Cover not available

In:Controversies in the Contemporary World
Edited by Adriano Fabris and Giovanni Scarafile
[Controversies 15] 2019
► pp. 85–104

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
authorization required

Chapter 5
Virtues and vices and parts and wholes

A phenomenological analysis

 | Merrimack College
Published online: 7 August 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/cvs.15.06hef
Abstract
This paper addresses a perennial controversy in virtue ethics. In Plato’s dialogue, Protagoras, Socrates argues that virtue is knowledge but doubts whether it can be taught, whereas Protagoras denies that virtue is knowledge but affirms that it can be taught. In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle argues that one cannot have ethical virtue without dianoetical virtue or vice versa. In his Third Logical Investigation, Husserl distinguishes between independent parts and non-independent parts of wholes. In the first application of the phenomenological logic of parts and wholes to the relationship between ethical virtue and dianoetical virtue, this paper corroborates Aristotle’s intuition about the connection between excellence of character and excellence of mind, namely, that one cannot possess the one without the other or vice versa.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction: Plato on the teachability of virtue
  • 2.Elaboration: Aristotle on the unity of the virtues
  • 3.Application: Husserl on the logic of parts and wholes
  • 4.Resolution: Parts and wholes, ethical virtues and dianoetical virtues
  • 5.Conclusion: The broader horizon and the connection between virtue and happiness
  • Bibliography
  • Appendix
References (74)
Bibliography
Adams, R. M. (2006). A theory of virtue: Excellence in being for the good. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Angier, T. (2018). Critical concepts in philosophy: Virtue ethics (4 vols.). London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Annas, J. (1993). The morality of happiness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2011). Intelligent virtue. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Anscombe, G. E. M. (1958). Modern moral philosophy. Philosophy, 33, 1–19. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Aristotle (1926). Nicomachean ethics. Tr. H. Rackham. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1932). Politics. Tr. H. Rackham. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1933). Metaphysics. Tr. H. Tredennick. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1935). The Athenian constitution, the Eudemian ethics, On virtues and vices. Tr. H. Rackham. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1999). Nicomachean ethics. Tr. T. Irwin. Indianapolis and Cambridge, Massachusetts: Hackett Publishing Company.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Battaly, H. (Ed.). (2010). Virtue and vice, moral and epistemic (a pair of special issues of Metaphilosophy 41 [1/2]). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Besser-Jones, L., & Slote, M. (Eds.). (2015). The Routledge companion to virtue ethics. London and New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Burger, R. (2008). Aristotle’s dialogue with Socrates: On the “Nicomachean ethics”. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Carr, D., Arthur, J., & Kristjánsson, K. (Eds.). (2017). Varieties of virtue ethics. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Casari, E. (2000). On Husserl’s Theory of Wholes and Parts. History and Philosophy of Logic, 21, 1–43. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2007). On the Relationship between Parts and Wholes in Husserl’s Phenomenology. In L. Boi, P. Kerszberg, & F. Patras (Eds.), Rediscovering phenomenology: Phenomenological essays on mathematical beings, physical reality, perception and consciousness (pp. 67–102). Dordrecht: Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chappell, T. (Ed.). (2006). Values and virtues: Aristotelianism in contemporary ethics. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Crisp, R. (Ed.). (1996). How should one live? Essays on the virtues. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Crisp, R., & Slote, M. (Eds.). (1997). Virtue ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Curzer, H. (2012). Aristotle and the virtues. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
De Paul, M., & Zagzebski, L. (Eds.). (2003). Intellectual virtue: Perspectives from ethics and epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
De Preester, H. (2004). Part-whole metaphysics underlying issues of internality/externality. Philosophica, 73, 27–50.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Drummond, J. (2008). Wholes, parts, and phenomenological methodology. In V. Mayer (Ed.), Edmund Husserl: “Logische Untersuchungen” (pp. 105–122). Berlin: Akademie Verlag.. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2010). Husserl’s Third Logical Investigation: Parts and wholes, founding connections, and the synthetic a priori. In D. Dahlstrom (Ed.), Husserl’s “Logical Investigations” (pp. 57–68). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Drummond, John (2013). Phenomenology, eudaimonia, and the virtues. In K. Hermberg & P. Gyllenhammer (Eds.), Phenomenology and virtue ethics (pp. 97–112). London: Bloomsbury Academic Publisher.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fine, K. (1995). Part-whole. In B. Smith & D. W. Smith (Eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Husserl (pp. 463–485). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Flannery, K. (2013). Action & character according to Aristotle: The logic of the moral life. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Foot, P. (1978). Virtues and vices and other essays in moral philosophy. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2001). Natural goodness. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gardiner, S. (Ed.). (2005). Virtue ethics, old and new. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Geach, P. (1977). The virtues. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heffernan, G. (2010). The phronimos, the phainomena, and the pragmata: Are We Responsible for the Things that Appear to Us to be Good for Us? An Axiological Exercise in Aristotelian Phenomenology. The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy, 10, 171–200.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2014). The Phenomenon Happiness: Prolegomena to a Phenomenological Description. The Humanistic Psychologist, 42, 249–267. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hurka, T. (2001). Virtue, vice, and value. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hursthouse, R. (1999). On virtue ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Husserl, E. (1972). Erfahrung und Urteil: Untersuchungen zur Genealogie der Logik. L. Landgrebe (Ed.). Hamburg: Felix Meiner.