Miguel Alzola
PhD: Business Ethics, Rutgers University
Assistant Professor, Fordham University

Entrada gratuita. Requiere inscripción.

El seminario se dictará en idioma castellano.

THE FRAGILITY OF VIRTUE - Abstract: To have a virtue is to possess a certain kind of trait of character that is appropriate in pursuing the moral good at which the virtue aims. Virtue ascriptions serve as a source of information, explanation, prediction, and moral evaluation. Yet, a number of scholars have recently expressed skepticism about the predictive power and even the existence of character traits of the sort postulated by virtue ethicists as virtues. They claim a sizable amount of empirical evidence on social psychology in their support.
If there are no such character traits, it follows that virtues are unattainable and, the argument goes, that there is no character-based ethics to be about. This paper is concerned with the examination of the so-called Situationist challenge to virtue ethics. I shall offer four arguments to defend virtue ethics and explain why the situationist objection does not hold.