Yves Simon on Some Overlooked Aspects of Moral Virtue

Simon is a competent and quietly imaginative interpreter of the Aristotelian-Thomist tradition in philosophy, and his reexamination of the very notion of virtue digs out its contours from within, scraping off the varnish-turned-plaque of certain modern reinterpretations or reductions of the notion. At the same time, without nostalgia he connects virtue just as much to the preoccupations of modern life as with ancient or medieval modes of existence.

One of the key themes of his work is highlighting three typically modern responses which effectively attempt to substitute something else in place of a classic conception of the virtue we human beings need in order to do well, act well, and live well. In addition to this Simon also introduces — or perhaps much better and more accurately put — briefly elaborates, several distinctions very useful for thinking out more some central issues:

Two of those distinctions central to his work are:

These are ideas admittedly stock in trade for virtue ethicists, but which, like any other inventory, all too often lie unexamined upon the shelf. And, according to Simon, they are key for any practical, not merely-academic, understanding of virtue and vice.

Early on in the book, Simon situates these concepts and distinctions — as well as the many others involved in his work (e.g. disposition, qualitative and existential “readiness,” sociability, spontaneity, intentionality, affective knowledge or knowledge by…

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