The virtues and practical reason. Introductory considerations

Abstract

Current discussions on practical reason often overlook the contribution that virtue ethics can offer to that topic. Virtue ethics might seem unrelated to practical reason, since it ensued from Elizabeth Anscombe’s emphasis on the first-personal perspective in the explanation of action and focuses on the character of the agent, rather than on reason. This paper suggests that the focus on character is not incompatible with the acknowledgement of the relevance of practical reason in action, but, quite the contrary, offers a privileged standpoint to understand how reason can operate in practice.