Virtue and happiness: a philosophical inquiry
A Research Report submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, Applied Ethics for Professionals University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 16th March 2015 === The position that...
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| Format: | Others |
| Language: | en |
| Published: |
2016
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10539/19593 |
| Summary: | A Research Report submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, Applied Ethics for Professionals
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 16th March 2015 === The position that holds that virtue, as a good, is sufficient for happiness has had
illustrious exponents in the past. We will refer to this position as the sufficiency thesis.
In recent times however this position has fallen into disfavour. This is largely due to the
strong intuition that certain goods other than virtue are necessary for happiness. We
will refer to this as the problem of external goods. The point of this paper is to respond
to the problem of external goods by articulating an understanding of virtue as involving
the ability to occupy a “distanced perspective” within which the virtuous agent becomes
detached from external goods insofar as he comes to view them as indifferent. My
articulation of this understanding of virtue will be based upon what I take to be the core
of the Stoic description of virtue. |
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