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THE VIRTUES OF SUSTAINABILITY

The Virtues: Multidisciplinary Perspectives

Series Editor Nancy E. Snow

Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Institute for the Study of Human Flourishing, University of Oklahoma

Justice

Edited by Mark LeBar

Humility

Edited by Jennifer Cole Wright

Integrity, Honesty, and Truth Seeking

Edited by Christian B. Miller and Ryan West

The Virtues of Sustainability

Edited by Jason Kawall

THE VIRTUES OF SUSTAINABILITY

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries.

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.

© Oxford University Press 2021

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above.

You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Kawall, Jason, editor.

Title: The virtues of sustainability / edited by Jason Kawall. Description: New York : Oxford University Press, 2021. | Series: The virtues : multidisciplinary perspectives | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020033688 (print) | LCCN 2020033689 (ebook) | ISBN 9780190919818 (hb) | ISBN 9780190919825 (paperback) | ISBN 9780190919849 (epub) | ISBN 9780190919832 | ISBN 9780190919856

Subjects: LCSH: Sustainability—Moral and ethical aspects. | Environmental ethics. Classification: LCC GE196 .V57 2021 (print) | LCC GE196 (ebook) | DDC 179/.1—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020033688

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020033689

DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190919818.001.0001

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

Paperback printed by Marquis, Canada

Hardback printed by Bridgeport National Bindery, Inc., United States of America

Series Editor’s Foreword vii

List of Contributors xi

CULTIVATING VIRTUES OF SUSTAINABILITY

1. Virtue and Sustainable Behavior: A Psychological Perspective 3 Susan Clayton

2. The Environmental Psychology of Pro- Sustainability Virtues 27 Victor Corral-Verdugo, Martha Frías-Armenta, and Anais Ortiz-Valdez

3. Aristotelian Virtue Education and Education for Sustainable Development: Prospects and Problems 55 Matt Ferkany

4. The Emotional Heart of Environmental Virtues 84

Cheryl Hall

5. Jain Dharma as a Virtue Ethics for Sustainability 115 Pankaj Jain

6. Respect for Nature: Learning from Indigenous Values 135

Christine J. Cuomo

III

7. Cooperativeness as a Virtue of Sustainability 161

Laura M. Hartman

8. Patience and Sustainability 187

Jason Kawall

9. Treading Lightly: Conscientiousness, Information, and Ecological Impacts

Steve Vanderheiden

10. The Roles of Creativity and Open-Mindedness in Implementing Sustainable Solutions 234

Sarah Wright

SERIES EDITOR’S FOREWORD

Typically, having a virtue means being disposed to having certain kinds of perceptions, thoughts, motives, emotions, and ways one is inclined to act. The end of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first centuries have seen an upsurge of interest in the topic of virtue. This is true not only in philosophy but also in a variety of other disciplines, such as theology, law, economics, psychology, and anthropology, to name a few. The study of virtue within disciplines is vitally important, yet the premise of this series is that the study of virtue in general, as well as of specific virtues, can be enhanced if scholars take into account work being done in disciplines other than their own.

Cross-disciplinary work can be challenging. Scholars trained in one field with its unique vocabulary and methods do not always move seamlessly into another discipline and often feel unqualified to undertake the task of serious cross-disciplinary engagement. The upshot can be that practitioners of disciplines can become “siloed”— trapped within their own disciplines and hesitant to engage seriously with others, even on important topics of mutual interest.

This series seeks to break the silos, with fifteen volumes on specific virtues or clusters of virtues. For each book, an introduction by the editor highlights the unity of writings by identifying common themes, threads, and ideas. In each volume, the editor seeks to include a chapter from a “wild card” discipline, a field one would not expect to see included in a collection of essays on a particular virtue. We do this both to highlight the diversity of fields in the study of specific virtues and to surprise and challenge readers to broaden their horizons in thinking about virtue.

The audience for this series is practitioners of different disciplines who seek to expand their thinking about virtue. Each volume contains chapters that are accessible and of interest to scholars from many disciplines. Though the volumes are not comprehensive overviews of the work on virtue that is occurring in any given field, they provide a useful introduction meant to pique the curiosity of readers and spur further engagement with other disciplines.

Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Institute for the Study of Human Flourishing, University of Oklahoma

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to express my deep gratitude to Nancy Snow, the series editor, for first suggesting the possibility of this volume many—all too many!—years ago. Nancy has provided tremendous support and thoughtful advice throughout the entire project; I greatly appreciate all of her help. Special thanks, too, to Lucy Randall at Oxford University Press for her thoughtful, informed (and informative) advice and support from the project’s earliest stages. Many thanks to Hannah Doyle at OUP for her help with production, and to Leslie Anglin for copyediting. Finally, I would like to thank Heather Battaly, Babo LeMonstre, Darcia Narvaez, Thelo Rax, and the anonymous reviewers of the proposal and manuscript for their many helpful comments and suggestions.

I owe special debts of gratitude to each of the wonderful contributors to this volume. It’s been a pleasure to watch these essays and the volume as whole come together, and I’m deeply appreciative of all their efforts in contributing such excellent, thoughtful pieces. I should add, too, that I greatly appreciate their patience in dealing with sometimes rather extended periods of radio silence from their editor—followed, of course, by bursts of frenzied activity! Thanks,

also, for their many helpful suggestions for the collection and editing process.

I would like to thank my friends and colleagues at Colgate University—especially those in the Philosophy department and Environmental Studies program for creating such a congenial and collegial environment. Many thanks, in particular, to Lei Mara and Tracy Piatti for such excellent administrative support. And I am grateful to the Marion Hoeflich Memorial Endowment for Advancements in Philosophy for generous support for professional, expert assistance as the manuscript entered into the final stages of preparation.

Finally, for more general support, sound advice, chaos, and many helpful discussions, I am deeply grateful to Claire Sigsworth.

I dedicate this volume to my parents, Desmond and Monica, with love and gratitude.

CONTRIBUTORS

Susan Clayton is Whitmore-Williams Professor of Psychology at the College of Wooster in Ohio. She has written or edited five books, including Conservation Psychology: Understanding and Promoting Human Care for Nature (with Gene Myers; Wiley, 2nd edition, 2015). Her PhD, from Yale University, is in social psychology. Her research focuses on the human relationship with nature, how it is socially constructed, and how it can be utilized to promote environmental concern; she is particularly interested in applying psychological constructs of justice and identity to an environmental context. Clayton is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Environmental Psychology and Social Justice Research, and she is a fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Society for Environmental, Population, and Conservation Psychology (SEPCP), the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP), and the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI). She is a past president of SEPCP and SPSSI.

Victor Corral-Verdugo is Professor of Psychology at the University of Sonora, Mexico. He has published numerous books, papers, and

chapters on environmental psychology topics, including articles in Environment and Behavior, Environmental Management, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, Journal of Environmental Psychology, and The Journal of Environmental Education. His research interests include the study of sustainable behavior and its determinants, the psychological causes and consequences of climate change, and the influence of positive environments on human well-being, among others.

Christine J. Cuomo is a philosopher, feminist theorist, and feminist theorist of European descent who has worked on several collaborative projects at the intersections of environmental and social justice. She has also written and lectured widely on climate justice, ecofeminism, and other topics. From 2005 to 2015 Chris was part of a team studying landscape changes on Alaska’s North Slope Borough with the help of community elders, and she is currently collaborating on research highlighting the needs and concerns of women on the front lines of the international plastic recycling industry. A professor of philosophy and women’s and gender studies at the University of Georgia, her first book, Feminism and Ecological Communities: An Ethic of Flourishing, foregrounds the insights of ecofeminist activism, pragmatism, and multicultural radical feminism in articulating environmental values.

Matt Ferkany is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy and affiliated faculty of the Environmental Science and Policy Program at Michigan State University. He has also held a position in a college of education and been a fellow at the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtue at the University of Birmingham in Birmingham, England. His teaching and scholarship focus on normative ethical problems relating to moral education, well-being and virtue, and environmental ethics and education. His work has been funded by the Spencer Foundation and published in journals

such as Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, Environmental Values, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Educational Theory, and Theory and Research in Education.

Martha Frías-Armenta is Professor of Psychology and Law at The University of Sonora and a member of Mexico’s National Researcher System. She has conducted research on determinants of environmental crime, family violence, alternative justice, and juvenile delinquency. Her academic production includes books, papers, and book chapters on those topics, with her articles appearing in such journals as Environment and Behavior, Environment, Development, and Sustainability, Environmental Management, Journal of Environmental Psychology, and The Journal Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology.

