ABSTRACT

This study suggests that news obituaries have a role to play in educating practical reason using The New York Times’ Overlooked project to illustrate. The argument draws from virtue ethicist Alasdair MacIntyre’s book Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity. A close reading of Overlooked’s15 initial obituaries used the biographies in MacIntyre’s book as templates. The analysis concluded that the articles on LGBTQ activist Marsha P. Johnson and novelist Charlotte Brontë illustrated lives that were happy in an Aristotelian sense despite misfortune. The articles on journalist Ida B. Wells and mathematician Ada Lovelace illustrated incomplete lives despite overall directedness. The articles on novelist Nella Larsen and Brooklyn Bridge supervisor Emily Warren Roebling illustrated the challenge of reconciling different aspects of one’s life to achieve unity of character. This finding was closely tied to how structural injustice prevents or distorts the kinds of relationships MacIntyre says agents need to flourish.

摘要

这项研究表明，新闻讣告在教育实际理性方面可以发挥作用，使用纽约时报的“被忽视的项目”来说明。该论点来自美德伦理学家阿拉斯代尔·麦金太尔 (Alasdair MacIntyre) 的著作《现代性冲突中的伦理学》. 仔细阅读 Overlooked 的 15 首讣告，使用了 MacIntyre 书中的传记作为模板。分析得出的结论是，关于 LGBTQ 活动家玛莎·P·约翰逊和小说家夏洛特·勃朗特的文章说明了尽管不幸，但在亚里士多德意义上的幸福生活。关于记者 Ida B. Wells 和数学家 Ada Lovelace 的文章说明了不完整的生活，尽管总体上是有指导性的。关于小说家内拉拉森和布鲁克林大桥主管艾米丽沃伦罗布林的文章说明了调和一个人生活的不同方面以实现性格统一的挑战。这一发现与结构性不公正如何阻止或扭曲 MacIntyre 所说的代理人需要蓬勃发展的关系密切相关。