Living Toward Virtue - Practical Ethics in the Spirit of Socrates (Hardcover)

Socrates urged his followers to commit to a lifelong activity of nurturing the moral health of the soul through self-examination. By contrast, modern philosophers who follow Aristotle in ethics have mostly taught that living well depends on having virtues or traits that are robust traits of character. But traits are not reliable in all situations, and they do not help us make hard decisions. Having a trait is no substitute for the Socratic activity we need to practice in order to live toward virtue. In Living Toward Virtue, Paul Woodruff shows how we can set about living ethically, drawing on what Socrates called Human Wisdom - a philosophy centered on the recognition of the limits of our moral knowledge. Woodruff uses this ancient set of ideas to develop a practical approach to ethics that goes beyond what Plato tells us of Socrates, in order to show how we can nurture our souls, enjoy a virtuous happiness, and avoid moral injury. Paul Woodruff's Living Toward Virtue shows how richly a Socratic approach to the moral challenges of life can reward us.