Download Episode 13: Jane Austen on the Virtues of Social Life

 

In episode 13 of Sacred & Profane Love, “Jane Austen on the Virtues of Social Life, I speak with professor Karen Stohr of Georgetown University about how Austen brings into relief the social dimensions of virtue in her novels. We discuss the importance of social roles and environments for the exercise and development of virtue, and how friendship and family life are the best contexts in which virtue can be fostered and strengthened.  I hope you enjoy our conversation!

 

Karen Stohr is the Ryan Family Term Associate Professor of Metaphysics and Moral Philosophy Senior Research Scholar at Georgetown University, and has an appointment at The Kennedy Institute of Ethics. She earned her Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina, and her B.A. from the University of Notre Dame.  She has published widely within virtue ethics, and has a book forthcoming from Oxford, Minding the Gap: Moral Ideals and Moral Improvement. Dr. Stohr also has a passion for the work of Jane Austen.

Jennifer A. Frey is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of South Carolina. Prior to joining the philosophy faculty at USC, she was a Collegiate Assistant Professor of Humanities at the University of Chicago, where she was a member of the Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts and an affiliated faculty in the philosophy department.  She earned her Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh, and her B.A. in Philosophy and Medieval Studies (with Classics minor) at Indiana University-Bloomington. Her research lies at the intersection of philosophy of action, ethics, and law, with a particular focus on the Aristotelian-Thomist tradition.  She has published widely on action, virtue, practical reason, and meta-ethics, and has recently co-edited an interdisciplinary volume, Self-Transcendence and Virtue: Perspectives from Philosophy, Theology, and Psychology.