Philosophy Speaker Series - John Hacker-Wright (University of Guelph)

Title: Virtue and Personality

Abstract: Virtues are elements of our character, and our character seems to be matter of our thoughts and desires. Virtues might then seem to be purely psychological. If so, is virtue then within the domain of psychology? No, I will argue. A crucial feature of a virtue is that it puts its possessor in relation to some aspect of goodness in human action. In this regard, virtue and character can be distinguished from personality, which has only accidental relation to goodness. Empirical psychology simply does not have the conceptual resources to account for this relation, but metaphysics, especially as carried out by Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, does. Hence, I shall argue that the topic ‘what is a virtue?’ is a topic for first philosophy, not empirical psychology, as many moral psychologists seem to think.