He argues that virtue is a 'perceptual capacity' to identify how one ought to act, and that all particular virtues are merely 'specialized sensitivities' to a range of reasons for acting.Īristotle identifies approximately eighteen virtues that enable a person to perform their human function well. He distinguished virtues pertaining to emotion and desire from those relating to the mind. The first he calls 'moral' virtues, and McDowell is a recent defender of this conception. Socrates argued that virtue is knowledge, which suggests that there is really only one virtue. The Stoics concurred, claiming the four cardinal virtues were only aspects of true virtue. There are several lists of particular virtues.
