Intimacy, Admirability, and Virtue: An Examination of Michael Slote's View

Virtues, according to Michael Slote, are our inner traits or dispositions. Slote defends "balanced caring" as an admirable character trait. He believes that caring more for intimates than others is admirable. A virtuous person attains balanced caring between intimates and others. This account of virtue conceived "balanced caring" as "fundamentally admirable" and it is the basic virtue. All other virtues, such as honesty, kindness, generosity, truthfulness, and so forth, are "derivatively admirable". This paper examines Slote's view and argues that Slote should explore the opposite situation because his idea of "balanced caring" and "admirability" is so vague and misleading. In contrast to his ideas, a reverse formulation that is caring for others more than for intimates seems plausible.