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Notes
See Alasdair MacIntyre, Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues (Chicago, Illinois: Open Court Publishing Company, 1999).
See David Carr, "Varieties of Gratitude," The Journal of Value Inquiry 47, no. 1-2 (2013), p. 27.
See Paul Woodruff, Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 57-58.
See Harry Frankfurt, The Reasons of Love (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2004), p. 11.
See Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, 2nd ed. (Notre Dame, Indiana: Univerisity of Notre Dame Press, 1984), chapter 14.
The three philosophers who have attempted to draw these boundaries are: A. John Simmons, Moral Principles and Political Obligations (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1979), pp. 157-83; Terrance McConnell, Gratitude (Philadelphia: Temple University, 1993), pp. 13-45; Tony Manela, "Gratitude," in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta (Stanford: Metaphysics Research Lab, 2015).
For philosophers who have defended the idea that a benefit need not be intentionally given, see Patrick Fitzgerald, "Gratitude and Justice," Ethics 109, no. 1 (1998); Sean McAleer, "Propositional Gratitude," American Philosophical Quarterly 49, no. 1 (2012). For philosophers who have held that the benefit must be intentionally given see Fred R. Berger, "Gratitude," Ethics 85, no. 4 (1975), p. 299; Simmons, op cit., p. 178; McConnell, op cit., 44; Robert Roberts, "The Blessings of Gratitude," in The Psychology of Gratitude, ed. Robert Emmons and Michael McCullough (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 62; Manela, op cit.
For example, see Jerrold Levinson, "Refining Art Historically," The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 47, no. 1 (1979).
Jordan himself seemed to recognize exactly that by choosing David “Skywalker” Thompson to present him at his Hall of Fame ceremony. Given the affinity of their games, Jordan seems to be honoring Thompson’s playing style as an ancestor and inspiration to his own. While he recognized the influences of many, he choose David Thompson for “what he represented.” (https://www.denverpost.com/2009/09/13/krieger-mjs-last-assist-to-nugget-legend/)
See, for example, McConnell, op cit., p. 42.
Michael Slote even holds that piety is a vice. Michael Slote, "Obedience and Illusion," in Having Children: Philosophical and Legal Reflections on Parenthood, ed. Onora O’Neill and William Ruddick (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979).
Interview downloaded at (https://onbeing.org/programs/mary-oliver-listening-to-the-world-jan2019/).
McAleer and Fitzgerald defend dyadic notions. See McAleer, op cit., and Fitzgerald op. cit. Philosophers who defend a triadic understanding include Fred Berger, op. cit., p. 85; Roberts, op. cit.; McConnell op. cit.; Liz Gulliford, Blaire Morgan, and Kristján Kristjánsson, "Recent Work on the Concept of Gratitude in Philosophy and Psychology," The Journal of Value Inquiry 47, no. 3 (2013); Tony Manela, "Gratitude and Appreciation," American Philosophical Quarterly 53 (2013).
Ibid.
See Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, in Practical Philosophy ed. Paul Guyer and Allen Wood, trans. Mary Gregor (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 6: 445.
See Berger, op cit., p. 302.
See Thomas Paine, "The American Crisis," in The Complete Writings of Thomas Paine, ed. Philip Foner (Binghamton, N.Y.: The Citadel Press, 1945), p. 50.
See Christine Swanton, Virtue Ethics: A Pluralistic View (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 71.
For philosophers who use the terminology “cardinal”, “non-cardinal”, see Julia Annas, "Aristotle and Kant on Morality and Practical Reasoning," in Aristotle, Kant, and the Stoics: Rethinking Happiness and Duty, ed. Stephen Engstrom and Jennifer Whiting (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); David Carr, "The Cardinal Virtues and Plato’s Moral Psychology," The Philosophical Quarterly 38, no. 151 (1988); David S. Oderberg, "On the Cardinality of the Cardinal Virtues," International Journal of Philosophical Studies 7, no. 3 (1999); Daniel Russell, Practical Intelligence and the Virtues (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2009); Michael Slote, "Utilitarian Virtue," Midwest Studies in Philosophy 13 (1988). Peterson and Seligman use the term “core virtues.” (C. Peterson and MEP Seligman, Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).) Sometimes the phrases “basic virtues” or ‘important virtues” are used. See S. M. Gardiner, "Aristotle’s Basic and Non-Basic Virtues" Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 20 (2001); Martha Nussbaum, "Non-Relative Virtues: An Aristotelian Approach," Midwest Studies in Philosophy 13 (1988); Neera Badhwar, "The Limited Unity of Virtue," Nous 30 (1996).
For the view that a virtue’s importance has to do with cross-cultural ubiquity, see Nussbaum, op. cit., 36. For the idea of a virtue as a gateway to other virtues see, Oderberg, op. cit., 306.
Thomas Aquinas does something similar when he considers and rejects the possibility that there is only one virtue that concerns what we owe to others, viz., justice. Instead, he argues that there are various virtues for various kinds of debt (Summa Theologiae I-II, question 60, article 3). Furthermore, it is encouraging for our paper to note Aquinas’ use of “piety” to name the virtue that concerns our debts to parents and country, while he uses “religion” to name a separate virtue by which we pay our debt to god, and “gratitude” for a virtue that concerns what we owe to “benefactors.” However, Aquinas’ treatment of “piety” seems incomplete. He must have some feature in mind, something that parents and countries share such that they should be grouped together under the same virtue. What is that feature? Could it not, as we believe, apply to other kinds of objects as well (such as gods, literary traditions, therapists, coaches, etc.)? Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for drawing our attention to this passage.
See Carr 2013, op. cit, pp. 22-26.
See Aristotle 1119b25.
See Kant op. cit, 6: 455.
Thanks to Anna Christina Ribeiro for this example. See Gerald J. Janececk, "Futurism," in The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, ed. Alex Preminger, et al. (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1993), p. 447.
Acknowledgements
This paper has been long in the writing and has benefited from many different people. We would like to thank audiences at Texas Tech University and Bard College Berlin, and especially Peter Hajnal, Walter Schaller, Howard Curzer, and Sophia Vasalou. For their sense of the worthwhileness of writing such a paper, the authors would like to thank Leon Kass.
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Schwartz, J., Hayes, D. Piety as a Virtue. J Value Inquiry 55, 109–126 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-020-09740-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-020-09740-7