1. Ernest Sosa, virtue epistemology. It is now generally accepted that, in ethical philosophy, the dichotomy between teleological and deontological ethics is too simple. There is a new (old) kid at the table, "virtue ethics." The idea behind that label is that if one has certain character traits (virtues) then what one does will be right. The traits can be isolated and discussed independent of ideas of rightness, so that justice isn't a virtue because it leads to just decisions: rather, we know certain decisions to be just because just people make them! With Sosa and others, "virtue ethics" has expanded into "virtue epistemology." The idea is the same: evaluation passes from the acts to the doers in the former case, it passes from knowledge to the knowers in the latter. 2. John McDowell, a disjunctive theory of perceptual experience McDowell (portrayed above) is a realist about the external world. He sees a certain "tempting"line of...
