A student argues: 'Moral exemplar theory is circular — you need to know what virtue is to identify the exemplars, and then you use the exemplars to define virtue. This makes the whole approach useless.' What is the best response?
AThe student is correct — the circularity makes exemplar-based ethics formally invalid as a foundation for morality
BThe circularity is not vicious: it operates as reflective equilibrium, where intuitions about admirable people and conceptions of virtue mutually refine each other
CThe circularity is avoided by restricting exemplars to historical figures whose virtue has been verified by subsequent generations
DWe break the circularity by first deriving virtue from abstract principles, then checking exemplars against those principles
Zagzebski's response is that this circularity reflects the same reflective equilibrium operating throughout ethical theorizing. We begin with intuitions about admirable people, use those to refine our conception of virtue, then use the refined conception to correct our intuitions about who counts as an exemplar. This is mutual calibration — a virtuous circle — not a vicious one. Option D would reduce exemplar ethics to principle-based ethics with an added check, losing the point: exemplars are supposed to teach things pure principles cannot capture, including the situational content of practical wisdom.
Question 2 Multiple Choice
Zagzebski distinguishes between moral heroes, saints, and sages. What distinguishes a hero from a sage?
AHeroes act under public scrutiny; sages work privately and avoid recognition
BHeroes perform extraordinary acts under duress; sages embody wisdom and deep understanding of how to live well
DHeroes are historical figures; sages are idealized fictional constructs
The explainer defines Zagzebski's taxonomy: heroes perform extraordinary acts under duress (illuminating courage and fortitude in crisis); saints are motivated by pure benevolence or devotion (illuminating moral motivation); sages embody wisdom and understanding of how to live well (illuminating phronesis). These are analytical distinctions about what aspect of moral excellence each type makes visible — not descriptions of personality or publicity. The hero shows us what virtue looks like under extreme pressure; the sage shows us what integrated practical wisdom looks like across a whole life.
Question 3 True / False
For a person to serve as a moral exemplar in the philosophically relevant sense, they should have lived in ideal circumstances free from serious moral difficulty or ambiguity.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: False
The explainer says the opposite: 'part of what makes historical exemplars instructive is that their virtue was developed under conditions of real difficulty and moral ambiguity, not in ideal circumstances.' A person who is virtuous only when everything goes right shows nothing philosophically useful about virtue. It is precisely the exemplar's navigation of hard cases — conflicting obligations, incomplete information, real sacrifice — that reveals what virtue looks like when it matters most. Ideal circumstances don't test virtue; difficulty reveals it.
Question 4 True / False
Moral exemplars function as evidence that virtue is achievable, not merely as inspirational ideals that may be beyond ordinary human reach.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: True
This is stated as a core function of exemplars in the explainer: they 'show that virtues are achievable.' This is philosophically significant — exemplars are not utopian fictions but real human beings who actually developed excellent character under actual conditions. This evidentiary role distinguishes exemplar-based ethics from theories that derive virtue purely from abstract principles: the exemplar proves that the ideal has been instantiated in actual human life, grounding virtue ethics in what is humanly possible rather than what is merely logically conceivable.
Question 5 Short Answer
What does it mean to say that moral exemplars demonstrate phronesis 'in action,' and why can't this be fully captured by a verbal definition of practical wisdom?
Think about your answer, then reveal below.
Model answer: Phronesis is the capacity to perceive morally salient features of a situation and respond appropriately — but 'appropriately' cannot be specified in advance by rules. An exemplar shows phronesis in action by actually navigating a hard case: seeing which features matter, weighing them correctly, and responding with the right kind and degree of virtue rather than applying a formula. Watching this happen teaches something a definition cannot: what the situation felt like, which temptations arose, and how virtue showed up under those specific conditions.
Virtue is not an algorithm. If it were, we could simply codify it as rules and skip the exemplars entirely. The reason exemplars are philosophically necessary — not just pedagogically useful — is that some moral knowledge is situational: it can only be acquired through exposure to concrete cases. A definition of courage ('the mean between cowardice and recklessness') gives you the shape of courage but not how to recognize the moment when it is called for, what the bodily and emotional experience of exercising it is like, or how the courageous person looks to others. Exemplars provide this irreplaceable situational content.