Erotic Virtue

Citation

Ware L (2015) Erotic Virtue. Res Philosophica, 92 (4), pp. 915-935. https://doi.org/10.11612/resphil.2015.92.4.7

Abstract
This paper defends an account of how erotic love works to develop virtue. It is argued that love drives moral development by holding the creation of virtue in the individual as the emotion’s intentional object. After analyzing the distinction between passive and active ac- counts of the object of love, this paper demonstrates that a Platonic virtue-ethical understanding of erotic love—far from being consumed with ascetic contemplation—offers a positive treatment of emotion’s role in the attainment and social practice of virtue.

Keywords
love; virtue; emotions; virtue-ethics; moral development

Journal
Res Philosophica: Volume 92, Issue 4