Rosalind Hursthouse | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Mary Rosalind Hursthouse (1943-11-10)10 November 1943 (age 82) |
| Awards | Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand |
| Education | |
| Education | Victoria University of Wellington University of Auckland, BA, MA Somerville College, Oxford, BPhil, DPhil |
| Thesis | Action, Emotion and Motive |
| Philosophical work | |
| Era | Contemporary philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | Analytic philosophy,virtue ethics,Aristotelianism |
| Institutions | |
| Main interests | Applied ethics,normative ethics,ancient philosophy,action theory |
| Notable works | On Virtue Ethics |
| Notable ideas | Neo-Aristotelianism, v-rules,Plato's requirement on the virtues |
| Relatives | Richmond Hursthouse (great-grandfather) Charles Wilson Hursthouse (great-granduncle) Charles Flinders Hursthouse (great-great-granduncle) |
Rosalind HursthouseFRSNZ (born 10 November 1943) is a British-born New Zealandmoral philosopher noted for her work onvirtue ethics. She is one of the leading exponents of contemporary virtue ethics, though she has also written extensively onphilosophy of action,history of philosophy,moral psychology, andbiomedical ethics. Hursthouse isProfessor Emerita of Philosophy at theUniversity of Auckland andFellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand.
Hursthouse's bookOn Virtue Ethics (1999) has been a seminal contribution to the contemporary revival of virtue theory ("aretaic turn") and is often cited as the definitive exposition ofneo-Aristotelian virtue ethics, which linksmorally right action,virtuous character, andhuman flourishing. Her book has been described byRoger Crisp as "the comprehensive statement modern virtue ethics has been awaiting for forty years."[1] According toSimon Blackburn, "With this book virtue ethics finally comes of age... This volume will effortlessly take its place as the defining exposition of the view."[1] Hursthouse has also made significant contributions to current debates onmoral status,ethical dilemmas,moral emotions,ethical naturalism,human nature, andpractical wisdom.
Hursthouse was a student ofElizabeth Anscombe andPhilippa Foot, from whom she draws inspiration for much of her work in virtue ethics. Indeed, many considerOn Virtue Ethics to be thespiritual successor to Anscombe's 1958 article "Modern Moral Philosophy" as well as Foot's manuscript onethical naturalism, which has since been published asNatural Goodness (2001).[2]
Rosalind Hursthouse (née Mary Rosalind) was born inBristol, England on 10 November 1943 to William (Bill) Weldon Oliver Hursthouse (10 July 1914 – 19 April 2017) and Jessie (Jay) Hursthouse (née Jessie E. Simmonds) (19 May 1914 – 26 October 1987), but she and her younger brother, William, grew up inWellington, New Zealand.[3][4][5] She is a member of the notableAtkinson–Hursthouse–Richmond family of New Zealand and a descendant of the Hursthouse family of England, which traces back to the first John Hursthouse who immigrated fromHolland in the 1600s.[6]
As a 17-year-old, Hursthouse was inspired to studyphilosophy by her aunt, Mary Fearon Hursthouse, after an argument at the dinner table.[7] She enrolled the next year atVictoria University of Wellington and then transferred to theUniversity of Auckland, where she earned her BA (1964) and MA (1965) in Philosophy and was subsequently appointed as Junior Lecturer in Philosophy.[8]
In 1966, Hursthouse (as Rosalind Mary Hursthouse) went up to theUniversity of Oxford to read for theBPhil (1968) on a postgraduate scholarship,[8] going on to read for theDPhil (1974) atSomerville College while working as Stipendiary Lecturer in Philosophy atCorpus Christi College, making her the first woman to teach at an all men's college in Oxford.[9][10][11] While at Somerville, Hursthouse was mentored byElizabeth Anscombe andPhilippa Foot, both of whom would become for her lifelong friends and sources of philosophical inspiration.[12]
After teaching at theUniversity of Auckland andCorpus Christi College, Hursthouse joined the ranks of the founding faculty of theOpen University to work with disadvantaged students and adult learners who had little to no background in philosophy.[13] In 1975, she was appointed as lecturer at theOpen University, where she remained for the next 25 years, eventually as Senior Lecturer and as Head of Department (1991–1997).[8] By 1991, Hursthouse had "burst upon the international philosophical scene for the first time" with the following three articles:[14]
While Hursthouse has applied virtue ethics to practical issues inBeginning Lives andEthics, Humans, and Other Animals, her most important contribution to philosophy isOn Virtue Ethics. In the first section, she shows howneo-Aristotelian virtue ethics provides action guidance and illuminatesethical dilemmas. In the second section, Hursthouse offers the first virtue-based account of acting "from a sense ofduty," bringing out the significance ofmoral emotions. In the third and final section, she considers the question, "Whichcharacter traits are the virtues?" This is the most controversial and widely discussed part of her book. Hursthouse's answer is that the virtues are the character traits which tend to not only benefit their possessor but also, relatedly, make their possessor a good human being — based, in part, onquasi-scientific "ethical but non‐evaluative beliefs abouthuman nature and how human life goes" ("Plato's Requirement on the Virtues").[1] At the end of her book, Hursthouse says, "Atheists may find it hard to recognise the point nowadays, but believing that human nature is harmonious is part of the virtue of hope. Something at least very like it used to be called belief in (God's) Providence; to believe in Providence was part of the virtue of hope; to doubt it is to fall prey to the vice of despair. And that seems to me to be right."[1] Despite this, she is an atheist.[17]
Since writingOn Virtue Ethics, Hursthouse has held visiting positions at theUniversity of California, Los Angeles, theUniversity of California, San Diego, theUniversity of Auckland, theUniversity of North Carolina, Chapel Hill,Stanford University, and theUniversity of California, Berkeley (Mills Distinguished Visiting professor in Moral and Intellectual Philosophy and Civil Polity).[8] In 2002, Hursthouse accepted an appointment as Professor of Philosophy at theUniversity of Auckland (serving as Head of department until 2005) in order to return home to New Zealand and be with her aging father.[8][11] In 2016, she was elected asFellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand[13][18] and retired from her academic career at theUniversity of Auckland, where she is nowProfessor Emerita of Philosophy.[19]
One of most pleasing results of the turn to virtue ethics has been that the insights of thinkers like Elizabeth Anscombe and Philippa Foot, which had been around but not really taken in, have now been seriously taken up and developed. In fact, virtue ethics has in many ways gone beyond them, especially since the transforming work of Rosalind Hursthouse's book On Virtue Ethics.
Hursthouse is best known as a virtue ethicist, and most of her work, both theoretical and applied, has exemplified that approach.
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