Cheryl Hall is an Associate Professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies at the University of South Florida. She is a political theorist with specialties in environmental political theory, feminist theory, and emotion in politics. Her research focuses on thinking through the roles that human capacities and practices might play in encouraging more just and sustainable ways of life. She is currently especially interested in questions of how to encourage political action on climate change by cultivating the emotional resources necessary to sustain cultural attention to the challenge. She is the author of The Trouble With Passion: Political Theory Beyond the Reign of Reason and a coeditor of The Oxford Handbook of Environmental Political Theory. Her articles and book chapters include “What Will It Mean to Be Green? Envisioning Positive Possibilities Without Dismissing Loss,” “Framing and Nudging for a Greener Future,” and “Caring to be Green: The Importance of Love for Environmental Integrity.”

Laura M. Hartman is Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at Roanoke College. Her research interests include environmental, virtue, narrative, and feminist ethics, particularly as these apply to

consumption, climate engineering, and transportation. She has published articles on environmental ethics in journals such as the Journal of Religious Ethics, Worldviews, Environmental Ethics, and Ethics and International Affairs. She is the author of The Christian Consumer: Living Faithfully in a Fragile World (Oxford, 2011) and editor of Flourishing: Comparative Religious Environmental Ethics (Oxford, 2018).

Pankaj Jain is the Dean of Vijaybhoomi School of Arts and Humanities at Vijaybhoomi University. Previously, he was cochair of the India Initiatives Group and Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at the University of North Texas. His recent books are Dharma in America: A Short History of Hindu-Jain Diaspora (Routledge, 2019) and Dharma and Ecology of Hindu Communities: Sustenance and Sustainability (Routledge, 2016).

Currently, he is translating Jain Darshan, a monumental text on the philosophy of Jainism, and is working on his fourth monograph, Makers of Modern Jainism. He tweets at @ProfPankajJain.

Jason Kawall is Carl Benton Straub ’58 Endowed Chair in Culture and the Environment, and Professor of Philosophy and Environmental Studies at Colgate University. His current research focuses on the role of knowledge (including its absence and its pursuit) in morally good and sustainable lives. More generally, his research explores virtue ethics and epistemology, with a particular emphasis on their application to environmental and sustainability issues. He has published extensively in these and related areas, with his work appearing in such journals as American Philosophical Quarterly, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Environmental Ethics, Ethics, Policy and Environment, and Philosophical Studies, and in a number of edited volumes, including the Oxford Handbook of Environmental Ethics (2016) and the Oxford Handbook of Virtue (2018).

Anais Ortiz-Valdez is Professor of Psychology at s at the University of Sonora, Mexico. Her master’s thesis addressed the relationship between human virtues and sustainable behavior, while in her doctoral dissertation she studied the moderating influence of environmental predictability/stability on the relationship between virtues and delinquent behavior. She has published papers in environmental psychology, including articles in Environment and Behavior; Environment, Development and Sustainability, and Psyecology.

Steve Vanderheiden is Professor of Political Science and Environmental Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder. In addition to numerous articles and chapters on topics at the intersection of political theory, applied ethics, and environmental politics, he is the author of Atmospheric Justice: A Political Theory of Climate Change (Oxford, 2008), which won the Harold and Margaret Sprout Award for best book in international environmental politics from the International Studies Association in 2009. His current research projects focus upon the role of responsibility in response to climate change, relationships between territorial rights and carbon sinks in the context of climate mitigation efforts, and the development of democratic processes and equity norms in water governance.

Sarah Wright is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Georgia. Her research focuses on the normative aspects of epistemology, particularly on the epistemic virtues as they might be developed using the Stoic moral theory as a model. She has also written on contextualism in epistemology, on social and group epistemology, and on environmental ethics. She is currently working on applications of virtue epistemology to particular real- life situations, including concerns with epistemic

injustice and how the epistemic virtues can help us to avoid committing it. Her work has been published in numerous edited volumes as well as in Episteme , Philosophical Issues , Acta Analytica , History of Philosophy Quarterly , Ethics and the Environment , and Metaphilosophy .

