Virtue
Roberta Silva e Marco Ubbiali
University of Verona

The concept of virtue originates in classical ethics and runs through the history of Western thought in its flourishing Renaissance periods to reach the contemporary era. The international overview of this theme is particularly broad and engages very different thinkers. These include three figures representing specific reference points: Martha Nussbaum, Alasdair MacIntyre and Paul Ricoeur. According to Martha Nussbaum, the contemporary world is drowning in formalistic approaches that pursue universal theories and drive ethical considerations from everyday life. To overcome this impasse, Nussbaum (1988) reinterprets Aristotle’s concept of virtue by combining it with a care-oriented ethical approach. In fact, her vision is based on an ethics of care, as opposed to the ethics of justice; an ethics in which virtues are considered daily practices that give shape to the human being’s search for a complete and “good” life. Setting off from the same matrix albeit with important distinctions, MacIntyre (1981) argues that virtues are dispositions uniting ‘action’ and ‘feelings’: acting virtuously thus means acting for the ‘good’, supported by feelings that aim to bring about the ‘good’ in everyday life. However, in order for this inner ethical tension to prosper, it must be embedded in an institution that is equally devoted to the good. Similarly, Paul Ricoeur (1993) holds that ethics is a wish for the good life, with and for others, within just institutions. This wish is implemented through caring deeds towards the self, others and institutions.
An educational perspective may develop out of a rediscovery of the Aristotelian position, which presents itself as an ethic of virtues and was the first to define the concept of virtue: a disposition which brings about a good situation when enacted in a certain context. Virtue, therefore, is the disposition of seeking the best possible interpretation of a thing, the best feeling to feel at a certain moment, and orienting such feelings and knowledge towards a good objective and in the right measure. If, as Aristotle points out in Nicomachean Ethics, the goal of ethics is the search for the good, the good for human beings is a good quality of inner life, a quality that is achieved by acting well, that is, according to virtue. Beginning from Aristotelian thought and relating it to Platonic ideas, Mortari (2019) hypothesizes a relationship between:

• intellectual virtues, which apply to the sphere of knowledge and meet the need to pursue a true knowledge of things;
• personal or human virtues, which orient the cultivation of the inner life and are exercised on ourselves to shape our own beings;
• political virtues, which concern our living together with others in the world.

Mortari’s theoretical and empirical research (2015) shows that virtues are those existential postures that give rise to healing practices, establishing a relation between ethics of virtues and ethics of care. According to this vision, we can promote education in ethics, interpreted as education in virtues according to a perspective of care. In so doing, we can tackle one of the most serious educational fragilities of our time: that feeling of bewilderment that weakens the sense of citizenship and generates forms of antisocial behavior.

As part of the RE-SERVES project, the research action Education in friendship to build the common good is developed on the basis of this perspective.

Selected references

Mortari, L. (2015). Filosofia della cura. Raffaello Cortina.

Mortari, L. (2019). MelArete. Cura Etica Virtù. Vita e Pensiero.

Nussbaum, M. C. (1988). Non-relative virtues: An Aristotelian approach. Midwest studies in philosophy, 13, 32-53.

MacIntyre, A. (1981). Dopo la virtù. Saggio di teoria morale. Armando.

Ricoeur, P. (1993). Sé come un altro. Jaca Book.