Introduction Virtue's Reasons

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book contains substantive contributions to a major topic that still remains underexplored, and presents novel discussions that should enhance philosophical understanding of reasons and their interconnections with the virtues—especially the virtues of character, but also, in a more modest way, the intellectual virtues as well. Virtues and reasons are, of course, by now widely recognized as major concepts that figure in almost any kind of serious moral thinking. The book analyzes how the virtues are tied to, or linked with, normative reasons, in ways that improve our understanding of virtuous character and ethical agency. It discusses a greater appreciation for the multiplicity of reasons surrounding the concept of the virtues and focuses on what is presumably the paradigm case, of an individual agent responding to an array of potential reasons, often in diverse circumstances and contexts.