INTRODUCTION

JASON KAWALL

As the introduction to this volume is being written, the attention of the world is being drawn to critical issues of sustainability and climate change by the teenaged Swedish activist Greta Thunberg. The school climate strikes she has helped to champion, and the multitude of related events inspired by her, are drawing millions of people together to demonstrate for urgent climate action.1 There is a growing recognition of the potentially catastrophic impacts of human actions on future generations, and the devastating environmental harms and injustices that are already occurring; the phenomenon of global climate change, in particular, is serving to galvanize a generation of activists.2

1. For more on the climate strike movement, see Fridays for Future (n.d.).

2. As this final manuscript is submitted, the world is confronting the COVID-19 pandemic and its dire consequences. Still, even now, many are considering how changing norms with respect to work, travel, and other facets of our lives during the pandemic may one day help us in the pursuit of sustainability.

Jason Kawall, Introduction In: The Virtues of Sustainability. Edited by: Jason Kawall, Oxford University Press (2021). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190919818.001.0001

What does the urgent call for a sustainable future mean for us— for our ways of life, and our understandings of human flourishing? What demands are placed on us as we strive to achieve such a future, and what kind of people will we need to be? What kinds of character and virtues will help us, and how can we cultivate these traits?

This volume, one of a series devoted to the interdisciplinary study of the virtues, helps to address such questions by providing a careful, wide-ranging exploration of the virtues of sustainability, and the key factors supporting their development. It brings together a diverse set of authors from a broad range of disciplines— from philosophy and political science, to religious studies and psychology. The primary focus of the volume is on the virtues and related matters of character and identity with respect to the pursuit of sustainability, rather than delving into detailed analyses or debates concerning sustainability itself, as such. That said, we begin this introduction with an overview of sustainability (and certain key issues and debates surrounding it) to provide an initial background for the reader, before turning to the virtues themselves, and introducing the chapters that follow.

sustA in A bilit Y

While the broad concept of sustainability has achieved a striking prominence in public discourse in recent years, scores of variant definitions of this core concept have been proposed by academics, governmental agencies, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and businesses around the world, reflecting their varying needs and purposes. Still, while many accounts have been proposed, the vast majority share a fundamental recognition that the ongoing well-being of human communities, including our social and economic systems, is intimately interwoven with the natural and ecological systems of this

planet. How then, might we ensure a habitable, welcoming world for both current and future generations?3

Sustainability is often treated in terms of three “pillars,” corresponding to environmental, social, and economic systems. The environmental dimension of sustainability concerns the maintenance or improvement of ecosystem health and services, protection of species and habitat, and a more general concern to limit deleterious effects of human activities on the rest of the natural world. In turn, the social dimension encourages us to strive for social equality, the promotion of well-functioning social structures, and the elimination of environmental, social, and other injustices, with an eye toward achieving stable, secure, and resilient communities. Finally, the economic dimension of sustainability requires economic systems that can provide adequate employment, technological innovation, and productive capacity to support and improve human well-being, as well as environmental and social sustainability, in an ongoing fashion across future generations.

Proponents of the three-pillars approach stress that we must recognize both the importance of each pillar and their interdependence. For example, there may be instances where preventing the extinction of a species is technically viable but at great financial cost, or requiring massive sacrifices to the way of life, culture, and economic well-being of an already impoverished local community—a common concern with past efforts to create pristine ecological reserves or protected areas that excluded much needed, traditional activities of local communities. As Sarah Wright notes in her chapter in this volume, proponents of the three-pillars approach would strive to avoid undermining any one of the pillars for the sake of the others, instead

3. For an excellent general introduction to sustainability, see Mulligan (2014). For a more critical discussion, drawing attention to the many different (and sometimes conflicting) accounts and definitions of sustainability, see Farley and Smith (2013).

encouraging us to find solutions that embrace the importance of all three. In the current case, proponents of the view might recommend an investment in ecotourism as a potential way forward—bringing economic benefits and stability to a local community, while encouraging the community’s ongoing investment in, and concern for, the species and its habitat.4 And where such answers are not possible, we must be keenly aware of the costs and seek balance in the future where viable.

