CFP: Topoi Special Issue on "Virtues, Wisdom, and Expertise"
ISHPSS
From: Maria Silvia Vaccarezza <ms.vac...@GMAIL.COM>
Call for Papers – Topoi Special Issue on “Virtues, Wisdom, and Expertise”
Guest editors: Maria Silvia Vaccarezza & Michel Croce
We are inviting submissions of papers for a Special Issue of the journal Topoi, entitled "Virtues, Wisdom, and Expertise". The special issue aims to advance the research on virtue cultivation, wisdom, and expertise from a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary perspective. Papers, which should not exceed a maximum of 9000 words, should be written in English, fit for double-blind review, and must be submitted through the online submission system Editorial Manager, by choosing the category “SI Virtues, Wisdom, and Expertise (Vaccarezza/Croce)” from the menu “Article Type”. Please read the Submission Guidelines before submitting your paper.
The deadline for paper submission is September 30, 2023
Description
In Aristotelian virtue ethics, it is standardly taken that cultivating a virtuous character is the prime way to lead an ethical life. The path to becoming virtuous typically involves two main aspects: (i) the development of individual virtues via cultivating apt emotional responses to specific situations; and (ii) the cultivation of phronesis (practical wisdom), an intellectual meta-virtue that settles conflicts between virtues and deliberates upon the actions to be taken. As interest in this research topic increases, a number of different and innovative interpretations of virtues and phronesis are being advanced within virtue ethics, character education, and moral psychology. Most recent proposals vindicate a genuine Aristotelian spirit while at the same time being grounded in well-established psychological frameworks and measurements (Darnell et al. 2019; Kristjánsson et al. 2021). While a line of interpretation suggests that virtues and phronesis can be successfully reinterpreted in light of personality theories such as social-cognitive theories (Lapsley 2016) and trait theories (Jayawickreme et al., 2017; Snow et al. 2021), others conceive the virtuous and/or the wise according to a skill account of the virtues (Stichter 2007; Annas 2011) or an expertise model of phronesis (De Caro et al., 2018, 2020, 2021; Tsai 2022). However, within this debate, there still is ample room for skepticism about the psychological credibility of the virtues as stable dispositions or, more recently, about the Aristotelian idea that phronesis is crucial to the development of virtuous habits, as testified by the so-called “eliminativists” challenges (Lapsley 2021; Miller 2021).
The aim of this special issue is to advance the research on the topics of virtue cultivation, wisdom, and expertise from a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary perspective. We welcome contributions that defend one of the aforementioned approaches, address the eliminativist challenges, explore the link between virtuousness, skills, and expertise, or engage in the discussion about how to lead a virtuous life, broadly construed. Empirically informed contributions as well as contributions that foster a discussion between any of the relevant disciplines (e.g., virtue ethics, moral psychology, character education, moral epistemology, expertise theory) are particularly welcome.
Possible specific topics include (but are not limited to):
- The functions and limits of phronesis qua meta-virtue
- The relations between phronesis and other virtues
- Rival empirically informed accounts of phronesis
- Aristotelian and non-Aristotelian accounts of virtue and flourishing
- Virtues and phronesis in applied ethics
- The eliminativist challenges
- The psychology of virtues, whole traits, and skills
- Competing accounts of wisdom (with particular focus on expertise accounts)
- The nature and limits of moral expertise
- The relationships between expertise, skills, and virtues
- The epistemic components of practical and moral expertise
Invited Contributors
Monika Ardelt (University of Florida)
John Hacker-Wright (University of Guelph)
Eranda Jayawickreme (Wake Forest University)
John Hacker-Wright (University of Guelph)
Kristjan Kristjansson (University of Birmingham)
Blaine Fowers (University of Miami)
Matt Stichter (Washington State University)
Jason Swartwood (Saint Paul College)
Cheng-hung Tsai (Academia Sinica, Taiwan)
For any questions, please contact one of the Guest Editors:
Maria Silvia Vaccarezza (mariasilvia...@unige.it)
Michel Croce (michel...@unige.it)
