Burdened Virtues Virtue Ethics for Liberatory Struggles

by Tessman, Lisa

• ISBN13: 9780195179156
• ISBN10: 0195179153
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-10-06
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Lisa Tessman's Burdened Virtues is a deeply original and provocative work that engages questions central to feminist theory and practice, from the perspective of Aristotelian ethics. Focused primarily on selves who endure and resist oppression, she addresses the ways in which devastatingconditions confronted by these selves both limit and burden their moral goodness, and affect their possibilities of flourishing. She describes two different forms of "moral trouble" prevalent under oppression. The first is that the oppressed self may be morally damaged, prevented from developing orexercising some of the virtues; the second is that the very conditions of oppression require the oppressed to develop a set of virtues that carry a moral cost to those who practice them--traits that Tessman refers to as "burdened virtues." These virtues have the unusual feature of being disjoinedfrom their bearer's own well being. Tessman's work focuses on issues that have been missed by many feminist moral theories, and her use of the virtue ethics framework brings feminist concerns more closely into contact with mainstream ethical theory. This book will appeal to feminist theorists in philosophy and women's studies, butalso more broadly, ethicists and social theorists.

Author Biography

Lisa Tessman is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies, Binghamton University.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Moral Trouble	3	(8)
1. Regretting the Self One Is	11	(22)
2. The Damage of Moral Damage	33	(20)
3. The Ordinary Vices of Domination	53	(28)
4. Between Indifference and Anguish	81	(26)
5. The Burden of Political Resistance	107	(26)
6. Dangerous Loyalties	133	(26)
Conclusion: Eudaimonistic Virtue Ethics under Adversity	159	(10)
Works Cited	169	(10)
Index	179