KENNEDY INSTITUTE OF ETHICS JOURNAL

An Aristotelian conception of practical ethics can be derived from the account of practical reasoning that Aristotle articulates in his Rhetoric and this has important implications for the way we understand the nature and limits of practical ethics. An important feature of this conception of practical ethics is its responsiveness to the complex ways in which agents form and maintain moral commitments, and this has important implications for the debate concerning methods of ethics in applied ethics. In particular, this feature enables us to understand casuistry, narrative, and principlism as mutually supportive modes of moral inquiry, rather than divergent and mutually exclusive methods of ethics. As a result, an Aristotelian conception of practical ethics clears the conceptual common ground upon which practical ethicists can forge a stable and realistic self-understanding.

亚里士多德的实践伦理学概念可以从亚里士多德在他的修辞学中阐明的实践推理的论述中得到，这对我们理解实践伦理学的本质和局限性具有重要的意义。实践伦理学这一概念的一个重要特征是，它对行为人形成和维持道德承诺的复杂方式作出反应，这对应用伦理学中有关伦理学方法的辩论具有重要意义。特别是，这一特性使我们能够将诡辩、叙事和原则主义理解为相互支持的道德探究模式，而不是相互排斥的、发散的道德方法。因此，亚里士多德的实践伦理学概念为实践伦理学家建立稳定的、现实的自我理解扫清了概念上的共同基础。