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Skill, Practical Wisdom, and Ethical Naturalism

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Notes

  1. See, for example, Annas (2011); Bloomfield (2000, 2001, 2012); Stichter (2007, 2011); Swartwood (2013).

  2. Henceforth I will usually be speaking of plural “ends,” but I do not mean thereby to take a position on the interpretation of Aristotle or of the correct conception of a good life. There may be one dominant end, but even so, we will have to have subordinate ends.

  3. Hence, it is unlike the view advocated in Tiberius (2008).

  4. As Jason Stanley and John W. Krakauer lament (2013). Jason Stanley has been advocating the intellectualist understanding of skill (2011).

  5. As Annas notes (1995).

  6. As Julia Annas explicitly undertakes to do. See “Précis of Intelligent Virtue” in Journal of Value Inquiry (forthcoming).

  7. As is admitted to be the case by Valerie Tiberius in her account of reflective virtues (2008).

  8. More recently, Valerie Tiberius asserts, “human nature does not impose norms on us in the way that some versions of the Aristotelian picture assume” (2008).

  9. A slightly modified version of Swartwood’s wording of the argument (2013).

  10. A term used by Aquinas in relation to practical wisdom, for which he identifies eight integral parts: memory, reason, understanding, aptness to be taught, ingenuity, foresight, circumspection, and caution (1974).

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Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Cristina Carrillo, Micah Lott, Nancy Snow, and two anonymous referees for helpful comments that greatly improved this paper.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, N1G 2W1, Canada

    John Hacker-Wright

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Hacker-Wright, J. Skill, Practical Wisdom, and Ethical Naturalism. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 18, 983–993 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-015-9566-8

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