Philosophers often talk about a “revival,” “return,” “resurgence,” or “renewal” of virtue ethics. Insofar as these phrases denote a steep increase in the past few decades in the number of books and articles devoted to virtue ethics, these metaphors make perfect sense. To the extent, however, that a revival presupposes a period of absence followed by a retrieval of old ways of thinking, there are reasons to wonder how accurate this story is. I will address this question through a literature survey on virtues in the history of philosophy and some adjacent fields of study. I will argue that, for various reasons, the story finds little support in the relevant literature. Put simply, it is historically untenable. Why, then, have philosophers nonetheless embraced this story? To answer this follow-up question, I will historicize the narrative, tracing its origins back to the mid-1980s. I will argue that the metaphors of “revival” and “return” originate in the debates surrounding Alasdair MacIntyre’s work in the 1980s. Initially serving as evaluative categories, they have since fossilized into a commonplace narrative.
This talk will take place online on Zoom:
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