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Moral Illiteracy and the Case for Character Education

Moral Illiteracy and the Case for Character Education

In After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre observes that in all classical and heroic societies, “the chief means of moral education is the telling of stories.” In a real sense the heroes of the Iliad and the Odyssey were the moral tutors of the Greeks. Likewise Aeneas was the model of heroic piety on which young Romans […]

Reaching for Infinity

Reaching for Infinity

It is the prerogative of the Christian to reach for unreachable things. The Christian teacher seeks to guide others toward a life of virtue. That virtue can be taught, or for that matter, that it cannot be taught, presupposes how our efforts relate to it. What is virtue, then, such that we may strive for […]

Tentatio: A Teacher of Virtue

Tentatio: A Teacher of Virtue

One Latin word encapsulates suffering: tentatio. Wrapped with adversity and affliction, tentatio depicts trial and temptation, the intense internal struggle from the crosses we bear and the crosses we cause others to bear. Tentatio can make us writhe and groan, tremble and doubt. With good reason we pray: “Lead us not into temptation” (ne nos […]

Virtue and Discipline in the Arts

Virtue and Discipline in the Arts

Few people recognize engagement in the arts as an intrinsic element of spiritual virtue. To use the words of Pope John Paul II from his “Letter to Artists,” penned in 1999, [T]rue art has a close affinity with the world of faith, so that, even in situations where culture and the Church are far apart, […]

Ethics Without Virtue

Ethics Without Virtue

What do students in our nation’s schools do all day? Most of them are clearly not spending their time reading the classics, learning math, or studying the physical sciences. It is likely that, along with photography workshops, keeping journals, and perhaps learning about computers, students spend part of their day in moral education classes. But […]

Curing the Disease of the Soul

We all want our children to become virtuous, so we naturally shop around for the schools and communities that have the best results. Upon inspection, however, we find that the graduating classes at even the best schools are not infallibly filled with saints. Parents eventually complain. Teachers complain too. “Perhaps we should include more hard […]

How to Argue

How To Argue

When I worked in public policy many years ago, one of my jobs was to take long policy papers from think tanks and reduce them down to one or two pages for state lawmakers. I also wrote the scripts for a popular radio show called “Point/Counterpoint” on a very large network in which two people […]

Through A Glass Wine-Darkly

Through a Glass Wine-Darkly

Have you heard the one about the color blue? The story goes that the Greeks had no word for the color. In Homer, things traditionally thought of as blue—the sea, the sky—go by gloomy words like “brazen” or “wine-dark.” Trivial as it may seem, this is the fact that launched a thousand speculative ships towards […]

Letter from the Editor Late Summer 2021: After Virtue

After Virtue

In 1981, a book was published by a well-regarded, but-until-then-not-terribly-famous philosopher. The book was called After Virtue; the author was Alasdair MacIntyre. The book sent shock waves throughout the academic community—shock waves that resonate even today. Some consider it the most influential book of philosophy published in the last fifty years. In the succeeding years […]

The Lasting Courage of Alexander the Great

The Lasting Courage of Alexander the Great

In the autumn of 324 BC, Alexander stood up and looked at the faces of his Macadonian army. He had seen these faces many times before. Seven years earlier before the battle of Gaugamela, Alexander saw in the faces of these same men a fierce love and a resolute spirit that led to a decisive […]

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