So is virtue a character trait possessed by some but not others? Is it derived from reason? Or does it flow from the innate sympathies of the human heart? For the last two thousand years philosophers have grappled with these ideas, but now in the twenty first century a modern reappraisal of virtue is taking the argument back to basics with Aristotle.

Guests
Galen Strawson, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Reading
Miranda Fricker, Lecturer in Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London
Roger Crisp, Uehiro Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at St Anne's College, Oxford.
Listen to Roger Crisp
Listen to Galen Strawson
Listen to Miranda Fricker
Listen to conclusion


Aristotle, *Nicomachean Ethics* (trans. R. Crisp, Cambridge University Press)
R. Crisp and M. Slote (ed.), *Virtue Ethics* (Oxford University Press) [this is a collection of modern articles, with a bibliography at the end]

NEXT WEEK - JOHN MILTON
We will be discussing the poet John Milton and his role in history.What role did Milton’s politics play in his poetry and did he succeed in his aim to ‘justify the ways of God to men.’?