Mark LeBar

In this book Genevieve Lloyd undertakes an expansive and ambitious survey of the notion of providence and related concepts, effectively throughout the recorded history of Western civilization. In any work of a scope this ambitious, there are bound to be both omissions and problematic elements of interpretation; the only question is whether or not these are sufficient to undermine the positive philosophical work that the survey accomplishes. The answer in this case is a resounding ‘no.’ Lloyd’s book provides much to chew on not only for moral philosophers, but for philosophers of religion, metaphysicians and others interested in free will and determinism, and many others for whom the concepts of providence, fate, necessity, free will, responsibility and other related ideas are of interest.

Rosalind Hursthouse wrote in 1999 (On Virtue Ethics, pp. 5-7) of a gap in virtue ethics in the shape of the virtue of justice. Many years on, that gap persists. Our aim is to make a beginning on that virtue, but here we find an obstacle in its treatment by Aristotle, whose thinking about the virtues we otherwise find so rich. Whereas Aristotle took the virtue of justice to be concerned exclusively with one’s treatment of others, we begin instead with the idea that justice also concerns how one treats oneself. Like Hursthouse, we think virtues are corrective of human failings. We argue, first, that being unjust to oneself is a failing that is not only perilous but all too frequent in human experience. The idea that justice is strictly other-regarding gets going only on the assumption that the way humans are prone to fail in their dealings with others is in taking too much interest in their own welfare. Taking inspiration from the work of Jean Hampton, we argue that a pernicious type of self-abnegation—what Hampton called “the loss of self”—is also a common failing among humans, both in their relations with others and in their own practical reasoning about their lives. This failing—a failing of giving persons their due—is a failing for the virtue of justice to correct. We then examine Aristotle’s rejection of the possibility of being unjust to oneself, in Nicomachean Ethics V. Aristotle’s arguments rest on demonstrating the impossibility of committing injustice against oneself in any of the forms characteristic of strictly interpersonal injustice. Rather than arguing that Aristotle begs the question, though, we argue that his approach rests on its starting assumption that the failings for the virtue of justice to correct are failures to give others their due. But considering the human proneness also to self-abnegation, we heirs of Aristotle’s should hope for an understanding of the virtue of justice that is rich enough to include giving oneself one’s due as well. Lastly, we outline the virtue of justice understood as correcting the failure of not giving persons their due, including oneself. Our approach centers on the idea of advocacy, focusing on the duty that parents have to advocate for the fair treatment of their children and, as those children mature, the transference of this duty to those children to be advocates for themselves. We conclude by exploring the extent to which such an account would fit an otherwise broadly Aristotelian approach: the sense in which such a virtue is a “mean,” the emotions and desires with which it is concerned, and its status as a particular virtue as opposed to virtue as a whole. We hope to honor Rosalind Hursthouse by continuing in her philosophical spirit, confronting Aristotle where we are surprised to find ourselves disagreeing considerably with a philosopher we generally find insightful, on an issue we find deeply important.

Writers on metaethics divide over two conceptions of what moral realism comes to. The first of these —the “Modest” conception — commits to the truth-aptness of moral judgments. The second —the “Robust” conception — commits to the mind- or stance- or response-dependence of such judgments. In this paper I take up the relationship of response-dependent (RD) moral theories to these conceptions of realism. Some proponents of RD views see themselves as opponents of realism. On the Modest conception they are not, I argue. And the resources they have to respond to the challenges of the Robust conception are considerable. A capably mounted form of RD, responsive to the motivations for Robust realism, puts pressure on the resources Robust realism has for resisting response-dependence. If so, the theoretical distance between RD views and Robust realist views may be smaller than one might suppose.

Frederick Bastiat’s last work was the Economic Harmonies, published in 1851. He died while completing it, and — though it had some uptake in the 19th century — in recent times scholarly interest has focused on his other work. In the Harmonies, he makes a remarkable claim: when properly understood, in a free market society all people’s economic interests are in harmony. If we consider that Karl Marx was arguing at the same time that those same societies are afflicted by an endemic class struggle that can end only with the com-munist revolution, the contrast is sharp. In this paper, I explore Bastiat’s rationale for his claim, as a rejoinder to one of the influential arguments mounted by Marx against economic liberty

To the extent we are curious about the virtue of justice as a virtue of character, we may start with Aristotle’s conception, but a fresh look at justice can, potentially, open avenues of thought in more than one direction. The fruits of interaction between Aristotelian and Kantian thought have been manifest in a wide variety of ways in recent years, and this essay aspires to rethink the virtue of justice in this light. It aims to offer a first cut at a conception of a virtue of justice that draws on both traditions. Its Aristotelian provenance provides the general understanding of virtue employed, and accepts Aristotle’s general picture of virtue and its centrality to the good life and to happiness. The Kantian (and contractualist) part of the union provides content for justice as a distinctive virtue of character.