Conatus: REVISED EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

be divided into two broad categories — those that consider virtue to be an end in itself and those that consider virtue as a means to an end. In the latter case, the end in mind is usually happiness. From Plato, the ‘cardinal’ virtues are courage, temperance, wisdom and justice and there are a variety of other attributes for the moral person identified by Aristotle. From this, a certain drift in what society might describe to be a virtuous life or a virtuous person can be observed. The ‘classical’ virtues are prudence/wisdom, fortitude/courage,

temperance and justice. The Christian virtues are faith, hope and charity. The opposites of these are therefore: Folly, inconstancy, anger, injustice, infidelity, despair and envy. We may usefully contrast with Buddhism’s eightfold path: Right View, Resolve, Speech, Conduct, Livelihood, Effort, Mindfulness and Samadhi (meditative absorption in the union — that is, the wider universe — The One). Virtue ethics is often contrasted with both moral rules and utilitarianism as an alternative approach to morality.

There’s a further approach to ethics that is worth mentioning here. It can be described simply as deriving ethics from our encounters with other people. It is in conversation with other people that we arrive at our ideas of right and wrong, and not necessary from the rules laid down by society. This, of course, could go either way! In the last chapter we saw something along these lines from Schopenhauer. For him it was our ‘interbeing’ with others that leads to compassion. So (and despite Schopenhauer’s reputation for pessimism) this seems to suggest that recognising our bond with

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