Prof. Emeritus Justin Tiwald Presents, "How Virtues of Care Are More Central (or Fundamental) Than Other Virtues"

Please join us in welcoming SFSU Prof. Emeritus Justin Tiwald (Hong Kong University). The talk will be followed by a Q & A. Light refreshment will be provided.

Abstract:

In this talk, I hope to disentangle some claims that people often make about the unity of virtues or unity of ethical values. In moral philosophy and in everyday moral conversation, people often say that the best instantiation of one virtue requires that one also instantiate other virtues. For example, giving to someone in great need seems like a good candidate for being a virtue (the virtue of charity, perhaps), but it is less-than-fully virtuous if I give to someone disrespectfully or in ways that seem completely heedless of considerations of justice. Imagine that I give food to someone who really needs it, but do so in a way that is contemptuous or underscores how pitiful I find them (which lacks respect), or give one person ten million US dollars and ignore other people in need (which lacks justice). Similarly, virtues of respect seem less-than-ideal if they are just perfunctory or motivated by a desire to manipulate others, which suggests that virtues of respect also require care.

Although these sorts of dependencies between virtues often crisscross or run in both directions, it is often said that certain sorts of virtuous caring (e.g., love, empathy) is more central or more fundamental than other virtues. So, although virtues of respect require caring and virtues of caring require respect, somehow care is more important or central. How can this be, and in what sense (or senses) is it plausible? These questions were once discussed at great length in Confucian philosophy, especially by Confucians in the 10^th through 12^th centuries CE. In this talk, I will look closely at this long-neglected body of literature in Confucian virtue theory, unpack some of the suggestive metaphors and examples that they developed, and point to the key respects in which they take virtuous caring to be central.