Thursday 20th June 2024, 2.30pm – 4.00pm (London BST)
Professor Rebecca Stangl (University of Virginia)
Title: Moral Exemplars, Advice, and Practical Wisdom
Moral exemplars play an important and even central role in many virtue ethical theories of practical reason and right action. The virtuous person not only sets the standard for right action, she is also someone whose moral advice should be sought and relied upon. This strain in virtue ethics, however, is in tension with an important line of argument in the recent literature on moral testimony. Pessimists about moral testimony think there is something irrational, fishy, or at least suboptimal about deferring to moral testimony. According to some, this is because deferring to moral testimony reveals a lack in our current virtue, does not make us more virtuous by its reception, and may hinder us in the longer term from developing virtue in the future. So, who is right? The virtue ethicists who recommend, at least in certain cases, deferring to moral exemplars? Or the pessimists about moral testimony who claim such deference is incompatible with virtue? I will argue that, with some caveats, the virtue ethicists are right. Moral exemplars can play the role that virtue ethicists assign them without thereby undermining the development of virtue in those whom they advise.
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https://cardiff.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZErcuysrDMiHtDG_Z8O1kJ3RjjtoCRRcbnN
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