The hottest Virtue ethics Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
Category
Top Philosophy Topics

I Care a Lot What People Think

Richard Hanania's Newsletter • 1950 implied HN points • 22 Jan 26
đź“– Philosophy Virtue ethics
  1. Whether you're seen as virtuous depends on which audiences you're trying to impress; you care more about opinions from people you respect.
  2. Who criticizes you shapes your feelings—criticism from someone you admire makes you hurt and rethink yourself, while criticism from someone you dislike can feel entertaining or irrelevant.
  3. Feedback matters most when it comes from people you find honest, competent, and trustworthy, and their disapproval can lead you to change your behavior.

Are Bad Researchers Bad People?

Heterodox STEM • 263 implied HN points • 01 Feb 26
đź“– Philosophy Virtue ethics
  1. Intellectual virtues like humility, open-mindedness, and integrity are crucial to sound inquiry because they help researchers notice and correct biases.
  2. Practicing these virtues improves research quality, helps expose pseudoscience, and reduces political polarization by making people less likely to dismiss opposing views or cling to weak evidence.
  3. Teaching and modeling epistemic virtues—through classroom practices, checklists, and dedicated programs—can strengthen scholarship and make public debate more reliable and civil.

The Day Everything Changed

The Stoic Journal • 76 implied HN points • 15 Feb 26
đź“– Philosophy Virtue ethics
  1. Philosophical conversion is a sudden, total reorientation of values that makes your previous life and priorities feel hollow and strange.
  2. When real conversion happens, philosophy isn't just self-help or a hobby — it becomes the main guiding principle that reshapes everything you care about.
  3. Most people only tweak or optimize their existing beliefs instead of letting philosophy destroy and rebuild their identity, which is why few become true philosophers.

After Orthogonality: Virtue-Ethical Agency and AI Alignment

The Gradient • 33 implied HN points • 19 Feb 26
đź“– Philosophy Virtue ethics
  1. Rational human action isn’t mainly about chasing fixed final goals. Instead, people act by aligning with practices — networks of actions, habits, standards, and resources that shape and sustain good activity.
  2. If AI are to genuinely support, collaborate with, or comply with people, their reasoning needs the same practice-based structure; they should think in terms of norms, skills, and evolving standards rather than optimizing static goals.
  3. So AI alignment should focus on building agents that learn, participate in, and help cultivate human practices — a virtue-ethical, eudaimonic form of rationality — rather than assuming arbitrary objective functions.

The Obstacle Becomes the Path

The Stoic Journal • 81 implied HN points • 05 Feb 26
đź“– Philosophy Virtue ethics
  1. Obstacles aren’t just roadblocks but the path itself, so use whatever comes up as the real practice you need right now.
  2. You always have a choice: you can rage at the interruption or adapt like water and find a new way to act and grow.
  3. Different obstacles train different virtues—when one practice is blocked, practice acceptance, patience, or temperance instead, because training never stops.
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Morning as Training Ground

The Stoic Journal • 60 implied HN points • 08 Feb 26
đź“– Philosophy Virtue ethics
  1. Use the morning as a deliberate practice: aim to think clearly, act fairly, and accept what’s beyond your control.
  2. Treat everyday annoyances—commute delays, difficult people, missed deadlines—as chances to train patience, gentleness, and persistence.
  3. Look for what will go wrong because those moments build your character; choose to face the day ready to get stronger instead of complaining.

The Hard Bed Test

The Stoic Journal • 40 implied HN points • 13 Feb 26
đź“– Philosophy Virtue ethics
  1. Deliberately choosing small discomforts builds mental strength and resilience.
  2. Relying on constant conveniences makes you softer and more fragile when things go wrong.
  3. Removing nonessential comforts tests your limits and increases freedom by showing what you can truly live without.

On gentleness

The Stoic Journal • 60 implied HN points • 25 Jan 26
đź“– Philosophy Virtue ethics
  1. Announcing your gentleness makes it performative and signals a subtle superiority.
  2. Real gentleness is effortless and shows naturally in your voice and eyes; it comes from being the kind of person who doesn’t have to try.
  3. To be genuinely gentle, change what you believe about others — assume they’re doing their best and that mistakes come from limited perspective, not malice.

What if virtue came naturally?

The Stoic Journal • 60 implied HN points • 22 Jan 26
đź“– Philosophy Virtue ethics
  1. People often admire those who seem naturally good and worry that their own goodness looks forced.
  2. Others only see the result, not the inner struggle, so hard-won virtue looks the same as effortless virtue to them.
  3. The real achievement is continuing to do the work anyway, even without recognition. Persistence and the will to keep trying are themselves a kind of gift.

How to be more earnestly curious

Adaobi’s Newsletter • 17 implied HN points • 20 Feb 26
🎭️ Culture Virtue ethics
  1. Earnest curiosity is a quiet, warm way of listening that makes people feel known and interesting.
  2. It naturally includes people and disarms defensiveness by assuming best intent, which makes honest conversation possible.
  3. You can practice it with simple habits—ask how people spend their time, follow and recount conversational threads, keep eye contact, notice outsiders, and follow up on incomplete answers.

Temperance Contra Superabundance

thestoa • 471 implied HN points • 23 Jan 24
đź“– Philosophy Virtue ethics
  1. Smith advocates reducing supply chain dependency and cultivating trusted personal networks.
  2. There are two competing futures: the end of superabundance or a techno-capital machine leading to abundance for all.
  3. Temperance is essential regardless of whether the era of superabundance is ending or beginning.

