Diacritica 25-2_Filosofia.indb - cehum - Universidade do Minho

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RUI SILVA
emotions and virtue; virtues are not only dispositions to action, but also
to moderate our emotions or to feel in a certain way. From an Aristotelian
standpoint, “having the right emotions is necessary for being a good person”
(Stocker, 1996: 174).
Th e important connections between value and emotions are another
sign of the ethical importance of emotions. In fact, many emotions contain
an evaluation of their object (anger, love, for instance), and the lack
of emotions may lead to a devaluation of other beings (as the existence of
psychopaths demonstrates). As Stocker (1996: 177) put it, correct emotions
lead to correct evaluations and incorrect emotions make it diffi cult to make
correct evaluations. Th e relevance of emotions for virtue ethics can be also
illustrated by Hume’s defence of sympathy and Schopenhauer’s defence of
compassion as the basis of morality.
Today, it is no longer a speculation to claim that emotions play a fundamental
role in our decision-making processes; this point is widely acknowledged
by neuroscientists. So, when we say that practical reason requires a
certain form of upbringing or personal development, we should bear in
mind the Aristotelian idea that such a process must involve the education
or training of emotions. Th e humanist idea of Bildung is, once more, very
useful in this context, especially if we consider Schillers’ thesis that Bildung
requires not only philosophical culture, but also aesthetic education. Bildung
was considered an intellectual and aff ective process.
3. It seems legitimate to consider communitarianism as a natural translation
of virtue ethics into the domain of political philosophy; the work
of MacIntyre provides a good illustration of the similarities between both
movements. In order to clarify this point, it is convenient to sketch out a
brief characterization of communitarianism. It is usual to defi ne communitarianism
in contrast with liberalism, and this contrast can be made at
diff erent levels:
– at the ethical level, there is a defence of particularism and of the thesis
that the ends and values involved in moral reasoning have a social origin;
– at the anthropological level, communitarian authors criticize individualistic
and atomistic conceptions of the self;
– at the political level, it is argued that the goods favoured by a community
should play an important role in political decisions;
– fi nally, communitarians denounce liberalism’s internal tensions or
“pragmatic contradiction”: far from being neutral regarding the diff erent
conceptions of the good, liberalism belongs to a particular tradition.
Diacritica 25-2_Filosofia.indb 148 05-01-2012 09:38:27