar will examine the psychological constitution of virtue. How, that is, does an agent have to be constituted psychologically in order to qualify as virtuous? Can human beings be so constituted? Our more specific focus will be on the role, if any, that emotion plays in the constitution of virtue. But we shall also consider some more general issues that bear on this question: for example, the nature of emotion; the rationality of emotion; the unity of the virtues; and the social psychology debate about traits.
Reading Schedule
September 19 Paul Griffiths, What Emotions Really Are (1997), chh. 1-2.
September 26
October 3
October 10
October 17 Damasio, Descartes’ Error (1994), chh.7-9.
October 24 de Sousa, Rationality of Emotion (1987), ch. 7.
October 31 Class cancelled. No meeting.
November 7 Ross and Nisbett, The Person and the Situation (1991), chh. 1 and 5.
Harman, “Moral Philosophy Meets Social Psychology: Virtue Ethics and the Fundamental
Attribution Error,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 99 (1999): 315-331.
Sreenivasan, “Errors About Errors: Virtue Theory and Trait Attribution,” Mind 111 (2002): 47-68.
November 14 Hursthouse, Virtue Ethics (2001), chh. 4-5.
November 21 Herman, The Practice of Moral Judgement (1993), ch. 4.
November 28 Nussbaum, Upheavals of Thought (2001), ch. 6.
December 5 Badhwar, “The Limited Unity of Virtue,” Noûs 30 (1996): 306-29.
Irwin, “Practical Reason Divided:
Aquinas and his Critics” in Cullity and Gaut (eds.) Ethics
and
Practical Reason (1997), ch. 7.