Sadler's Lectures

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th and 21st century philosopher and moral theorist, Alasdair MacIntyre's essay "Is Patriotism A Virtue?" It focuses upon the third section, in which he outlines some of the central claims of what he calls the morality of patriotism. These have to do with the importance of particular communities as places where human beings learn moral...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th and 21st century philosopher and moral theorist, Alasdair MacIntyre's essay "Is Patriotism A Virtue?" It focuses upon his discussion of one common approach to morality in modernity that will inevitably construe patriotism however understood as a vice, rather than as a virtue, one he labels "liberal" morality, which requires moral a...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th and 21st century philosopher and moral theorist, Alasdair MacIntyre's essay "Is Patriotism A Virtue?" It focuses upon the first portion of the work, where MacIntyre notes that the task for the moral philosopher is to provide clarity about the incompatible claims and convictions people make about patriotism, virtue, and morality. He...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient philosopher and biographer Plutarch's short work Can Virtue Be Taught? In this work, Plutarch considers the arguments of those who claim that virtue, including justice and prudence, cannot be taught, and shows weaknesses to those arguments. Among the arguments that he makes in favor of virtue being able to be taught is his cont...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient philosopher and biographer Plutarch's short work On Virtue and Vice This episode focuses on his discussion why living pleasantly and happily requires a person to develop some level of moral virtue and to free themselves of their vices. This has to do in significant part with the fact that even the things that vicious people valu...