I agree about the kitties - Sappho's kitten-name was Mischief, and our intervening (rather difficult) cat Robin had the middle name Anklesbane. :)
Your question about virtue ethics - very good question! I'm going to add that to my reading list. I really am not yet well acquainted with the work being done by psychologists on ethics in general. I do know for my readings for my current project, on idealism as expressed in vegetarianism, that virtue ethics is a strong component of this trend in diet.
Right now I've been mostly focused on absolutes and the role they play in the psyche, such as the ways that people can feel inspired in moving towards transcendent absolutes and ideals, or the way they can feel inadequate by believing they ought to be living in terms of absolutes themselves (i.e., perfectionism). I'm trying to collect readings on theories of problems with perfectionism and idealism, and so far I've read John Passmore's The Perfectibility of Man, which traces thought from Plato through Augustine vs. Pelagius and on into the Enlightenment, modern science, etc. I've also started Karl Popper's The Open Society and its Enemies, but it's awfully hard to find reading time at this point.
I'm also interested in the processes of "secular moralization," in which individuals or society decide to assign moral implications to actions that were previously considered generally neutral, such as eating, smoking tobacco, and exploiting the environment. The tobacco angle ties in with my employment (I've been a tobacco cessation researcher for more than 10 years), and the environmental angle is part of a big, long-term writing project that I've set aside for grad school but hope to complete in a reasonable time period.
I apologize for squinching up this conversation into the extreme right margin of your LJ! :)
no subject
Your question about virtue ethics - very good question! I'm going to add that to my reading list. I really am not yet well acquainted with the work being done by psychologists on ethics in general. I do know for my readings for my current project, on idealism as expressed in vegetarianism, that virtue ethics is a strong component of this trend in diet.
Right now I've been mostly focused on absolutes and the role they play in the psyche, such as the ways that people can feel inspired in moving towards transcendent absolutes and ideals, or the way they can feel inadequate by believing they ought to be living in terms of absolutes themselves (i.e., perfectionism). I'm trying to collect readings on theories of problems with perfectionism and idealism, and so far I've read John Passmore's The Perfectibility of Man, which traces thought from Plato through Augustine vs. Pelagius and on into the Enlightenment, modern science, etc. I've also started Karl Popper's The Open Society and its Enemies, but it's awfully hard to find reading time at this point.
I'm also interested in the processes of "secular moralization," in which individuals or society decide to assign moral implications to actions that were previously considered generally neutral, such as eating, smoking tobacco, and exploiting the environment. The tobacco angle ties in with my employment (I've been a tobacco cessation researcher for more than 10 years), and the environmental angle is part of a big, long-term writing project that I've set aside for grad school but hope to complete in a reasonable time period.
I apologize for squinching up this conversation into the extreme right margin of your LJ! :)