Grecian Gifts, Plus
David Fergusson December 5, 2009 - 9:50am
Putting on Virtue
The Legacy of the Splendid Vices
Jennifer A. Herdt
University of Chicago Press, $55, 454 pp.
Since the mid-twentieth century, “virtue ethics” has staged a comeback among both theologians and philosophers. Reacting against the formalism of moral theory since Kant, scholars have drawn attention to the ways in which our actions are determined by habits, qualities of character, and shared conceptions about what constitutes the good life. This seems to make better sense of how we are shaped by our fulfillment of social...
