Author: Robert Merrihew Adams File Type: pdf The distinguished philosopher Robert M. Adams presents a major work on virtue, which is once again a central topic in ethical thought. A Theory of Virtue is a systematic, comprehensive framework for thinking about the moral evaluation of character. Many recent attempts to stake out a place in moral philosophy for this concern define virtue in terms of its benefits for the virtuous person or for human society more generally. In Part One Adams presents and defends a conception of virtue as intrinsic excellence of character, worth prizing for its own sake and not only for its benefits. In the other two parts he addresses two challenges to the ancient idea of excellence of character. One challenge arises from the importance of altruism in modern ethical thought, and the question of what altruism has to do with intrinsic excellence. Part Two argues that altruistic benevolence does indeed have a crucial place in excellence of character, but that moral virtue should also be expected to involve excellence in being for other goods besides the well-being (and the rights) of other persons. It explores relations among cultural goods, personal relationships, ones own good, and the good of others, as objects of excellent motives. The other challenge, the subject of Part Three of the book, is typified by doubts about the reality of moral virtue, arising from experiments and conclusions in social psychology. Adams explores in detail the prospects for an empirically realistic conception of excellence of character as an object of moral aspiration, endeavor, and education. He argues that such a conception will involve renunciation of the ancient thesis of the unity or mutual implication of all virtues, and acknowledgment of sufficient moral luck in the development of any individuals character to make virtue very largely a gift, rather than an individual achievement, though nonetheless excellent and admirable for that. **

Author: Phoebe Lin File Type: pdf To apply the same approaches to analysing spoken and written formulaic language is problematic to do so masks the fact that the contextual meaning of spoken formulaic language is encoded, to a large extent, in its prosody. In The Prosody of Formulaic Sequences, Phoebe Lin offers a new perspective on formulaic language, arguing that while past research often treats formulaic language as a lexical phenomenon, the phonological aspect of it is a more fundamental facet. This book draws its conclusions from three original, empirical studies of spoken formulaic language, assessing intonation unit boundaries as well as features such as tempo and stress placement. Across all studies, Lin considers questions of methodology and conceptual framework. The corpus-based descriptions of prosody outlined in this book not only deepen our understanding of the nature of formulaic language but have important implications for English Language Teaching and automatic speech synthesis. **Review In a linguistic research world dominated by the computers love of the written word, we need a more methodical approach to the characterization and identification of formulaic language in speech. Phoebe Lins very welcome book takes the reader through the complex process of empirically identifying contributory factors marking formulaicity in spoken language, and explores methods for improving its identification. Alison Wray, Research Professor in Language and Communication, Cardiff University, UK Phoebe Lins study is a very welcome contribution to the field of applied linguistics. She extends the traditional study of FS as discrete structures and reveals the importance of their functions in different discourse environments. The book is packed with insights and is highly recommended for advanced students and researchers. Ronald Carter, Research Professor of Modern English Language, University of Nottingham, UK The volume is a valuable and timely addition to the existing literature on formulaic language. Although recent years have seen a lot of interest in this phenomenon, prosody has been largely overlooked. The three empirical studies that make up the volume shed important light on the prosody of formulaic language, highlighting its unique role in language learning and use, and providing a rich research agenda for future enquiry. Anna Siyanova, Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand About the Author Phoebe M. S. Lin is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong.