The Center for Comparative Philosophy & Global Asia Initiative Joint Reading Workshop
Aristotle on the Connection Between Virtue and Happiness
Time: 12:00 – 14:00 Thursday Nov 10th
Location: West Duke 204
Main Speaker: Sukaina Hirji (Virginia Tech)
Sukaina Hirji (Princeton PhD) is Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Department at Virginia Tech. Her area of research specialty is ancient philosophy, with a particular focus on Aristotle.
Commentator: Sungwoo Um (Ph.D. Student, the Department of Philosophy, Duke University)
*There will be an informal Coffee Session with the speaker after the talk (2pm at Philosophy Department Lounge). Dr. Hirji will share with students and faculty her experience on the job market last year! You can join us at the coffee session if you cannot make to the talk!
** The Center for Comparative Philosophy will provide a light lunch for the workshop. The room will open from 12:00 for people to serve themselves and take a seat.
Abstract: In this talk, she sketches the structure of Aristotle’s own ethical theory, and suggests why it deserves renewed philosophical attention in its own right. She argues that neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics gets the structure of Aristotle’s ethical theory almost entirely backwards. According to her view, Aristotle’s theory gives us a way of understanding the necessary connection between being virtuous and being happy without being vulnerable to the charge of egoism.
