Part I - Motivation-based virtue ethics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2009
Summary
This book exhibits a way to structure a virtue ethics with a theological foundation. Since the foundation is an extension of virtue discourse to the moral properties of God, the theory might be called a divine virtue theory. In Part I, I give the framework for a distinctive kind of virtue ethics I call motivation-based. This type of theory makes the moral properties of persons, acts, and the outcomes of acts derivative from a good motive, the most basic component of a virtue, where what I mean by a motive is an emotion that initiates and directs action. Chapter 1 raises the central problems involved in providing an adequate metaphysics of value for virtue theory and proposes the methodology of exemplarism. Chapter 2 gives an account of emotion and its intrinsic value. Chapter 3 defines a good end, a good outcome, the good for a human being, and virtue in terms of a good emotion. Chapter 4 shows how the moral properties of acts can be defined in terms of a good emotion. In Part II, I will propose a Christian form of the theory according to which the motivations of a perfect Deity are the ultimate foundation of all value. I call the enhanced theory Divine Motivation theory.
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- Information
- Divine Motivation Theory , pp. 1 - 2Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004