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"This book explores the virtues of good character, and includes well-illustrated accounts of generosity, gratitude, compassion, forgivingness, truthfulness, patience, courage, justice, and a sense of duty - relating these traits to human concerns and the emotions that express them in the circumstances of life"--
List of contents
Part I. Introductory: 1. Attention to virtues; 2. The elements of moral character; Part II. Virtues of Direct Caring: 3. Generosity and gratitude; 4. Compassion; 5. Forgivingness; 6. Truth and truthfulness; Part III. The Enkratic Virtues: 7. Self-control, courage, patience, and perseverance; Part IV. Virtues of Indirect Caring: 8. Justice; 9. The sense of duty; 10. Temperance; Part V. A Virtue of Indifference: 11. Humility; Conclusion: 12. Practical wisdom and the rationality of emotions; Bibliography; Index.
About the author
Robert C. Roberts is Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Ethics at Baylor University, Texas. He is the author of Emotions: An Essay in Aid of Moral Psychology (Cambridge, 2003), Emotions in the Moral Life (Cambridge, 2013), and (with Jay Wood) Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in Regulative Epistemology (2007).
Summary
In Attention to Virtues, Robert C. Roberts offers a view of moral philosophical inquiry reminiscent of the ancient Greek concern that philosophy improve a practitioner's life by improving her character. The book divides human virtues into three groups: virtues of caring (generosity and truthfulness, for example, are direct, while justice and the sense of duty are indirect), enkratic virtues (courage, self-control), and humility, which is in a class by itself. The virtues are individuated by their conceptual structure, which Roberts calls their 'grammar.' Well-illustrated accounts of generosity, gratitude, compassion, forgivingness, truthfulness, patience, courage, justice, and a sense of duty relate such traits to human concerns and the emotions that express them in the circumstances of life. The book provides a comprehensive account of excellent moral character, and yet treats each virtue in enough detail to bring it to life.
Foreword
Explores the virtues of good character, relating them to human concerns and the emotions they produce in our lives.