Five questions that will change your life

Figs in Winter: New Stoicism and beyond • 805 implied HN points • 06 Mar 23
đź“– Philosophy Virtue ethics
  1. Death is a universal human preoccupation, but certain arguments and perspectives can help alleviate the fear of death.
  2. Handling pain and grief requires acknowledging and accepting the inevitability of suffering and loss, while finding ways to endure and grow from these experiences.
  3. Emotions can be challenged or encouraged based on their alignment with reason, and developing emotional resilience involves cognitive evaluation and management.

Mixing Mental Arts

Polymathic Being • 56 implied HN points • 21 Dec 25
đź“– Philosophy Virtue ethics
  1. Slowicism blends Stoicism and Taoism: tame your emotions with reframing and use Wu Wei, or intentional non-action, to stop automatic reactions.
  2. Slowing down and refusing to react to every outrage or piece of information clears space to think more deeply and prevents cascading bad outcomes.
  3. You need steady practice because these habits build flow, restore your agency, and create compounding improvements that make life calmer and more effective.

The psychology of evil

Building the Builders • 19 implied HN points • 28 Jan 26
đź“– Philosophy Virtue ethics
  1. Evil often grows from self-deception: when anger and grievance get untethered from real values, people justify rumination and victim narratives that can escalate into destructive behavior.
  2. The key choice point is what you do when you notice you’re spiraling — either honestly examine your motives and reorient toward constructive aims, or rationalize and double down, and those repeated choices determine whether you heal or become corrosive.
  3. The antidote is to reorient toward building real values: take responsibility, calibrate your feelings to the facts, limit rumination, and pursue constructive solutions instead of getting energy from others’ downfall.

"Values are what command our allegiance"

The Joyous Struggle • 138 implied HN points • 13 Mar 23
đź“– Philosophy Virtue ethics
  1. Values play a significant role in directing our loyalty and commitment.
  2. Direct perception of value is a complex and important concept, delving into the core of our understanding of 'good' and 'value'.
  3. Public discussions on values encompass various dimensions, from moral foundations to intrinsic and extrinsic values, shaping societal attitudes and behaviors.

Perennial Problems, Projects & Philosophies - Part 1

Weekly Wisdom • 119 implied HN points • 04 May 23
đź“– Philosophy Virtue ethics
  1. Human existence is marked by a balance between living for the moment and planning for an uncertain future.
  2. The pursuit of material wealth and fame may lose appeal in the face of mortality, leading to a focus on benefiting others.
  3. A key aspect of human life is the quest to cultivate wisdom, virtue, and excellence, striving towards understanding what it means to be a good human being.

What I've Been Reading | June 2023

Caleb’s Newsletter • 98 implied HN points • 01 Jul 23
đź“– Philosophy Virtue ethics
  1. The book 'Learning to Live Naturally' by Chris Gill explores Stoic philosophy and the importance of virtue ethics.
  2. Confucius's 'Analects' is a profound work that provides valuable insights into life and human behavior.
  3. Both Stoicism and Confucianism emphasize the importance of moral virtue and living in harmony with nature.

Ehud Olmert on Gaza; reading After Virtue after bureaucracy; A Postscript

Unpopular Front • 42 implied HN points • 25 May 25
đź“– Philosophy Virtue ethics
  1. Ehud Olmert, a former Israeli Prime Minister, openly condemns the actions in Gaza as war crimes, highlighting the severity of the situation.
  2. Philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre argues that modern moral discourse is fragmented and often reduced to mere emotional manipulation, lacking real substance.
  3. MacIntyre believes that true moral judgments are factual and based on social roles, suggesting we need to revive older traditions to find genuine meaning in our practices.

A Measure of Excellence

Jake [Building in NYC] • 19 implied HN points • 02 Feb 24
đź“– Philosophy Virtue ethics
  1. Excellence comes from creating and pursuing what is good and beautiful in life. The more you create, the more you grow in excellence.
  2. Artifacts, or creations like art, writing, and projects, show evidence of our existence and impact on the world. The more artifacts you have, the more impact you likely have.
  3. To become excellent, keep creating and don't be afraid to start. Just like any skill, practice helps you improve and get closer to your goals.

Apprentice, Partner, Mentor, Monk

Vic's Verdict • 1 implied HN point • 19 Jan 26
đź“– Philosophy Virtue ethics
  1. Duty is an active form of love that pulls people into four archetypal callings—apprentice (serving elders), mentor (serving dependents), partner (serving peers), and monk (serving strangers).
  2. How you best serve others depends on your toolkit—body, mind, heart, or soul—and each mode has strengths and risks if overused, from burnout to emotional vampirism or authoritarianism.
  3. You must regularly check your motives to tell angelic duty from its selfish impostors, because true duty is a way of being beyond a job and needs to be balanced with personal desires.

Real Morality?

Orbis Tertius • 71 implied HN points • 29 May 23
đź“– Philosophy Virtue ethics
  1. Morality can be viewed as a decision-support system, not an absolute truth.
  2. Mathematics is a created formal system based on chosen axioms.
  3. In both math and morality, the axioms chosen shape the system and guide evaluations.

Cultivating a Good Character

DecafQuest's Newsletter • 0 implied HN points • 12 Mar 23
⛪ Faith & Spirituality Virtue ethics
  1. Virtue theory emphasizes the importance of habituating virtues like honesty and courage for a good character.
  2. Aristotle believed that living in accordance with reason and pursuing balance in actions lead to good character.
  3. A balanced pursuit of virtues, residing between extremes, and engaging in both practical and intellectual virtues, contributes to a good and practical life.