Inner Virtue

What does it mean to be a morally good person? Pleasure, emotion, and attention are also important parts of our moral character despite being involuntary inner states. Inner Virtue argues that such states can be morally virtuous or vicious by manifesting our deepest cares and concerns.

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What does it mean to be a morally good person? It can be tempting to think that it is simply a matter of performing certain actions and avoiding others. And yet, there is much more to moral character than our outward actions. We expect a good person to not only behave in certain ways, but also to experience the world in certain ways within. Pleasure, emotion, and attention are important parts of our moral character despite being involuntary inner states. Inner Virtue defends a theory of why and how such states are relevant to moral character: These states say something about what kind of person one is by manifesting our deepest cares and concerns.