LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Virtue
built 639 days ago
Absolute Virtue is a concept found in ancient Greek philosophy and Christianity. To the Greeks, it was a principle which exists beyond material forms, an Idea located in the world of Ideas (as envisioned by Plato). Absolute Virtue was constant across different types of people, but relative virtue, how that virtue is displayed in that social class or that gender varies depending on the status or gender of the person. Socrates said it was possible for humans to attain absolute virtue and ... understand Truth. To Medieval Christianity, Absolute Virtue was defined as God. God was absolute virtue.
Source:
Virtue theory is a branch of moral philosophy that emphasizes character, rather than rules or consequences, as the key element of ethical thinking. In the West virtue ethics was the prevailing approach to ethical thinking in the ancient and medieval periods. The tradition suffered an eclipse during the early modern period, as Aristotelianism fell out of favour in the West. Virtue theory returned to prominence in Western philosophical thought in the twentieth century, and is today one of the three dominant approaches to normative theories (the other two being deontology and consequentialism).
Source:
Virtue began his new paintings by choosing two sites alongside the Thames. One was on the south bank, in front of the Oxo Tower and the other on the north bank, located on the roof of Somerset House. From these two vantage points, looking eastward towards the City of London, Virtue made drawings from which he worked in the Gallery's studio.
Source:
Virtue reliabilists and virtue responsibilists appear to be advocating two fundamentally different and perhaps opposing kinds of epistemology. The former view certain cognitive faculties or powers as central to epistemology and the latter certain traits of intellectual character. The two approaches ... sometimes differ about the proper aims or goals of epistemology: virtue reliabilists tend to uphold the importance of traditional epistemological projects like the analysis of knowledge, while some virtue responsibilists give priority to new and different epistemological concerns. The impression of a deep difference between virtue reliabilism and virtue responsibilism is reinforced by at least two additional considerations. First, by defining the notion of intellectual virtue in terms of intellectual character, virtue responsibilists seem to rule out ex hypothesi any significant role in their theories for the cognitive abilities that interest the virtue reliabilist. Second, some supporters of virtue reliabilism have claimed outright that the character traits of interest to the virtue responsibilist have little bearing on the questions that are most central to a virtue reliabilist epistemology (Goldman 1992: 162).
Source:
Virtue theory, therefore, provides the resources for an interesting account of the way that knowledge is non-accidentally true belief. In cases of knowledge, the person deserves credit for believing the truth, just because her believing the truth can be put down to her own abilities (or virtues), rather than to dumb luck, or blind chance, or something else.
Source:
In the introduction to her collection of essays on ethical philosophy, The Virtue of Selfishness (VOS), Rand writes that the "exact meaning" of selfishness is "concern with one's own interests" (VOS, vii). In that work, Rand argues that a virtue is an action by which one secures and protects one's rational values—ultimately, one's life and happiness. Since a concern with one's own interests is a character trait that, when translated into action, enables one to achieve and guard one's own well-being, it follows that selfishness is a virtue. One must manifest a serious concern for one's own interests if one is to lead a healthy, purposeful, fulfilling life.
Source: