| In this dissertation I research the extent to which reflection is involved in becoming practically wise within an Aristotelian virtue ethical framework. In the first chapter I argue that the predominant interpretations of phronesis, the intellectual excellence concerned with ethical action, are too narrow when focused solely on calculative deliberation. Deliberating about means to an end is merely instrumental; this conception fails to explain how ends are judged to be correct. In the second chapter I offer a phenomenological reading of what it means to look to the person who exhibits practical wisdom to realize what phronesis entails. Internal to this reading is the introduction of Hannah Arendt's distinction between actors and spectators of acts. Because one is a spectator when looking to the person who exhibits practical wisdom, the thinking activity of spectators is offered. In chapter three I question the thinking involved in grasping the correct ends in action, and suggest that the intuitive account wedded to a conception of practical nous is inadequate because it admits of the possibility for thoughtlessness. Given examples of thoughtlessness, I demonstrate that practical thinking is insufficient if it abstracts too far from particular practical matters; rather practical thinking remains associated with lived experience when one engages with others who have alternative perspectives. In chapter four I give an account of reflective judgment derived from Kantian aesthetic judgment as interpreted by Arendt. I suggest that this conception of reflective judgment can serve as viable alternative for recognizing appropriate ends than an account that relies on practical nous. In chapter five I explain the connection between the thinking of the spectator and reflective judgment. I argue that together thinking and reflectively judging can establish and endorse appropriate ends for action, and as such should supplement an account of practical wisdom. I suggest that the criterion for these activities offers an avenue to recognizing a reliable, yet contingently flexible source of normativity wherein one's virtues of character are reflectively endorsed in order to serve as the proper starting points in concrete moments demanding action. |
