Making a Necessity of Virtue
Aristotle and Kant on Virtue

A detailed analysis of Aristotelian and Kantian ethics together, remaining faithful to the texts and responsive to contemporary debates.

Nancy Sherman (Author)

9780521564878, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 28 January 1997

408 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.3 cm, 0.6 kg

"Despite this omission, Sherman's study makes a valuable contribution to the growing literature on Kant's theory of virtue and its place in the history of ethics alongside Greek, and especially Aristotelian, conceptions of virtue. Students of Kant, Aristotle, and the history of ethics should study Sherman's book with interest and profit." The Philosophical Review

This book is the first to offer a detailed analysis of Aristotelian and Kantian ethics together, in a way that remains faithful to the texts and responsive to debates in contemporary ethics. Recent moral philosophy has seen a revival of interest in the concept of virtue, and with it a reassessment of the role of virtue in the work of Aristotle and Kant. This book brings that re-assessment to a new level of sophistication. Nancy Sherman argues that Kant preserves a notion of virtue in his moral theory that bears recognisable traces of the Aristotelian and Stoic traditions, and that his complex anthropology of morals brings him into surprising alliance with Aristotle. She develops her argument through close readings of major texts by both Aristotle and Kant, illustrating points of congruence and contrast.

1. A new dialogue
2. The emotional structure of Aristotelian virtue
3. A brief stoic interlude
4. The passional underpinnings of Kantian virtue
5. The shared voyage
6. Aristotelian particularism
7. Making room for practical wisdom in Kantian ethics
8. Perfecting Kantian virtue: discretionary latitude and superlative virtue.

Subject Areas: Western philosophy: c 1600 to c 1900 [HPCD]