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Excellent Traits in Public Health: Virtuous Structures and the Structure of Virtue

Excellent Traits in Public Health: Virtuous Structures and the Structure of Virtue MacKay’s Public Health Virtue Ethics offers a distinctive approach to public health ethics, with social structures at the forefront. MacKay’s helpful overview of the recent literature considers three distinct referents for ascribing virtues in public health ethics: (i) individuals, such as public health practitioners, (ii) social structures, such as public health institutions and policies and (iii) the communities affected by public health policy. While MacKay is interested in virtuous structures, I am interested in the structure of virtue as a precursor to this approach. In this commentary, I seek to unpack the structure of virtue itself, to delineate what various accounts of public health virtues offer, including MacKay’s new account. For such clarity, I turn to David Pears’ neo-Aristotelian essay on moral courage, in which he distinguishes external goals, internal goals and countergoals. Additional virtue vocabulary advances discussion of how the moral psychology of virtue traditions can be best adapted to public health professions, policy and practice. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Public Health Ethics Oxford University Press

Excellent Traits in Public Health: Virtuous Structures and the Structure of Virtue

Meagher, Karen M
Public Health Ethics , Volume 15 (1): 7 – Mar 25, 2022
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References (13)

Publisher
Oxford University Press
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press. Available online at www.phe.oxfordjournals.org
ISSN
1754-9973
eISSN
1754-9981
DOI
10.1093/phe/phac003
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

MacKay’s Public Health Virtue Ethics offers a distinctive approach to public health ethics, with social structures at the forefront. MacKay’s helpful overview of the recent literature considers three distinct referents for ascribing virtues in public health ethics: (i) individuals, such as public health practitioners, (ii) social structures, such as public health institutions and policies and (iii) the communities affected by public health policy. While MacKay is interested in virtuous structures, I am interested in the structure of virtue as a precursor to this approach. In this commentary, I seek to unpack the structure of virtue itself, to delineate what various accounts of public health virtues offer, including MacKay’s new account. For such clarity, I turn to David Pears’ neo-Aristotelian essay on moral courage, in which he distinguishes external goals, internal goals and countergoals. Additional virtue vocabulary advances discussion of how the moral psychology of virtue traditions can be best adapted to public health professions, policy and practice.

Journal

Public Health Ethics – Oxford University Press

Published: Mar 25, 2022

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