Cultivating Virtue

Though virtue ethics is enjoying a resurgence, the topic of virtue cultivation has been largely neglected by philosophers. This volume remedies this gap, featuring mostly new essays, commissioned for this collection, by philosophers, theologians, and psychologists at the forefront of research into virtue. Each contribution focuses on some aspect of virtue development, either by highlighting virtue cultivation within distinctive traditions of ethical or religiousthought, or by taking a developmental perspective to yield fresh insights into criticisms of virtue ethics, or by examining the science that explains virtue development. The essays by Russell and Driver investigate virtue cultivation or problems associated with it from Aristotelian and utilitarianperspectives. Slote addresses virtue development from the sentimentalist standpoint. Swanton and Cureton and Hill explore self-improvement, the former with an eye to offering solutions to critiques of virtue ethics, the latter from a Kantian ethical vantage point. Slingerland examines contemporary psychology as well as virtue development in the Confucian tradition to counter situationist criticisms of virtue ethics. Flanagan, Bucar, and Herdt examine how virtue is cultivated in the Buddhist,Islamic, and Christian traditions, respectively. Narvaez, Thompson, and McAdams offer descriptive insights from psychology into virtue development. The result is a collection of extremely creative essays that not only fills the current gap but also promises to stimulate new work on aphilosophically neglected yet vital topic.

Overall, this timely collection considers an important question that has been neglected in recent ethical inquiry ... Recommended., Some of the pieces are written extremely well and deserve wide circulation. Those by Narvaez, Slingerland, Slote, Flanagan, Thompson, Bucar, and Russell are highlights. But there is something worth reading in each piece, and the volume as a whole promises to achieve its goal of stimulating further work on virtue development., Until fairly recently, the philosophical literature on the virtues has paid insufficient attention to formational questions. Cultivating Virtue takes a big step toward filling that lacuna, and admirably provides both guidance and inspiration for those interested in continuing the project. The volume warrants careful attention from scholars within and beyond the three disciplines represented therein, and its range, depth, and accessibility fit it for both upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses in virtue ethics, comparative ethics, moral psychology, and more. Moreover, its formative insights hold out the very real prospects of helping readers to pursue and attain greater virtue. I highly recommend it.

Nancy E. Snow is Professor of Philosophy at Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her research interests are in virtue ethics and moral psychology. Her most recent book is Virtue Intelligence: An Empirically Grounded Theory (New York: Routledge, 2010).