The Cambridge Companion to Virtue Ethics

This volume addresses the history, future and contemporary application of virtue ethics.

Daniel C. Russell (Edited by)

9780521171748, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 14 February 2013

384 pages
22.6 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.59 kg

'Although I would mostly recommend this book to upper-division undergraduates or beginning graduate students, some of the essays in specific areas or traditions may be of interest even to advanced scholars, due to their approach, which includes areas less discussed in more traditional accounts, such as Chinese philosophy or business virtue ethics. Moreover, its focus on contemporary research on virtue ethics makes this book a particularly valuable resource to ethics scholars with different levels of expertise.' Aline Medeiros Ramos, Metapsychology Online Reviews

Virtue ethics has emerged from a rich history, in which both Aristotle and Aquinas have played an important role, to become one of the fastest-growing fields in contemporary ethics. In this volume of newly commissioned essays, leading moral philosophers offer a comprehensive overview of virtue ethics. They examine the theoretical structure of virtue ethics and its place in contemporary moral theory and other topics discussed include the history of virtue-based approaches to ethics, what makes these approaches distinctive, what they can say about specific practical issues and where we can expect them to go in the future. This Companion will be useful to students of virtue ethics and the history of ethics and to others who want to understand how virtue ethics is changing the face of contemporary moral philosophy.

1. The definition of virtue ethics Christine Swanton
2. Ancient virtue ethics: an overview with an emphasis on practical wisdom Rachana Kamtekar
3. Virtue ethics and the Chinese Confucian tradition Philip J. Ivanhoe
4. Virtue ethics in the medieval period Jean Porter
5. Hume's anatomy of virtue Paul Russell
6. The historic decline of virtue ethics Dorothea Frede
7. Virtue ethics in the twentieth century Timothy Chappell
8. Virtue ethics and right action Liezl van Zyl
9. Virtue ethics and bioethics Justin Oakley
10. Environmental virtue ethics: what it is and what it needs to be Matt Zwolinski and David Schmidtz
11. The virtue approach to business ethics Edwin Hartman
12. Virtue and politics Mark LeBar
13. Happiness and the virtues Daniel C. Russell
14. The situationist critique of virtue ethics Gopal Sreenivasan.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX], Ethics & moral philosophy [HPQ], History of Western philosophy [HPC], Philosophy [HP]