Emplotting virtue : a narrative approach to environmental virtue ethics / Brian Treanor.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Treanor, Brian, author.

Series:

SUNY series in environmental philosophy and ethics.

SUNY series in Environmental Philosophy and Ethics

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Virtue.

Ethics.

Environmental ethics.

Narration (Rhetoric).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (260 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Albany, New York : State University of New York Press, 2014.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Despite its ancient roots, virtue ethics has only recently been fully appreciated as a resource for environmental philosophy. Other approaches dominated by utilitarian and duty-based appeals for sacrifice and restraint have had little success in changing behavior, even to the extent that ecological concerns have been embraced. Our actions often do not align with our beliefs. Fundamental to virtue ethics is an acknowledgment that neither good ethical rules nor good intentions are effective absent the character required to bring them to fulfillment. Brian Treanor builds on recent work on virtue ethics in environmental philosophy, finding an important grounding in the narrative theory of philosophers like Paul Ricoeur and Richard Kearney. Character and ethical formation, Treanor argues, are intimately tied to our relationship with the narratives through which we view the human place in the natural world. By reframing environmental questions in terms of individual, social, and environmental narratives about flourishing, Emplotting Virtue offers a powerful vision of how we might remake our character so as to live more happily, more sustainably, and more virtuously in a diverse, beautiful, wondrous, and fragile world.

Contents:

""Contents""; ""Acknowledgments""; ""1 Just What Sort of Person Would Do That?""; ""Introduction""; ""Moral Reasoning in Contemporary Ethics""; ""Virtue Ethics""; ""2 Virtue Ethics and Environmental Virtue Ethics""; ""Virtue and Flourishing""; ""Acquiring Virtue""; ""The Middle Way""; ""Emotion and Action""; ""Virtue and the Environment""; ""The Resurgence of Interest in Virtue Ethics""; ""Environmental Virtue Ethics""; ""The Advantages of Virtue Ethics""; ""3 Virtue: A Constellation of Concerns""; ""Virtue and Living Well""; ""What Is Virtue?""; ""Teleology""

""A Typology of Virtue: Individual, Social, and Environmental""""“Individual� Virtue: Temperance""; ""“Social� Virtue: Courtesy""; ""“Environmental� Virtue: Holistic Thinking""; ""4 A Story of Simplicity: A Case Study in Virtue""; ""The Scope of Simplicity: More Than Material Restraint""; ""Business/Busyness""; ""Needs and Wants""; ""Thinking""; ""The Scope of Simplicity: A �Comprehensive� Virtue""; ""Simplicity and the Individual""; ""Simplicity and the Community""; ""Simplicity and the Environment""; ""Thoreau�s Narrative""; ""5 The Challenge of Postmodernity""

""The Imprecision and Variability of Virtue Ethics""""The Postmodern Condition""; ""Globalization""; ""Postmodernity""; ""Postmodern Temptations: Hamlet�s Indecision and Meursault�s Indifference""; ""Shades of Relativism""; ""“Postmodern� Virtue Ethics""; ""Nussbaum�s Neo-Aristotelian Defense and the Capabilities Approach""; ""Naturalism and Sandler�s Pluralistic Teleological Account""; ""MacIntyre and the Conflict of Traditions""; ""6 Narrative Theory: Stories and Our Lives""; ""Paul Ricoeur and Narrative Identity""; ""Narrative Refiguration: Stories that Change Our Lives""

""Richard Kearney and Narrative Epiphanies""""Martha Nussbaum and the Judicious Spectator""; ""Love�s Knowledge""; ""Poetic Justice""; ""Wayne Booth and Coduction""; ""Objections: The Return of Relativism and the Excesses of Imagination""; ""Narrative Cannot Replace Experience""; ""Narrative Exacerbates Relativism""; ""Narrative Distorts Reality""; ""Facts, not Fictions, Should be the Basis for Judging and Acting""; ""7 Narrative Environmental Virtue Ethics""; ""Introduction: Ethical Formation and Reformation""; ""Ethical Education: Motivation and Transmission""; ""Motivation""

""Transmission""""Ethical Experimentation: Discernment and Understanding""; ""Discernment""; ""Understanding""; ""Ethical Formation: Application and Cultivation""; ""All Habituation Employs Narrative""; ""Narratives Shape Belief, and Belief Shapes Action""; ""8 Epilogue: The “Narrative Goodness� Approach""; ""The Need for Virtue Ethics and the Need for Narrative""; ""How to Story Well: Principles for the Good Use of Narrative""; ""Three Important Clarifications""; ""The Valued and the Valuable""; ""Reason""; ""Truth, Reality, and Fact""

""The Literature of Life: A Life Worth Living, a Story Worth Telling""

Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781438451190

1438451199