Choosing Character: Responsibility for Virtue and Vice

Are there key respects in which character and character defects are voluntary? Can agents with serious vices be rational agents? Jonathan Jacobs answers in the affirmative. Moral character is shaped through voluntary habits, including the ways we habituate ourselves, Jacobs believes. Just as individuals can voluntarily lead unhappy lives without making unhappiness an end, so can they degrade their ethical characters through voluntary action that does not have establishment of vice as its end. Choosing Character presents an account of ethical disability, expanding the domain of responsibility and explicating the role of character in ethical cognition. Jacobs contends that agents become ethically disabled voluntarily when their habits impair their ability to properly appreciate ethical considerations. Such agents are rational, responsible individuals who are yet incapable of virtuous action. The view develops and modifies Aristotelian claims concerning the fixity of character. Jacobs' interpretation is developed in contrast to the overlooked work of Maimonides, who also used Aristotelian resources but argued for the possibility of character change. The notion of ethical disability has profound ramifications for ethics and for current debates about blame and punishment.

About the Author :
Jonathan Jacobs is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Division of the Humanities at Colgate University. He is the author of Ethics A-Z, Aristotle's Virtues, Dimensions of Moral Theory, A Philosopher's Compass, and Practical Realism and Moral Psychology, among other books.

Review :
"Jacobs has written a timely book on a too-often neglected topic of responsibility for character in ethical theorizing."-Robert Kane, The University of Texas. Times Literary Supplement, December 2002 "Jacobs develops his thinking-which holds profound implications for current debates about ethics, blame, and punishment-in chapters on voluntariness and habits, ethical disability and responsibility, ethical accessibility and plasticity of character, conscience and its work, and metaethics and moral psychology."-Book News, November 2001 "This book offers a short, highly accessible and extremely well-turned introduction to some key issues of moral psychology ... It also represents a highly accomplished exploration of a central issue of moral psychology"That of the relationship of responsibility to character-which should be of great interest to more advanced students... A generally rich and illuminating work which deserves wide attention."-David Carr, University of Edinburgh. Philosophical Books, 2002 "Jacobs has written an accessible and important book... This book is appropriate for upper-division undergraduate and graduate students, who will appreciate the clear writing style as they receive a solid grounding in this important area of moral psychology and ethics."-Choice, Vol. 39, No.10, June 2002 "This book is overall to be recommended for its succinct and challenging analysis of moral responsibility for character and its defects, which should be of interest to specialists in ethics, legal theory, and theory of mind, as well as more general readers."-Jennifer Welchman, University of Alberta, Metaphilosophy 34:5, October 2003 "Choosing Character is very well-written. While the book will be of interest to students of ethics, history of ethics, and moral psychology, its very accessible style makes it suitable for a much broader audience. In defending a notion of 'ethical disability' Jonathan Jacobs has much to contribute to current debates on moral responsibility, on the possibility of revision of character, and on the metaethical issues that undergird virtue theory."-Daniel Frank, University of Kentucky