Philosophy Workshop: What is Virtue? (More than Ethics!)

Name: Philosophy Workshop: What is Virtue? (More than Ethics!)
Start: 2025-01-23T18:30:00-07:00
Location: Reeder's Alley

Schedule

Thu, 23 Jan, 2025 at 06:30 pm

UTC-07:00

Location

Reeder's Alley | Helena, MT

The notion of virtue holds a central place in classical theories of what it means to live a good life. Indeed, the Greek term for virtue, aretē, simply means “excellence,” and who would seriously want to say, “No, my life would be good enough — or even better — without being excellent”?
The classical philosophers of Greece mentioned quite a few different virtues, or excellences, for human beings — some of which applied to all humans, while others were relative to specific occupations or circumstances (for instance, the virtues of an excellent doctor or an excellent carpenter, which people outside those professions might not need or care about). Among the virtues common to all human beings, four core excellences traditionally stood out: wisdom, justice, courage, and moderation.
In this evening’s program, we’ll reflect on “virtue” in general, and these four cardinal virtues in particular, within traditional philosophies of human life. And we’ll examine how these virtues can extend well beyond the narrow domain of ethics, to encompass a much wider scope of our human aspirations and relationships. Taking a cue from Damascius (6th century CE), the last head of the Platonic Academy in Athens, we’ll consider no less than seven different levels on which the virtues of wisdom, justice, courage, and moderation can manifest in a well-lived human life — only one of which is the “ethical.”
Given the wide scope of the evening’s topic, we will certainly not arrive at a full account of all the details. But if we do our work well, we should begin to see the general shape of things: an outline which we can explore further and work to fill in through subsequent reading, study, and contemplation. Our goal for the night will be to articulate this general vision, as something potentially worthwhile and inspiring, something worth doing the work to explore, fill in, and embody.
We’ll use some short extracts from the writings of Damascius and other ancient thinkers to frame and organize our conversation, opening up a space in which we can meaningfully and deeply explore an approach to virtue that’s much more expansive than what we often encounter in contemporary life.
Learn more & RSVP here: https://merlinccc.org/calendar-event/philosophy-workshop-virtue-more-than-ethics/