Emotion, Cognition, and the Virtue of Flexibility

Chapter 4: The Virtue of Flexibility and the Unity of Feeling and Cognitive Capacities

In this chapter, I take up strands of argument from the previous three chapters and show how they collectively support a revised conception of virtue. Traditionally, philosophers have argued that virtue is a stable state. We want the virtuous person to be reliable, to act in predictable and consistent ways, reflective of a settled psychological state. If my arguments are compelling, however, we want more. We also want the virtuous person to be inventive and responsive to change. In other words, flexibility, as I call these attitudes and dispositions, is a virtue.

In Chapter 1, I developed the notion of basic emotional responses, which are emotional responses ...