%0 Journal Article
%T Moral Virtues
%A Georg Spielthenner
%J Ethic@ : an International Journal for Moral Philosophy
%D 2004
%I Universitade Federal de Santa Catarina
%X Although much has been published on virtues in recent years, there is still considerable uncertainty in philosophy (and even more among philosophical laymen) about the concept of a virtue and especially about moral virtues. In this article, I will try to clarify these notions. In particular, I want to answer the question: When are virtues moral virtues? Clearly, not every practical virtue is a moral virtue. Why was the courage of the Nazi soldiers in the second world war not a moral virtue, but yet is presumably one if included among the cardinal virtues? To clarify this question, this article will deal with the concept of a virtue but I will also investigate the notion of virtues being of a moral nature. To this end, I propose and explain (I) a definition of moral virtues and clarify this definition further in section (II), by explaining why I did not include qualities, which others have considered as essential.
%K virtues
%K character
%K personality.
%U http://www.cfh.ufsc.br/ethic@/et31art2.pdf