I hope you enjoy the video. Please feel free to reach out to me with further questions about my work!
Laidlaw Field Journal Week 6
In this video, I talk a bit about the work I have been doing on an ethical theory called exemplarist moral theory.
Student, Columbia University
I am a sophomore at Columbia College. I am planning to study philosophy. My main interests in philosophy are ethics and philosophy of religion. My research looks into moral naturalism, neo-Aristotelian thought, and a little bit of moral psychology.
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Hi Sebastian,
This project sounds really cool. You were clearly paying attention during our Ethics lecture last semester! I'm especially drawn to the comparison you make in this video between our Laidlaw leadership training--as well as the Laidlaw Foundation's general commitment to the cultivation of socially-conscious leaders--and the theories of moral exemplarity that you explored over the past few weeks. I'm curious where this work will take you in the second summer of your project: will you try to find examples of moral excellence in the real world (rather than in the abstruse--albeit thoroughly humanistic--moral theory of the 20th-century Neo-Aristotelian revival...)?
Hi Joseph! Thank you for checking out my video. Your question is one which I am still grappling with. A good deal of my recent work deals with metaethical concerns that troubled the 20th-century Neo-Aristotelians and offer similar difficulties for an exemplarist moral theory (this includes the creation of a precise image of flourishing). Next summer, I may continue my exploration of metaethical concerns regarding ethics of virtue coupled with some archival work or some more grounded formulation of ethics of virtue along the lines that you described.
You are very well- articulated and concise in what you have shared! I am wondering which specific moral theories were you taking into consideration while exploring your research? Were they from significant philosophers such as Kant, Aristotle? or not at all?
Hi! I apologize for the delayed response. One of the main pieces of literature I am working with is written by Linda Zagzebski (it draws a great deal from ethical theories of virtue). I also have been doing a lot of work with Aristotle and Neo-Aristotelian thinkers (Phillipa Foot, Rosalind Hursthouse, some John McDowell).