“Moral Intelligence as Moral Skill: A Deontological Account”--Nick Schuster (UGA)

Virtue theorists in the eudaimonist tradition commonly hold that virtuous agents employ a special kind of practical intelligence to determine what their circumstances call for. To explain how people develop and exercise this capacity, many eudaimonists invoke the skill model of virtue. In this lecture, I'll advance an alternative, deontological account of moral intelligence as moral skill. I'll first discuss three apparent challenges for such a project. I'll then respond to each, demonstrating the viability of a deontological approach. Finally, I'll show how this approach can stand up to pressing critiques of the skill model of virtue, and virtue theory more generally, making it an attractive alternative to eudaimonism.

Nick Schuster received his Ph.D. from Washington University in St. Louis. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Georgia, he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Australian National University. Dr. Schuster has research interests in ethical theory, applied ethics, and the history of Western ethics. Much of his work focuses on what it means to be a good moral agent and how people develop into such agents. He also writes about the ethics and politics of artificial intelligence, regarding both how AI shapes human moral agency and how human moral agency shapes AI.