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Rousseau coined the term perfectibilité to name what he claimed was the faculty that distinguished human beings from other animals. Although Rousseau himself largely associated perfectibility with the tendency of the human race to become corrupt, later thinkers adopted his term but then transformed it into a concept denoting the human capacity for progress. This article has two goals. The first goal is to analyse Rousseau's discussion of perfectibilité in order to identify a specifically Rousseauean of perfectibilité. I identify three related features of Rousseau's perfectibilité: the ambiguous status of both instinct and freedom, the unique malleability of human nature, and the fact that perfectibilité operates on both the levels of the individual and the species. The second goal is to examine the transformation of this specifically Rousseauean conception in the thought of one of the thinker largely responsible for giving it a very different direction, Condorcet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most controversial issues in recent studies of Fichte concerns the status of his normative ethics, that is, his theory of what makes actions morally good or bad. Scholars are divided over Fichte's view regarding the 'final end' of moral striving, since it appears this end can be either a specific goal permitting maximizing calculations (the consequentialist reading defended by Kosch 2015), or an indeterminate goal permitting only duty-based decisions (the deontological reading defended by Wood 2016). While I think both interpretive positions contain an element of truth, my aim in this paper is to defend a third alternative, according to which Fichte's normative ethics presents us with a unique form of social perfectionism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

My aim is to vindicate two distinct and important moral categories - ideals and aspirations - which have received modest, and sometimes negative, attention in recent normative debates. An ideal is a conception of perfection or model of excellence around which we can shape our thoughts and actions. An aspiration, by contrast, is an attitudinal position of steadfast commitment to, striving for, or deep desire or longing for, an ideal. I locate these two concepts in relation to more familiar moral concepts such as duty, virtue, and the good to demonstrate, amongst other things, first, that what is morally significant about ideals and aspirations cannot be fully accommodated within a virtue ethical framework that gives a central role to the Virtuous Person as a purported model of excellence. On a certain interpretation, the Virtuous Person is not a meaningful ideal formoral agents. Second, I articulate one sense in which aspirations are morally required imaginative acts given their potential to expand the realm of practical moral possibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper examines the relationship between the aesthetic thought of Joseph Addison and Richard Steele and early modern virtuoso culture. It argues that both Addison and Steele did not reject virtuoso culture so much as to attempt to reform and redefine it. It is observed that Addison in particular wrote a virtuoso travel narrative in his Remarks on Italy as well as contributing to the discourse on antiquarian medal-collecting. In their writings on art and connoisseurship in the Tatler and Spectator essays, both Addison and Steele can be understood as defenders of a neo-classical aesthetic that rejected and ridiculed a supposedly indiscriminate virtuoso aesthetic of curiosity. But the essays are best understood as part of an important moment of transition in which an early enlightenment notion of taste emerged from a template established by baroque virtuosity rather than as a complete rejection of virtuoso culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the three kinds of idealization that include Galilean idealization, minimalist idealization, and representational idealization. According to the author, Galilean idealization is the practice of introducing distortions into theories with the goal of simplifying theories. Minimalist idealization is believed as the practice of constructing and studying theoretical models that only include core casual factors. Meanwhile, representational idealization demands the construction of a sole model for a particular target.

The article discusses the interpretation of Stanley Cavell to the works of philosopher Friedrich Wilhem Nietzsche. It explores Cavell's reading of Nietzsche, whom he described as a moral perfectionist, based on John Rawls' use of Nietzsche in the book "A Theory of Justice." It also discusses Cavell's arguments on the claims of Rawls that Nietzsche illustrates the principles of political perfectionism based on the content of his work "Schopenhauer as Educator," which Rawls condemns as inherently undemocratic and elitist. It highlights a different reading of the passages on which Rawls and Cavell base their political and moral perfectionist interpretations of Nietzsche.

The article examines the interpretation of Stanley Cavell and John Rawls on Friedrich Nietzsche's moral and political perfectionism as depicted in his book "Schopenhauer as Educator." Cavell defends Nietzsche's moral perfectionism because he believes that it is important in fashioning an internal critique of democracy. Meanwhile, Rawls criticizes Nietzsche's political perfectionism as both undemocratic and elitist. The author argues that Cavell is right when he claims that Nietzsche is not a political perfectionist.

Aristotle's ethical theory is often seen as instructing agents in the prudent pursuit of their own well-being, and therefore labeled egoistic. Yet it is also subject to the opposing charge of failing to direct agents to their well-being, directing them instead to perfection. I am here concerned chiefly with the second criticism, and proceed as follows: I first articulate Sumner's version of the criticism, and second assess his argument for his own (subjective) account of well-being. Third, I present reasons motivating a more objective account of well-being, reasons for taking another look at Aristotle. Finally, granting that Aristotle does indeed direct agents to pursue their perfection, I argue that perfection includes well-being within it. This shows how Aristotle escapes the second criticism, while at the same time pointing the way toward a defense against the first. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In any realm, perfection designates the highest possible satisfaction of a standard of value. Moral perfection essentially consists of a person's practicing his moral principles as fully as he is able. This paper defends moral perfection as a proper ideal. Perfection must be understood contextually, however, as relative to the capacities of a particular individual. The tendency to dismiss perfection as unattainable is problematic for three primary reasons: it undercuts morality's ability to perform its function; the corresponding failure to abide by one's principles exacts a severe psychological toll; by excusing immorality, it undermines the gravity of morality. The paper suggests two general sources of skepticism toward perfection's possibility and addresses several specific objections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on Michael Sandel's formative project about perfectionism, freedom, and virtue. With regards to perfection-based politics, Sandel works as a republicanism that is teleology or perfectionist in evaluating public rules in terms of the moral worth or intrinsic good of the ends they serve. On this view, the right is determined by what honors or advances some important human good. Furthermore, Sandel goes to defend a positive conception of freedom and the public promotion of substantive virtues linked to the realization of that freedom and that good.

This article focuses on the concept of justice and its relationship to desert and the ideal theory in philosophy. Justice requires that a person get what he or she deserves. It is a widely accepted claim, although the exact nature of the relationship between justice and desert becomes controversial as these concepts are specified in greater detail. John Rawls's rejection of desert as a basis for the just distribution of social resources is well known. According to Rawls, there is a tendency for common sense to suppose that the good things in life should be distributed according to moral desert. According to virtue, justice is happiness and justice as fairness rejects this conception. It is also crucial to remember that Rawls is interested in the principles of justice with which the basic structure of society can be evaluated. This structure consists of a society's political, social and economic institutions. It also considers how the social institutions fit together into one unified system of social cooperation. Therefore, when he asserts that the concept of moral worth does not provide a first principle of distributive justice, implicit is the addendum, for the purpose of evaluating the basic structure.

The article focuses on the sixth lecture of Professor E. H. Griggs on the new social ideal. Griggs cites the deepening of the personal attitude and the growth of the religion of human brotherhood as expressions of the new ideal. He believes that higher development of the individual could bring more possibility on the union of all. He relates individual perfection as social perfection.