Sergio A. Gallegos-Ordorica

I argue that, in Plato’s Laws, demotic virtues (δημόσιαι ἀρεταί, 968a2) are the virtues that non-divine beings can attain. I consider two related questions: what demotic virtues are and how they relate to divine virtue. According to my interpretation, demotic virtues are an attainable—but unreliable—type of virtue that non-divine beings can improve through knowledge. These virtues are not perfect; only divine beings possess perfect virtue. However, this does not mean that perfect virtue plays no part in the ethical lives of non-divine beings. It serves as a “regulative ideal” for everyone who is not a god.

Marie de Gournay and Anton Wilhelm Amo, though thinking and writing in different social contexts, each offer an account of prejudice which bears a deep philosophical resonance to that of the other. This resonance is striking and mutually illuminating: Gournay and Amo develop a view of prejudice as a kind of epistemic and moral viciousness that damages both the prejudicial person and their socio-epistemic neighbors. Their accounts highlight how agents are rightly held responsible for prejudice, as it is the agents' epistemic negligence and moral failure that allows prejudice to take hold. As such, their view offers a balance between a critical examination of individuals and an acknowledgement of the deep sociality that pervades the epistemic domain.