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113Patience and Practical WisdomIn Audrey L. Anton (ed.), The Bright and the Good: The Connection Between Intellectual and Moral Virtues, Rowman & Littlefield International. pp. 277-291. 2018.Simone Weil wrote that, “We do not have to understand new things, but by dint of patience, effort and method to come to understand with our whole self the truths which are evident.” This is reminiscent of the suggestion in Plato’s Meno that knowledge is recollection. Although most of us would not take Plato at his word, we might charitably read him and Weil as suggesting that the solution to some problems depends not upon learning something new, but rather in understanding how to apply what we h…Read more
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146What's the Point if We're All Going to Die? Pessimism, Moderation, and the Reality of the PastJournal of Philosophy of Life 14 (1): 14-34. 2024.Pessimists sometimes declare that death makes everything we do pointless or meaningless. In this essay, I consider the motivations for this worry about our collective mortality. I then examine some common responses to this worry that emphasize moderating our standards or changing our goals. Given some limitations of the “moderating our standards” response, I suggest that Viktor Frankl’s view about the permanence of the past offers a different and perhaps better way of responding to the worry tha…Read more
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938The Meaning of Life: What's the Point?1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology. 2023.Brief overview of accounts of the meaning of life for 1000-Word Philosophy.
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268Meaning in Life: What Makes Our Lives Meaningful?1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology. 2022.Brief overview of theories of meaning in life for 1000-Word Philosophy.
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86Integrity and StrugglePhilosophia 40 (2): 319-336. 2012.Integrity is sometimes conceived in terms of the wholeness of the individual, such that persons who experience temptations or other sorts of inner conflicts, afflictions, or divisions of self would seem to lack integrity to a greater or lesser degree. I contrast this understanding of integrity—which I label psychological integrity —with a different conception which I call practical integrity . On the latter conception, persons can manifest integrity in spite of the various factors mentioned abov…Read more
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175Humility and Environmental Virtue EthicsIn Michael W. Austin (ed.), Virtues in Action: New Essays in Applied Virtue Ethics, Palgrave-macmillan. 2013.
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27Moral Conflict and the Indeterminacy of MoralitySouthwest Philosophy Review 23 (1): 207-214. 2007.
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24On Patience: Reclaiming a Foundational VirtueLexington Books. 2016.In On Patience, Matthew Pianalto explores the multiple aspects of patience and the relationship of patience to other virtues such as courage, love, and wisdom. Drawing from a wide range of sources and traditions, Pianalto develops a picture of this foundational virtue, according to which we can never be too patient.
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108Moral Courage and Facing OthersInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 20 (2): 165-184. 2012.Moral courage involves acting in the service of one’s convictions, in spite of the risk of retaliation or punishment. I suggest that moral courage also involves a capacity to face others as moral agents, and thus in a manner that does not objectify them. A moral stand can only be taken toward another moral agent. Often, we find ourselves unable to face others in this way, because to do so is frightening, or because we are consumed by blinding anger. But without facing others as moral subjects, w…Read more
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39Happiness, Goodness, and the Best Things in Life (review)Teaching Philosophy 39 (2): 209-220. 2016.In this article, I review some recent introductory texts on the nature of happiness and the good life.
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109Speaking for Oneself: Wittgenstein on EthicsInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 54 (3): 252-276. 2011.In the “Lecture on ethics”, Wittgenstein declares that ethical statements are essentially nonsense. He later told Friedrich Waismann that it is essential to “speak for oneself” on ethical matters. These comments might be taken to suggest that Wittgenstein shared an emotivist view of ethics—that one can only speak for oneself because there is no truth in ethics, only expressions of opinion (or emotions). I argue that this assimilation of Wittgenstein to emotivist thought is deeply misguided, and …Read more
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6In Defense of PatienceIn Dane R. Gordon & David B. Suits (eds.), Epictetus: His Continuing Influence and Contemporary Relevance, Rit Press. pp. 89-104. 2014.
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58Moral ConvictionJournal of Applied Philosophy 28 (4): 381-395. 2011.We often praise people who stand by their convictions in the face of adversity and practice what they preach. However, strong moral convictions can also motivate atrocious acts. Two significant questions here are (1) whether conviction itself — taken as a mode of belief — has any distinctive value, or whether all the value of conviction derives from its substantive content, and (2) how conviction can be made responsible in a way that mitigates the risks of falling into dogmatism, fanaticism, and…Read more
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59Comparing Lives: Rush Rhees on Humans and AnimalsPhilosophical Investigations 34 (3): 287-311. 2011.In several posthumously published writings about the differences between humans and animals, Rush Rhees criticises the view that human lives are more important than (or superior to) animal lives. Rhees' views may seem to be in sympathy with more recent critiques of “speciesism.” However, the most commonly discussed anti-speciesist moral frameworks – which take the capacity of sentience as the criterion of moral considerability – are inadequate. Rhees' remark that both humans and animals can be l…Read more