Virtue as Identity

Emotions and the Moral Personality

Aleksandar Fatic

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9798216328742
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ethics & Moral Philosophy

Virtue as Identity offers a study of how virtue is learned and identity acquired through the selection and internalization of values. A large part of this process is externally imposed through culture. Another, perhaps more important part of the process is the result of individual and collective sensibilities. The book emphasizes the role of emotions and emotional sensibility in our choice of values.

The book re-affirms traditional morality as the foundation of our individual and collective identities. The author argues that emotions as well as rational decisions guide the value choices we make and the ideals of character that we presuppose on a political level as much as they do in our private lives. Thus the societies we live in are a reflection of our identities, or the identities of the majority. This opens up radical questions about the identities of the dissenting minorities, the proper concept of a moral or value-community, and the real reach and value of tolerance in modern democracy.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Introduction
• 1 Value, Virtue, and Character-Formation
• 2 Solidarity in a Participatory Democracy
• 3 Sympathy and Love: Max Scheler
• 4 Culture and the Learning of Identity
• 5 Emotions, Value, and Social Status
• 6 The Possibility of Freedom in Learned Identities
• 7 Social Capital and the Integrative Community
• 8 Virtue and Collective Identities
• 9 What Is There to Be Learned from ‘Organic Communities’?
• 10 Conclusion: An ‘Illiberal’ Perspective on Identity and Value
• References
• Index