Great Throughts Treasury

"One of the things a wise man knows and a foolish man does not is that such things as social position, wealth, and the good opinion of the world, are too dearly bought at the cost of health or friendship or family ties."

"Virtues are in some general way, beneficial. Human beings do not get on well without them."

"The motto for virtue ethics is: "Be this sort of person" rather than "Follow this rule." Kant's "What is my duty?" becomes instead "What sort of person shall I become?""

"There belongs to wisdom only that part of knowledge which is within the reach of any ordinary adult human being; knowledge than can be acquired only be someone who is clever or who has access to special training is not counted as part of wisdom."

"Those who are influenced by the emotivist theory of ethics, and yet wish to defend what Hare has called 'the rationality of moral discourse', generally talk a lot about 'giving reasons' for saying that one thing is right, and another wrong. The fact that moral judgements need defence seems to distinguish the impact of one man's moral views upon others from mere persuasion or coercion, and the judgements themselves from mere expressions of likes and dislikes. Yet the version of argument in morals currently accepted seems to say that, while reasons must be given, no one need accept them unless he happens to hold particular moral views. It follows that disputes about what is right and wrong can be resolved only if certain contingent conditions are fulfilled; if they are not fulfilled, the argument breaks down, and the disputants are left face to face in an opposition which is merely an expression of attitude and will."

"Traditional philosophy has misinterpreted Greek ethics as a moral rationalism and objectivism. There is no ethics of duty or obligation there, but only an ethics of virtue."

"Wisdom, as I see it, has two parts. In the first place the wise man knows the means to certain good ends; and secondly he knows how much particular ends are worth."

"You ask a philosopher a question and after he or she has talked for a bit, you don?t understand your question anymore."

"I want to say that it has not even been proved that moral conclusions cannot be entailed by factual or descriptive premises."

"The harder a man finds it to act virtuously the more virtue he shows if he does act well."

"One of the "virtues" of virtue ethics ("virtue" in the broad sense of a "function" or "excellence") is that it offers bridges across the traditional dualisms of ethical objectivism and subjectivism, between moral rationalism and voluntarism, between the head and the heart (both are important), between intention and consequence (both have value), and between intellectual and moral virtue. We will see that Phillipa Foot believes that wisdom is both an intellectual and a moral virtue."

"Anyone who thinks about it can see that for human beings the teaching and following of morality is something necessary."