Is Kindness a Virtue?
| Autor: | Kristján Kristjánsson |
|---|---|
| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2024 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | European Journal of Analytic Philosophy, Vol 20, Iss 1, Pp 231-250 (2024) |
| Druh dokumentu: | article |
| ISSN: | 1845-8475 1849-0514 |
| DOI: | 10.31820/ejap.20.1.10 |
| Popis: | This article swims against the stream of academic discourse by answer the title question in the negative. This contrarian answer is not meant to undermine the view that kindness is a good thing; neither is it, however, an example of a mere philosophical predilection for word play. I argue that understanding kindness as a virtue obscures rather than enlightens, for the reason that it glosses over various distinctions helping us make sense of moral language and achieving “virtue literacy”. I survey some of the relevant psychological literature before moving on to philosophical sources. I subsequently delineate the alternative ways in which coherent virtue ethicists can say everything that they want to say about kindness by using much better entrenched and less bland terms. I offer a view of kindness as a cluster concept in the same sense as the Wittgensteinian concept of a game. Finally, I elicit some implications of this view for practical efforts at character education. |
| Databáze: | Directory of Open Access Journals |
| Externí odkaz: |
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