Audrey L. Anton Knihy

The book critically analyzes three contemporary approaches to moral responsibility: sourcehood, sentiment, and reasons-responsive. It argues for the importance of linking retrospective moral responsibility with the desert of praise or blame. The author introduces the moral attitude account, suggesting that an agent's moral attitudes towards moral reasons shape their desert and that retrospective moral responsibility is reflected in their overt behavior. This perspective emphasizes the interplay between moral attitudes and accountability in ethical discussions.

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.