Professor will speak on Kantian and virtue ethics

by Alysun O'Brien

Tonight’s philosophy speaker will look to take some of the most mind-boggling philosophical issues and boil them down to a 50-minute lecture.

It should be good.

Robert Johnson, associate professor of philosophy at the University of Missouri will present the 2002 Philosophy Lecture on Kant’s ethics and virtue ethics.

The forum event will be held at 7:30 p.m. in Lekberg Hall.

John Pauley, professor of philosophy, was given the task of recruiting a speaker for this year’s lecture.

“I know [Johnson] from graduate school,” said Pauley. “He’s a really good ethicist and he’s done a lot of publishing. He’s also been a very successful professor at the University of Missouri.”

Johnson described some of the nuts and bolts of virtue ethics

“A person who is completely virtuous would not try to keep track of their habits of thought and actions,” Johnson said. “They would not try to change their thinking about themselves and their circumstances.”

Pauley also said Johnson was a very good teacher and would be able to show how virtue ethics relates to other ethical theories in a comprehensible way.

“I let him know that the majority of his audience would be undergraduates so he would know how to reach his audience intellectually,” said Pauley. “If students attend they will get a lot of out of this presentation and they’ll understand why virtue ethics is such an important issue.”