An Exemplarist Response to Moral Saints Problems

James Taplin

Abstract:

Moral saints problems, as expressed by Susan Wolf in her “Moral Saints” article,

present a serious concern for ideal ethical theories. Wolf highlights the fact that the

ideal moral agents of traditional ethical systems will, unless such accounts allow

room for non-moral norms, turn out to be less than ideal people. In this essay I look

to an account of supererogatory acts as a potential solution to this problem. After

showing the inefficacy of such an account in responding to moral saints problems,

I turn to a virtue ethical account of moral exemplarism inspired by Linda

Zagzebski's “Exemplarist Virtue Theory,” which I argue is capable of responding

to such concerns. By understanding the moral exemplar as foundational to an

account of the virtues, we are able to dispel Wolf's concerns. Finally, I highlight the

value of an account of supererogatory action as playing a tertiary role within such

an account.

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I. Introduction

Susan Wolf’s influential “Moral Saints” essay has garnered a great deal of attention and a

multitude of responses that vary in not only the way in which they respond, but also in how

they understand her criticisms. Examples of three concerns represented in various responses

are, first, that Wolf offers a critique of morality on the whole,1 second, that she has presented a

critique of the plausibility of moral saints in particular,2 and finally, that Wolf is problematizing

the notion of any ideal ethical system that gives primacy to moral norms to the extent that

these norms override other valuable aspects of life.3 Each interpretation of Wolf’s project has

given rise to attendant responses – responses that address the concerns within their given

domains.

I personally take Wolf to be offering the third concern, which asserts that there is a

problem with any moral system in which ideal moral agents turn out to be less-than-ideal

human beings – a claim which should raise suspicion regarding those systems, rather than of

morality in general or the moral saint in particular. While this essay will primarily focus on

responding to this challenge, I believe a plausible theory should be capable of addressing and

assuaging each concern independently, and will show how the account I put forward does just

this.

I believe that Wolf’s essay is still relevant to moral discussion for the reason that I do not

consider the concerns raised in “Moral Saints” to have been adequately addressed. Most

1 See: Leiter, B. 1997. 2 See: Carbonell, V. 2009. 3 See: Isaacs, J. and Jeske, D. 1997, Baron, M. 1987, McElwee, B. 2010.

2

responses to moral saints problems are centered around defending ethical accounts via

reference to an account of supererogatory acts,4 where a supererogatory act turns out to be in

some way beyond the normal demands of a given ethical theory.5 If it turns out that simply

delineating realms of obligatory and supererogatory action fails to assuage the present

concerns, then all responses based on such an account will also fail, whether they be

consequentialist, deontic, or virtue theoretical in nature. I argue that this is the case – on its

own, an account of supererogatory acts is incapable of responding to moral saints problems. A

notion of supererogation is important to ethical theorizing, but it does not do the work needed

to free us from the problem of moral saints.

After briefly examining the inadequacy of an account of supererogation as a response to

moral saints problems, I will present an alternative response that I take to be embedded in a

particular account of virtue ethics. I argue that the moral saint of virtue ethics (the sage) is not

characterized by supererogatory acts (though such action may be normal for this person),6 but

rather, by a lifestyle that is admirable as well as imitable. I base this on the grounds that what

characterizes the sage is not the fact that she is as morally good as possible, in the sense that

she is wholly dedicated to traditionally conceived “moral” actions, but rather, that the good

person is prior to moral virtues. What I mean by this is that what counts as a good action is

derivative of the notion of a good person. Understanding ethics in this way necessitates a

4 See: Isaacs, J. and Jeske, D. 1997, Kawall, J. 2009, McElwee, B. 2010. 5 For accounts of supererogation, see: Urmson, J.O. 1958, Feinberg, J. 1961. 6 It is not clear that a fully virtuous person will necessarily perform any supererogatory actions at all, since perfect

virtue is not characterized by outstanding actions so much as by a firm and well-disposed character (e.g. the virtuous

person might just be the person who is consistently virtuous, without ever performing extraordinarily). There is

nothing conceptually problematic about the virtuous person acting extraordinarily, but those sorts of actions are not

characteristic.

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fundamental shift of outlook, which places good people as conceptually prior to good actions,

or at least, the idea of a good person as conceptually prior to the idea of a good action. In

outlining my response, I will look to an account of exemplarist ethics by Linda Zagzebski.7 I

suggest that the temptation to respond to moral saints problems using an account of

supererogatory acts arises from the notion that the sage or saint is characterized by a

commitment to fulfilling moral tasks or duties, rather than living a happy, flourishing life. To

situate my response I will rely on the assumption that virtue ethics is about flourishing, and thus

the virtues, rather than being explicitly “moral” in some real sense, are just those things that lead

to a typically happy or flourishing existence. Finally, I will show how an account of

supererogatory acts may serve to help understand the role of the exemplar in moral practice.

Rather than denying the value of such an account, I aim to show how it can serve to bolster an

account of virtue, providing an explanatory role in the development and practice of an

exemplarist virtue theory.

II. The Moral Saints Problem

In “Moral Saints,” Susan Wolf sets up a dilemma: Either moral theories will allow room for non-

moral features, or they will not. If a theory does allow for non-moral features, then it is not clear

where the line is to be drawn between morally obligatory and morally permissible actions. In

what cases will moral demands or goods override broader, all-things-considered goods?

