Date of Award

7-25-2023

Author's School

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Author's Department

Philosophy/Neuroscience, and Psychology

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Degree Type

Dissertation

Abstract

This dissertation sheds light on new and unacknowledged difficulties that we face in striving to be (more) virtuous. By making use of empirical literature from moral, affective, and perceptual learning, I explore the potential cognitive and psychological relationships between having a virtue in one context and the tendency to exhibit vices in another. I do this by showing how morally good behavioral habits can also lead to morally inappropriate actions, when a virtuous moral perceptual system can give rise to moral illusions, and when our basic evaluative affective responses differ in their degree of sensitivity, leading to having some virtues while lacking others. I then connect this to recent debates on the nature of moral understanding and its relationship to virtue. I argue that virtue, rather than merely a lack of it, can lead to a deficiency in one’s moral understanding. I use this to make room for when a virtuous person can and ought to defer to another’s moral testimony.

Language

English (en)

Chair and Committee

Allan Hazlett

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