Being and Becoming Good On the Diversity of Human Goodness and Virtue

by Jeffrey, Anne

• ISBN13: 9780198901815
• ISBN10: 019890181X
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780198901822
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2026-09-09
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• More Book Details

Summary

Aristotelian Naturalism is an ethics on which moral goodness is a species of natural goodness-the kind of goodness we find on display creatures whose habits and activities enable them to thrive. What it takes for humans to be good is to have habits and engage in activities that contribute to human flourishing. The primary aim of this book is to present a revisionist version of Aristotelian Naturalism enriched by empirical evidence and responsive to criticisms from feminist and disability ethics. Pluralist Aristotelian Naturalism holds that human goodness is not a single, unitary ideal to which all humans should aim, instead admitting of real diversity, just as goodness in general admits of diversity across various species. Consequently, there are various sets of human virtues that promote human flourishing in its many forms.

Being and Becoming Good explicates an Aristotelian methodology of ethics on which philosophical reasoning is used to integrate observational evidence about the shape life forms take and the dispositions that contribute to good human lives. Observing what humans are and do in order to thrive in a wide array of bodies, social-political contexts, and environments, puts pressure on the standard Aristotelian Naturalist singular ideal of human goodness as depicted by a flourishing neurotypical, able-bodied, resource-rich mature adult. There is substantial variation in human forms of life and human flourishing, and so no one human good or single set of virtues. Instead, there is a diversity of forms of human goodness, all equally valuable. Moreover, the achievement of one kind of human goodness changes what we are able to do and be. By being good in one way, humans acquire the capacity to be good in another way. Most of us, for most of our lives, are simultaneously being good and becoming good.

Author Biography

Anne Jeffrey, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Affiliate Professor of Medical Humanities, Baylor University

Anne Jeffrey is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Affiliate Professor of Medical Humanities at Baylor University and a Medical Ethics and Health Policy Scholar at the Baylor College of Medicine. She earned her doctorate in philosophy from Georgetown University. Her work in metaethics, moral psychology, political philosophy, philosophy of religion, and virtue ethics has appeared in venues such as Irkenntnis, Journal of Ethics, The Monist, Religious Studies, and Journal of Personality.