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Drawing on Plato’s and Aristotle’s ethics, Iris Murdoch and John McDowell argue that virtue is best conceived as a sensitivity. According to this account, and against the modern conception of virtue as strength of will, virtue is a single cognitive-motivational sensitivity to moral requirements. It equips the agent to discern what is morally required and ensures that she is motivated accordingly. The sensitivity conception of virtue rejects the modern aspiration to codify moral requirements but defends the objectivity of those requirements. It thus builds on classical moral psychology to offer an alternative to modern approaches to ethics and to moral skepticism. The chapter offers a sympathetic reconstruction of the sensitivity account, and its conclusion suggests one way to develop it.

One of the most prominent strands in contemporary work on the virtues consists in the attempt to develop a distinctive-and compelling-account of practical reason on the basis of Aristotle's ethics. In response to this project, several eminent critics have argued that the Aristotelian account encourages a dismissive attitude toward moral disagreement. Given the importance of developing a mature response to disagreement, the criticism is devastating if true. I examine this line of criticism closely, first elucidating the features of the Aristotelian account that motivate it, and then identifying two further features of the account that the criticism overlooks. These further features show the criticism to be entirely unwarranted. Once these features are acknowledged, a more promising line of criticism suggests itself-namely, that the Aristotelian account does too little to help us to resolve disputes-but that line of objection will have to be carried out on quite different grounds.The way in which we understand a given kind of disagreement, and explain it, has important practical effects. It can modify our attitude to others and our understanding of our own outlook. In relation to other people, we need a view of what is to be opposed, rejected, and so forth, and in what spirit; for ourselves, disagreement can raise a warning that we may be wrong, and if truth or correctness is what we are after, we may need to reform our strategies (Williams 1985, p 133).

An analysis of the Day Book 1692–1703 of Edward Clarke of Chipley, Somerset (1650–1710), MP for Taunton, reveals evidence of his expenses on clothes for his children. He also describes where the family shopped and who did the shopping, what materials were used and what they cost, who made the clothes and whether clothes were refurbished. The article uses the correspondence of Edward and his wife Mary to show how fashion and clothes were an enduring interest and subject of discussion in both town and country.

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