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1974). Formale und transzendentale Logik: Versuch einer Kritik der logischen Vernunft (Husserliana XVII). P. Janssen (Ed.). The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1975). Logische Untersuchungen, Erster Band: Prolegomena zur reinen Logik (Husserliana XVIII). E. Holenstein (Ed.). The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1979). Psychologische Studien zur elementaren Logik (1894). In Husserl, Aufsätze und Rezensionen (1890–1910) (Husserliana XXII) (pp. 92–113). B. Rang (Ed.). The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1984a). Logische Untersuchungen, Zweiter Band: Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie und Theorie der Erkenntnis, Erster Teil (Husserliana XIX/1). U. Panzer (Ed.). The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff/Kluwer Academic Publishers. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1984b). Logische Untersuchungen, Zweiter Band: Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie und Theorie der Erkenntnis, Zweiter Teil (Husserliana XIX/2). U. Panzer (Ed.). The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff/Kluwer Academic Publishers. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1988). Vorlesungen über Ethik und Wertlehre 1908–1914 (Husserliana XXVIII). U. Melle (Ed.). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2001). Logical investigations. Tr. J. N. Findlay. Oxford: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2004). Einleitung in die Ethik: Vorlesungen Sommersemester 1920/1924 (Husserliana XXXVII). H. Peucker (Ed.). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2014). Grenzprobleme der Phänomenologie: Analysen des Unbewusstseins und der Instinkte, Metaphysik, Späte Ethik – Texte aus dem Nachlass (1908–1937) (Husserliana XLII). R. Sowa and T. Vongehr (Eds). Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kant, I. (1956). Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Hamburg: Felix Meiner.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kosman, A. (2014). Virtues of thought: Essays on Plato and Aristotle. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lampert, J. (1989). Husserl’s theory of parts and wholes: The dynamic of individuating and contextualizing interpretation – Übergehen, Abheben, Ergänzungsbedürftigkeit. Research in Phenomenology, 19, 195–212. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
MacIntyre, A. (1981/1984/2007). After virtue: A study in moral theory. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McCarthy, J. (1992). Parts, wholes, and the forms of life: Husserl and the new biology. In L. Hardy & L. Embree (Eds.), Phenomenology of Natural Science (pp. 135–156). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Murphy, N., Kallenberg, B., & Thiessen Nation, M. (Eds.). (1997/2003). Virtues and practices in the Christian tradition: Christian ethics after MacIntyre. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
O’Rourke, F. (Ed.). (2013). What happened in and to moral philosophy in the twentieth century? Philosophical essays in honor of Alasdair MacIntyre. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Peucker, H. (2010). Aristotelische Elemente in der Husserlschen Ethik. Philosophisches Jahrbuch, 117, 54–69.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Plato (1997). Complete works. J. Cooper & D. S. Hutchinson (Ed.). Indianapolis and Cambridge, Massachusetts: Hackett Publishing Company.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Reeve, C. D. C. (2012). Action, contemplation, and happiness: An essay on Aristotle. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2013). Aristotle on practical wisdom: “Nicomachean Ethics” VI. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rota, G.-C. (1997). Fundierung as a logical concept. In Rota, Indiscrete Thoughts (pp. 172–181). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Birkhäuser Boston. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Russell, D. (2009). Practical intelligence and the virtues. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(Ed.). (2013). The Cambridge companion to virtue ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2014). Phronesis and the virtues (NE vi 12–13). In R. Polansky (Ed.), The Cambridge companion to Aristotle’s “Nicomachean Ethics” (pp. 203–220). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sanford, J. (Ed.). (2015). Before virtue: Assessing contemporary virtue ethics. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Simons, P. (1987). Parts: A study in ontology. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Smith, B. (Ed.). (1982). Parts and moments: Studies in logic and formal ontology. Munich: Philosophia Verlag.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sokolowski, R. (1968). Parts and wholes in Husserl’s Logical Investigations. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 28, 537–553. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1985). Moral action: A phenomenological study. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stumpf, C. (1883/1890). Tonpsychologie. Leipzig: Hirzel.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Swanton, C. (2003). Virtue ethics: A pluralistic view. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Thomas Aquinas (1964). Commentary on the “Nicomachean Ethics”. Tr. C. I. Litzinger. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1999). Disputed questions on virtue. Tr. R. McInerny. South Bend, Indiana: St. Augustine’s Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van Hooft, S. (Ed.). (2014). The handbook of virtue ethics. Oxford: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vassiliou, F. (2010). The content and meaning of the transition from the theory of relations in Philosophy of Arithmetic to the mereology of the Third Logical Investigation. Research in Phenomenology, 40, 408–429. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Walker, R., & Ivanhoe, P. (Eds.). (2007). Working virtue: Virtue ethics and contemporary moral problems. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Willard, D. (2003). The theory of wholes and parts and Husserl’s explication of the possibility of knowledge in the Logical Investigations. In D. Fisette (Ed.), Husserl’s “Logical Investigations” reconsidered (pp. 163–182). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zagzebski, L. (1996). Virtues of the mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Heffernan, George
2022. The Development of Husserl’s Categorical Imperative: From Universal Ethical Legislation to Individual Existential Exhortation. In The Existential Husserl [Contributions to Phenomenology, 120], ► pp. 87 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 8 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue