Rosalind Hursthouse

Rosalind Hursthouse FRSNZ
Born	Mary Rosalind Hursthouse (1943-11-10)10 November 1943 Bristol, England
Nationality	New Zealander
Education	Victoria University of Wellington University of Auckland,BA, MA Somerville College, Oxford,BPhil, DPhil
Notable work	On Virtue Ethics
Awards	Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand
Era	Contemporary philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Analytic philosophy,virtue ethics,Aristotelianism
Institutions	University of Auckland Open University University of Oxford
Thesis	Action, Emotion and Motive
Main interests	Applied ethics,normative ethics,ancient philosophy,action theory
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 philosophernoted 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 Emeritaof Philosophy at theUniversity of AucklandandFellow 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-Aristotelianvirtue ethics, which linksmorally right action,virtuous character,andhuman flourishing.Her book has been described byRoger Crispas "the comprehensive statement modern virtue ethics has been awaiting for forty years."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."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 AnscombeandPhilippa Foot,from whom she draws inspiration for much of her work in virtue ethics. Indeed, many considerOn Virtue Ethicsto be thespiritual successorto Anscombe's 1958 article "Modern Moral Philosophy"as well as Foot's manuscript onethical naturalism,which has since been published asNatural Goodness(2001).

Early life and education

Rosalind Hursthouse (née Mary Rosalind) was born inBristol, Englandon 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.She is a member of the notableAtkinson–Hursthouse–Richmond familyof New Zealand and a descendant of the Hursthouse family of England, which traces back to the first John Hursthouse who immigrated fromHollandin the 1600s.

As a 17-year-old, Hursthouse was inspired to studyphilosophyby her aunt, Mary Fearon Hursthouse, after an argument at the dinner table.She enrolled the next year atVictoria University of Wellingtonand 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.

In 1966, Hursthouse (as Rosalind Mary Hursthouse) went up to theUniversity of Oxfordto read for theBPhil(1968) on a postgraduate scholarship,going on to read for theDPhil(1974) atSomerville Collegewhile working as Stipendiary Lecturer in Philosophy atCorpus Christi College,making her the first woman to teach at an all men's college in Oxford.While at Somerville, Hursthouse was mentored byElizabeth AnscombeandPhilippa Foot,both of whom would become for her lifelong friends and sources of philosophical inspiration.

Career

After teaching at theUniversity of AucklandandCorpus Christi College,Hursthouse joined the ranks of the founding faculty of theOpen Universityto work with disadvantaged students and adult learners who had little to no background in philosophy.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).By 1991, Hursthouse had "burst upon the international philosophical scene for the first time" with the following three articles:

1. "Arational Actions", which made a break with the view that the explanation ofactionby reference to reasons (an "intention" ) is also a species of event-causal explanation in the sense familiar from the work ofDonald Davidson.By showing that some bona fide intentional actions are explained arationally, Hursthouse argues, by counterexample, that Davidson's account of reasons as causes of action is mistaken. Hursthouse turns her philosophical attention, and ours, to the kinds of reasons asked for and given byhuman beingsin theexplanationofhuman behaviour:the behaviour ofemotional,rational,social,political,linguistic,lawfulanimals.
2. "Virtue Theory and Abortion", in which Hursthouse outlined the structure of a new version ofAristotelianvirtue ethics, defended it against possible objections and applied it to the issue of abortion. She argues that whereas most discussions ofabortionfocus on the issue of who has rights to make decisions regarding the foetus, a decision made within one's rights could still be callous or cowardly, meaning that it would be ethically problematic and potentially devastating for the person making it, whatever the status of the foetus and the reproductive rights of women.The paper, which combines theory and application, was an early exemplar of Hursthouse's distinctive approach to philosophical ethics. Hursthouse demonstrates the emphasis in neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics on the lives of situated human agents (including the consequences of their actions), and the salient capabilities, character traits, and reasons involved in truly acting well, or as well as possible, within whatever situation an agent may find herself.
3. "After Hume's Justice", which offered a neo-Aristotelian account of social justice that was deeply influenced byLudwig Wittgenstein.Hursthouse argues that a modernpolitical philosophythat prioritises the good — virtue and human flourishing — over the right, and takes ethics to be prior to, and continuous with, politics, can nevertheless accommodate individual humanrights.

While Hursthouse has applied virtue ethics to practical issues inBeginning LivesandEthics, Humans, and Other Animals,her most important contribution to philosophy isOn Virtue Ethics.In the first section, she shows howneo-Aristotelianvirtue 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 traitsare 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 natureand how human life goes "("Plato's Requirement on the Virtues ").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."Despite this, she is an atheist.

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).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.In 2016, she was elected asFellow of the Royal Society of New Zealandand retired from her academic career at theUniversity of Auckland,where she is nowProfessor Emeritaof Philosophy.

Bibliography

• 'The Central Doctrine of the Mean' inThe Blackwell Guide to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics,ed. Richard Kraut, Blackwell, 2006, pp. 96–115.
• 'Are Virtues the Proper Starting Point for Ethical Theory?' inContemporary Debates in Moral Theory,ed. James Dreier, Blackwell, 2006, pp. 99–112.
• ‘Virtue Ethics’Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Online,2003
• 'Virtue Ethics vs Rule-Consequentialism: A Reply to Brad Hooker',UtilitasVol 14, March 2002 pp 41–53.
• Ethics, Humans and Other Animals,Routledge, 2000 (written as a part of an Open University course).
• On Virtue Ethics,Oxford University Press, 1999. For the author's account of how this book came to be written, go toOUP site
• 'Virtue and Human Nature' inHume Studiesdouble issue, November 1999/February 2000.
• 'Intention' inLogic, Cause and Action,ed. Roger Teichmann, Cambridge University Press, 2000.
• 'Virtue Ethics and the Emotions' inVirtue Ethics,ed. Daniel Statman, Edinburgh University Press, 1997.
• 'Hume's Moral and Political Philosophy' inHistory of Philosophy, Vol. 5, British Philosophy and the Enlightenment,ed. Stuart Brown, Routledge, 1996.
• 'The Virtuous Agent's Reasons: a reply to Bernard Williams' in theProceedings of the Keeling Colloquium on Aristotle on Moral Realism,ed. Robert Heinaman, UCL Press, 1995.
• 'Normative Virtue Ethics' inHow Should One Live?ed. Roger Crisp, OUP, 1995.
• 'Applying Virtue Ethics'inVirtues and Reasons, Festschrift for Philippa Foot,eds. Rosalind Hursthouse, Gavin Lawrence, Warren Quinn, OUP, 1995.
• 'Arational Actions' inThe Journal of Philosophy,Vol. LXXXVIII 1991.
• 'Virtue Theory and Abortion' inPhilosophy and Public Affairs,Vol. 20, 1990–91.
• 'After Hume's Justice' inProceedings of the Aristotelian Society,Vol. XCL, 1990/91.

External links

• Media related toRosalind Hursthouseat Wikimedia Commons
• University of Auckland, Profile of Rosalind Hursthouse
• Hursthouse's entry in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on virtue ethics