Virtue, Authenticity and Irony: Themes from Sartre and Williams

In the course of criticizing indirect forms of consequentialism Bernard Williams argued that because virtues of character enter into the very content of the self, they cannot be instrumentalised. They must, instead, be viewed as cognitive responses to intrinsic value. This paper investigates this ar...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inTopoi Vol. 43; no. 2; pp. 403 - 412
Main Author Thomas, Alan
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.05.2024
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
Authenticity
Consciousness
Consequentialism
Education
Ethics
Irony
Objectification
Philosophy
Philosophy of Science
Philosophy of Technology
First person
Character
Consciousness
Jean-Paul Sartre
Moral philosophy
Bernard Williams
Virtue ethics
Irony
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Summary:In the course of criticizing indirect forms of consequentialism Bernard Williams argued that because virtues of character enter into the very content of the self, they cannot be instrumentalised. They must, instead, be viewed as cognitive responses to intrinsic value. This paper investigates this argument and relates it to similar claims in the work of Sartre. The inalienability of the first personal point of view represents a common theme and informs a further argument that an agent can only think of him or herself as merely one amongst others via a distinctive ethical use of the trope of irony.
ISSN:0167-7411
1572-8749
DOI:10.1007/s11245-023-09985-4