Talbot Brewer is an American philosopher and Professor of Philosophy at the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson and contains his The Lawn, Academical Village, a World H ...

. He is known for his works on

moral philosophy Ethics is the philosophical study of moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches include normative ethics, applied et ...

Philosophy

Brewer is known for his idea of "dialectical activity," arguing that contemporary moral philosophy is hindered by a production-oriented conception of

human agency Agency is the capacity of an actor to act in a given environment. It is independent of the moral dimension, which is called moral agency. In sociology, an agent is an individual engaging with the social structure. Notably, though, the primacy o ...

and action. He tries to retrieve a different "dialectical" conception of human agency drawing on classical moral philosophy (mainly

Aristotle Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...

). He believes that our ritual activities show our presence in and to the world. Christopher Cordner provided a criticism of Brewer's idea and argued that this picture of ritual activities is not fully recognised in the dialectical conception of human agency. Lorraine Besser-Jones argues that Brewer's idea of human agency is incompatible with empirical evidence on

motivation Motivation is an mental state, internal state that propels individuals to engage in goal-directed behavior. It is often understood as a force that explains why people or animals initiate, continue, or terminate a certain behavior at a particul ...

and concludes that proposing the good life as a unified dialectical activity is implausible. Mark LeBar describes Brewer's work as saving moral philosophy from "the grip of bad questions and worse answers" and calls it an "ambitious aim." In her book ''Aspiration: The Agency of Becoming'', Agnes Callard (from the University of Chicago) proposes her aspirational theory of morality and distinguishes it from Brewer's dialectical theory. Jon Garthoff (from the University of Tennessee) proposes a “dynamic approximation” model of virtues based on Brewer’s dialectical idea of virtue acquisition and Rawl's theory of justice. In this model, emphasis and focus on a value gradually enables more engagement with it and more acknowledgement of it. In a paper on teleological hospitality, Melissa Fitzpatrick (from Boston College) provides a critical interpretation of Brewer's work and argues that a crucial component of human flourishing is hospitality towards others. Christopher Bennett (from the University of Sheffield) uses Brewer's idea of dialectical activity to provide an interpretation of Wenders' film ''

Paris, Texas Paris is a city and county seat of Lamar County, Texas, United States. Located in Northeast Texas at the western edge of the Piney Woods, the population of the city was 24,171 in 2020. History Present-day Lamar County was part of Red River ...

''.

Books

*'' The Retrieval of Ethics'', Oxford University Press 2009. The book is in 481 libraries contributing to WorldCat. * ''The Bounds of Choice: Unchosen Virtues, Unchosen Commitments'', Routledge & Kegan Paul 2000 The book is in 131 libraries contributing to WorldCat.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Brewer, Talbot 21st-century American philosophers American philosophy academics American political philosophers University of Virginia faculty Harvard University alumni American moral psychologists Living people Year of birth missing (living people)