While many scholars find the early modern triad of virtues for women—silence, chastity, and obedience—to be straightforward and nonnegotiable, Jessica C. Murphy demonstrates that these virtues were by no means as direct and inflexible as they might seem. Drawing on the literature of the period—from the plays of Shakespeare to a conduct manual written for a princess to letters from a wife to her husband—as well as contemporary gender theory and philosophy, she uncovers the multiple meanings of behavioral expectations for sixteenth- and seventeenth-century women. Through her renegotiation of cultural ideals as presented in both literary and nonliterary texts of early modern England, Murphy presents models for “acceptable” women’s conduct that lie outside of the rigid prescriptions of the time. Virtuous Necessity will appeal to readers interested in early modern English literature, including canonical authors such as Shakespeare, Spenser, and Milton, as well as their female contemporaries such as Amelia Lanyer and Elizabeth Cary. It will also appeal to scholars of conduct literature; of early modern drama, popular literature, poetry, and prose; of women’s history; and of gender theory.

A new way of looking at behavioral expectations for women in early modern England

Author Raja Halwani discusses how virtue ethics illuminates the three central areas of our lives -- care, love, and sex -- which are often considered to be crucial to a well-lived life. Halwani concludes that virtue ethics allows for those sexual lifestyles that are deemed by traditional morality to be wrong -- promiscuity, open relationships, and sex work -- which boldly counters the conservative viewpoint of many virtue ethicists. This argument about the relationship between romantic love and virtue also examines the works of other philosophers.

This book provides a unified account of the connection between justice and the good life. It argues that the virtues of character require institutions, while good institutions enable persons to live together virtuously. Although virtue ethics and political philosophy are rich and sophisticated philosophical traditions, there has been an unfortunate divergence, in theory and practice, between the virtues of character and the virtues of institutions. This book has two primary purposes. First, it reorients political philosophy around the concept of the good life. To do so, the author addresses the problem of political authority from a virtue ethics perspective. He also considers whether a political theory oriented around the good life is compatible with Rawls’s notion of reasonable pluralism. Second, the book explains the relationship between the virtues of institutions and the virtues of character. The author shows how institutions support the development and exercise of the virtues of character, while examining specific other-regarding virtues such as justice and friendship. The Authority of Virtue will appeal to scholars and advanced students working in virtue ethics, social and political philosophy, ancient philosophy, and political theory.

In Effing the Ineffable, Wesley J. Wildman confronts the human obsession with ultimate reality and our desire to conceive and speak of this reality through religious language, despite the seeming impossibility of doing so. Each chapter is a meditative essay on an aspect of life that, for most people, is fraught with special spiritual significance: dreaming, suffering, creating, slipping, balancing, eclipsing, loneliness, intensity, and bliss. These moments can inspire religious questioning and commitment, and, in extreme situations, drive us in search of ways to express what matters most to us. Drawing upon American pragmatist, Anglo-American analytic, and Continental traditions of philosophical theology, Wildman shows how, through direct description, religious symbolism, and phenomenological experience, the language games of religion become a means to attempt, and, in some sense, to accomplish this task.

Throughout her life, Gabrielle Chanel was close to the greatest artists of her time, including poets Jean Cocteau and Pierre Reverdy, painters Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí, and composer Igor Stravinsky. The creative heritage of the House of CHANEL has continued throughout the decades, from Gabrielle Chanel to Karl Lagerfeld, in the form of a dialogue established between artists and authors. The impact of these individuals and others on Chanel’s designs is explored in detail throughout the book. Paintings, sketches, letters, documents, and rare archival photographs illustrate the influence of different eras and inspirations on the clothing, jewelry, and perfumes that have shaped fashion throughout the decades. Moving from the little black dress to the women’s suit to CHANEL No5, CULTURE CHANEL explores the bold path of a brand that has always known how to express the essence of its times, a fashion house that continues to be an enduring symbol of modernity.

The Bright and the Good examines the connection between intellectual and moral virtues both through the history of philosophy and as it can be illustrated in comprehensive examinations of specific virtues. The first part of the book investigates the original assumptions posited by Ancient Western philosophers concerning the apparent connection between moral and intellectual virtues. The second part follows the assumptions through history from the Medieval and Modern periods of philosophy, noting how the assumption has been tweaked to accommodate specific ideological and scientific precepts. The third part showcases inquiries into specific virtues, taking the reader on an investigation unfettered by any specific time period or ideology so as to consider the apparent connection between the moral and the intellectual on a case-by-case basis. These essays relate both historical context and contemporary concerns and examine topics including vice, ignorance, hope, courage, patience, justice and mercy.