Christian Culak

Some people are disposed to get away with suberogatory actions—bad actions that push the boundaries of what is permissible without crossing into the impermissible. I will dub these ‘sub-aretaic’ character traits. My aim is threefold. First, I defend the suberogatory against Liberto (2012) by distinguishing the suberogatory as a moral classification from its permissibility conditions. Second, I introduce two kinds of character traits that are neither virtuous, vicious, nor akratic. ‘Super-aretaic’ traits are beyond virtuous, which J.O. Urmson (1958) illustrates with saints and heroes. ‘Sub-aretaic’ traits are bad without a disposition to do what is impermissible, which I illustrate with hustlers. Third, I appeal to Barney (2020)’s account of Aristotelian vice to show that sub-aretaic traits are distinct from vicious and akratic traits.

Some people are characteristically compassionate, others not. If so, is this a virtue some possess and others lack? I think so. I show this by defending a conception of compassion as a virtue and demarcating its limits. My project consists of: finding the best conception of compassion as a virtue; delineating the circumstances and extent to which being a compassionate person requires that one’s compassion extends to people outside of one’s narrow circle, animals, and even the environment; investigating the limits of compassion’s moral justificatory power, its sensitivity, the degree to which it relies on anthropomorphization, and action.