Alexander Pruss's Blog

Sometimes I have some onerous task that we seem to have a duty to perform. And then something happens—perhaps we learn something or perhaps ...

A famous Socratic question is whether virtue can be taught. This argument may seem to settle the question: If vice can be taught, virtue c...

One of Socrates’ great discoveries is that moral goodness is good for us. Virtue ethicists think there are two ways that acting morally wel...

If physicalism is true, then vice is an instance of medium-to-long-term poor bodily function. Instances of medium-to-long-term poor bodily...

The Knobe effect is that people judge cases of good and bad foreseen effects differently with respect to intention: in cases of bad effects...

Aristotle seems to accept these three claims: For the most part, things behave in a natural way. Most people are bad. To behave well is ...

There is an old debate on whether one can exhibit courage when acting in an unjust cause. I used to think that one can. But now that seems o...

I thought I posted this argument, but can’t find it, so I’m writing it up again. If honesty is a virtue, dishonesty is a vice. If dishone...

One of the striking things to me about Aristotle is the pessimism. For instance, in Book IX of the Nicomachean Ethics , we’re told that vici...

Until recently, I assumed everyone agreed to something like this principle: If performing an action constitutes you as a bad person, the a...

Here is a pattern in the moral life. People have a conversion experience and puts away “the gross sins of the flesh” like robbery, drug abus...

Many of the times when Hitler made a wrong decision, his character thereby deteriorated and he became more vicious. Let’s imagine that Hitle...

Intuitively, imposing a game of Russian roulette on an innocent victim is constitutive of twice as much moral depravity when there are two b...

I noticed that my Principle of Sufficient Reason book was 52nd in Metaphysics on Amazon. That sounded kind of nice, though not amazing, un...

The following argument is valid, and is sound if we take the conditional in (2) to be material. (Premise) In despairing, one e...

This is a fascinating piece on social class and vice. Apparently, either being of a higher socioeconomic class, or seeing oneself as of a ...

Suppose you are insuring yourself against some event type E with an insurance company with claims ratio, say, 0.75. This means t...

Common sense says that if you leave a more valuable item out, it is ceteris paribus more likely to be stolen. If we're asked...

Suppose I end up at a concentration camp for a significant amount of time. Here are some possible moral development outcomes: b...

Here is an argument: A character trait aimed at producing what is always intrinsically good is not a vice. (Premise) A tendency t...