Still, many question the prominence of the “economic” pillar in this approach, instead arguing that it should be understood as strictly ancillary, a mere means of providing resources and support for human well-being, and environmental and social sustainability. Opponents hold that the ecological and social pillars represent systems and individuals with independent, intrinsic value—values that we ought to seek to further for their own sake. The economic system lacks such inherent value. Accordingly, these opponents argue that priority should be given to the social and ecological dimensions of sustainability in decision-making, with economic concerns having only a supplemental, instrumental role in the promotion of the other two.

Similarly, while it is common in many discussions to treat the concepts of sustainability and sustainable development as essentially interchangeable, others argue that sustainable development is a deeply problematic notion. Critics worry that the concept implicitly assumes and encourages endless growth on a finite planet—a suggestion they find inherently problematic.5 Relatedly, they worry that the

4. Of course, critiques of ecotourism qua green, sustainable development abound. See, for example, Duffy (2013). It is beyond the scope of this chapter to fully address these issues.

5. Proponents of sustainable development will often note in response that economic growth need not involve destructive, consumptive use of resources. For example, we can imagine an economy growing as more and more novels are written, more concerts are being performed, and people are exchanging more services.

notion of sustainable development relies on a problematic assumption that the most effective (or even the only way) to improve human well-being is through increasing consumption and growing economies. In turn, critics worry that if we do not carefully distinguish between the two concepts, we will lose sight of a genuine, desirable sustainability, and will instead be convinced to embrace a businessas-usual, flawed ideal of sustainable development.6

Accounts of sustainability are also commonly treated as ranging on a spectrum from weak to strong, where the strength of a given conception is a function of how readily it allows for the substitution of natural goods and resources by alternatives. For example, we might wonder whether it could be appropriately sustainable to drain a region of swamps and wetlands (which provide water filtration services, help to alleviate flooding, serve as habitat for myriad nonhuman populations, and so forth) if this allows us to expand subsidized housing developments, build new factories and hospitals, and generate additional goods and services. Is such substitution of goods sustainable?

The weakest conceptions of sustainability would hold that substitutes can be provided for any natural good, resource, or service, and that human well-being is the exclusive measure of sustainability. On such views we could, in principle, live on a planet that lacks all other life and natural systems, so long as we could generate manufactured alternatives that could equally well maintain human well-being indefinitely over generations to come.

At the other extreme, the strongest conceptions of sustainability would hold both that there is a vast range of nonsubstitutable natural goods, resources, and services, and that many of these entities have interests and a well-being of their own that must be protected and sustained.

6. For a critical overview of the three-pillars approach to sustainability and sustainable development, see Purvis et. al. (2019).

Proponents of strong sustainability often emphasize that while we can readily, fully replace much manufactured capital (we can replace a factory or a school with a more-or-less identical structure), we often have no way to truly replace various natural goods and resources—to replace a species, or to replicate the pollination work done by bees and other insects, for example. The most demanding versions of sustainability would reject almost all human-imposed changes to ecosystems and species extinctions, to the extent that we would risk losing irreplaceable goods. Such views would, of course, greatly restrict human activity. But they may also risk essentially locking in place only current (or idealized past) ecosystems and species—after all, any change leading to a new state could be construed as the loss of an irreplaceable good for which there can be no adequate substitutes.

As might be expected, most accounts lie between these extremes—recognizing that we should not be too quick to assume that we can simply find, for example, a technological alternative to the pollination work done by bees, or that nonhuman entities cannot have a morally relevant intrinsic value of their own, but also recognizing that we cannot, and should not, try to preserve all current ecosystems, species, and environments in their current state, indefinitely, and at the expense of all other goals, goods, or aspirations. These accounts encourage us to find ways forward that secure the ongoing well-being of human communities and individuals while also appropriately respecting the many values possessed by nonhuman entities and communities.7

A related, emerging issue concerns the extent to which humans can or ought to intervene in ecological systems for the sake of sustainability. We noted earlier that the strongest conceptions of sustainability might require us to essentially freeze the world in place, to avoid losing irreplaceable natural goods. In light of the extensive,

7. For a recent critical discussion of strong sustainability, see DesRoches (2019).

quite possibly unavoidable human impacts already occurring globally (reflected, for example, in growing suggestions that we now live in the Anthropocene age), some scholars are urging a greater acceptance of human-imposed change and intervention in ecological systems. Thus, we might wonder about the embrace of novel ecosystems—roughly, ones significantly shaped and altered by human activities and quite unlike those historically prevalent in an area, but which are now stable and self-organizing without human management. Others have wondered about the moral status of assisted migration—helping to move populations of nonhuman species to new ecosystems and habitats as their former ranges are altered or lost through climate change, habitat fragmentation, and other pressures. Proponents of such views and efforts argue that a more pragmatic orientation to environmental sustainability may be required—recognizing that novel ecosystems can still provide important ecosystem services for humans while serving as valuable habitat for nonhuman populations, and acknowledging that we may risk losing vast numbers of species if we are unwilling to intervene to save them through assisted migration or other measures (see Standish et al. [2013], and Minteer and Collins [2010] for discussion). There are thus difficult questions concerning what it is to pursue environmental sustainability in light of climate change and other anthropogenic impacts, and the extent to which we should embrace interventionist approaches to such efforts.

Finally, in considering how best to achieve and maintain sustainability, an emphasis on social and political systems would seem to be warranted, given the magnitude and scale of the challenges we face. Scholars working in the area often stress the importance of such collective and political actions, and argue that often too much emphasis is placed on small-scale, individualistic efforts that are (comparatively) ineffectual—riding bicycles to work, recycling a little more household waste, and so on. The policy initiatives, treaties, improvements to infrastructure, and other changes needed to effectively address

climate change and sustainability require large-scale, governmental and institutional action.

Such institutional efforts are clearly essential, and the authors in this volume readily acknowledge their importance. But this is only half the story. Cheryl Hall and Steve Vanderheiden, in their respective chapters, capture this point well. There are limits to how much can be done through top- down, institutionally imposed changes if the general population is unwilling to abide by them. We may also wonder why political and business leaders would embrace sustainability initiatives unless they were being pressured or encouraged to act—unless there was significant public support, or they themselves were deeply invested in the importance of such efforts. In the end, we need effective, engaged leaders, and citizens who will advocate for and abide by viable efforts to seek a sustainable future.

It is worth returning to the example of Greta Thunberg. Change is often driven and inspired by individuals—supported by others, of course—but we need individuals to lead organizations, to model new ways of flourishing, and to inspire and support others. We need individuals to care about those around them, to be open-minded to new ways of life and flourishing, and to be willing to act together for the sake of a viable future. Individuals, and individual character, are essential to the pursuit of sustainability.

t H e V irtues A nd sustA in A bilit Y

With an overview of sustainability in hand, we can turn to the virtues, and their potential role in achieving and maintaining sustainability. Our discussion here will be rather more cursory, as these topics are the primary focus of the volume as a whole and will receive much attention throughout. Still, some initial groundwork is in order.

We can begin with a characterization of the virtues. Rosalind Hursthouse and Glenn Pettigrove provide an attractive account, one that would be embraced by most scholars working on the virtues and across most ethical traditions:

A virtue is an excellent trait of character. It is a disposition, well entrenched in its possessor—something that, as we say, goes all the way down, unlike a habit such as being a tea-drinker—to notice, expect, value, feel, desire, choose, act, and react in certain characteristic ways. To possess a virtue is to be a certain sort of person with a certain complex mindset. (Hursthouse and Pettigrove, 2018, p. 4)

For example, an honest person will tend, other things being equal, to tell the truth when asked, to seek out the truth where she can, and to be careful to avoid deception, including self-deception. She will be frustrated or disappointed with dishonesty of others—and herself, should she fall short. She deeply values the truth and this is reflected in her actions, attitudes, and desires—in the ways she interprets and interacts with the world. This is an ongoing facet of who she is, her habits, and way of life. Her honesty helps to define who she is as a person.

Virtue ethics,8 with deep roots in a wide range of philosophical and religious traditions, can be understood as being especially concerned with such questions as “How ought I to live?,” “What is a good life?,” and “What kind of person ought I to be?” There is thus an emphasis on examining an individual’s life and character as a whole—the traits, attitudes, and habits that shape her outlook on the world, the actions she performs, and the life she leads. The virtue-ethical tradition has

8. Here taken to refer broadly to those approaches to normative ethics that emphasize the importance and centrality of the virtues and related matters of character in arriving at a robust, rich, and realistic understanding of human ethics.

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