Stuck with Virtue Conference Series
Conference Directors
Peter Augustine Lawler, Ph.D., Dana Professor and Chair of the Department of Government and International Studies, Berry College
Marc D. Guerra, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Programs in Theology, Ave Maria University
Funded by the University of Chicago’s Science of Virtues Project, the Stuck with Virtue Conference Series defends the commonsensical but not self-evident belief that virtue is a naturally good and desirable feature of human life. Working from the premise that human beings are by nature stuck with virtue, the conference series broadly seeks to identify the intellectual, educational, and civic framework in which an intellectually serious and humanly satisfying new science of virtue could reasonably hope to unfold and develop. To this end, it will hold three separate, but related, interdisciplinary conferences in which recognized experts in the fields of biology, genetics, sociology, political science, philosophy, and theology reflect collectively on the nature of human beings, human freedom, human virtue, and human happiness. Spread out over a two year period, the Stuck with Virtue Conference Series investigates fundamental questions that should be of interest and profit to specialists in particular fields as well as students interested in an interdisciplinary approach to the study of virtue. One of the Directors’ general objectives is to lay down foundations for future forums in which college and university educators in the natural and human sciences can jointly think about the indispensible role that virtue plays in human life. To facilitate the likelihood of such future discussions, the papers and responses given in this conference series will be published in both book and journal form.
A true science of virtue cannot be formulated abstractly. It must be mindful of the way in which the understanding of virtue—and by extension the problem of virtue—typically confronts human beings today. To a great degree, contemporary ideas about the grounds and substance of human virtue can be traced back to the thought of three modern thinkers: Rene Descartes, John Locke, and Charles Darwin. The Directors of the Stuck with Virtue Conference Series believe that a new science of virtue ultimately must be able to incorporate the real but partial truths articulated by the various forms of Cartesian, Lockean, and Darwinian science. This is a signature and in some sense unique feature of this conference series’ contribution to contemporary virtue research. At the same time, the Directors recognize that a true and humanly satisfying science of human beings must be willing to recognize the internal limitations of these forms of science. A genuine science of virtue must be informed by the natural and biological sciences that Descartes and Darwin inspired. But it cannot be exhausted by these sciences. Similarly, a genuine science of virtue must be informed by the kinds of moral and political science that Locke inspired. But it cannot be exhausted by these sciences either. Simply put, a true science of virtue necessarily has to be able to relate what Nature biologically equips human being with to the ineradicable demands of what human nature genuinely requires for its perfection. A true science of virtue must be able to cast light on the fact that our distinctive excellences, troubles, flaws, and capacities have a real and discernable foundation both in our pre-scientific perception of ourselves and in our scientifically formulated descriptions of nature and ends of human life.
The approach advocated by the Stuck with Virtue Conference Series can be called genuinely postmodern. But it is not postmodern in the hyper-modern sense in which that term is typically used today. Rather, the approach taken here requires contemporary human beings to move beyond the limits of modern or Cartesian or constructivist thought and towards the recovery of an authentic moral, political, and metaphysical realism. The Directors truly think that a science of virtue that is attuned to the natural, personal logos that mysteriously grounds and distinguishes the life of each human being really does exist and can be articulated. The Stuck with Virtue Conference Series thus directly responds to one of the enduring challenges of the virtuous life itself, namely, the need to understand the relation between who we are, what we have been given, and the concrete circumstances in which we presently find ourselves.