Many people think that they are motivated to act morally by reference to a set of external rules.  Not me.  Although rules direct our attention to various problem-solving strategies, there are so many rules (and so many interpretations of rules) that people can easily "justify" almost any behavior by reference to…

Aristotle wrote with great insight and clarity that maintaining friendships was a prerequisite to acting virtuously. For Aristotle, to act virtuously was necessarily to consciously act for the right reasons.  But doing this requires bringing our non-rational parts into harmony with the rational.  Further, finding this harmony requires self-knowledge that…