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Mr. Wheatley's Virtue: a Philosophical Examination

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 1967

T. Y. Henderson
T. Y. Henderson
Affiliation:
University of Saskatchewan
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Extract

Mr. Jon Wheatley declares himself opposed to a very popular contemporary account of the nature of moral virtue, which he describes as holding “that virtue consists in obeying a number of moral precepts all clearly within our power, the virtuous man being (presumably) he who never (or only rarely?) slips up in this obedience”. Because I concur with his rejection of this view, I am more than normally distressed, first at his confessed inability as a philosopher to offer more than a report of his own “prejudice” in opposition to the popular account, and second at the somewhat bizarre analysis of moral virtue which he presents as if it were the only alternative.

Type
Discussions/Notes
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 5 , Issue 4 , March 1967 , pp. 573 - 579
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1967

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References

1 ”Virtue: An Analysis and a Speculation”, Analysis 22.3, January, 1962 and “Virtue--An Answer to Mr. Savile”, Analysis 24.2, December, 1963.

2 ”Mr. Wheatley On Virtue”, by Anthony Savile (Analysis 23.4, March, 1963).

3 In an article entitled “Moral Virtue and Responsibility for Character”, by Paul W. Taylor (Analysis 25.1, October 1964), it is argued in defence of Wheatley's account of spiritual exercises that we have a moral obligation to perform the spiritual exercises which will prepare us to feel the right feelings at the right times and places.