Alternatively, if an account of ethics fails to allow for non-moral features, then it looks as though

the ideal agent is a person that most of us wouldn't want to be or even be friends with.8 This

7 Zagzebski, L. 2010. 8 Wolf, S. 1982, p. 419.

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person, by acting solely in the realm of the moral, has no time or energy to devote to those non-

moral goods that would typically be considered as necessary features of a happy life.

To motivate this dilemma, Wolf describes the moral saint as “a person whose every

action is as morally good as possible, a person, that is, who is as morally worthy as can be.”9

This person not only acts well, but acts maximally well. The problem that this leads to is that

many activities that are considered valuable for a happy and well-rounded life are not

specifically moral in nature, and thus will fall outside the scope of moral permissibility imposed

by the demand that this person be “as morally good as possible.” In other words, although many

activities are not, in themselves, morally impermissible, they necessitate that a person dedicate

time to them, which detracts from time and energy that could be spent performing moral tasks.

Wolf points out that, “A necessary condition of moral sainthood would be that one's life be

dominated by a commitment to improving the welfare of others or of society as a whole.”10 This

commitment requires a kind of selfless deprivation of personal desires in order to benefit others.

“If the moral saint is devoting all his time to feeding the hungry or healing the sick or raising

money for Oxfam, then necessarily he is not reading Victorian novels, playing the oboe, or

improving his backhand.”11

The problem is thus explicit: if an ethical theory gives complete priority to moral

concerns, then the moral exemplar is not an appealing person. Someone who is so dedicated to

moral tasks that she has no time or energy to engage in the simple, enjoyable aspects of everyday

living is not someone that one would have any desire to be like. Since most ethical theories are

built in such a way as to solely describe and prescribe moral norms and duties, any person who

9 IBID. 10 Wolf 1982, p. 420. 11 Wolf 1982, p. 421.

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ideally realizes the good of that ethical theory will necessarily be someone who misses out on the

abundance of non-moral goods that are constitutive of a balanced and happy life. It is

disconcerting to think that enjoying the enjoyable features of life excludes the possibility of

being an ideal moral agent.

Alternatively, if an ethical theory does allow room for non-moral features, then it is not

clear where to draw the line between moral permissibility and moral obligation. This is

especially apparent in consequentialist and deontic accounts of ethics, though it is also present in

a more mediated form in virtue theory. Moreover, if ethical theories allow for such features, then

the second concern, that Wolf has presented a critique of the plausibility of moral saints in

particular, becomes all too relevant. If it is the case that an ethical theory allows for, or even

encourages, non-moral norms and goods, then it is not clear that there is any room at all for the

moral saint. This person would be an anomaly that we might admire from a distance or perhaps

even pity, but not a person that we would want to emulate. In other words, simply providing an

answering as to whether or not a moral theory allows for non-moral norms and goods isn’t

enough to resolve the tension posed by moral saints problems.

III. The Response of Supererogatory Acts

One response to this problem has been to separate morally good or permissible action from

morally obligatory action. This response includes non-moral action as a feature of an ethical life

(where ethics is understood to encompass a broader domain than morals), by allowing room for

activities that are not specifically moral in nature, so long as these activities do not violate the

expectations of a given ethical system. While saints may be those persons who perform actions

that are beyond normal moral expectation, there is nothing problematic about this, since not

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everybody is required to act thusly. In “Virtue Theory, Ideal Observers, and the Supererogatory,”

Jason Kawall outlines such a response from the perspective of virtue ethics.12 Kawall's account

rests on the following distinction between actions that are morally obligatory and morally

supererogatory:

(S) An action is morally supererogatory for an agent in a given set of

circumstances to the extent that fully-informed, unimpaired, virtuous observers

would deem the action to be supererogatory.

(R) An action is morally required for an agent in a given set of circumstances iff

all fully-informed, unimpaired, virtuous observers would deem the action to be

so.13

By distinguishing between the realm of supererogatory action and the realm of morally required

action in such a way as to show that persons are capable of living a moral life without necessarily

giving up the benefits of an enjoyable life, it is argued that the life of the moral saint is not

something that is required of ideal ethical systems. A person may fully adopt the moral

expectations of a given system, where those expectations fall short of moral perfection, without

forfeiting the enjoyable features of life. So while spending great amounts of time learning to play

the oboe or learning how to gourmet cook may cause one to fail to perform certain possible

moral actions, this need not be problematic. To be committed to moral duties in such a stringent

way as to cause one to forgo other important features of life, would likely fall under the category

of morally supererogatory action. As long as a person performs those actions that are morally

required, she has fulfilled at least the minimum requirements of whatever moral system she

12 While I focus on Kawall’s account for this paper, the responses taken up by other ethical theorists are analogous

in a relevant way. 13 Kawall 2009, p. 187.

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adheres to.

This response does not immediately dispel the worry that the moral saint is flawed in

some way. Though we may admire her actions, we do not envy her lifestyle with its extreme

commitments. Kawall asserts that this is not problematic, since it might just be the case that the

moral saint is a person with potentials and goals which vary widely from those of everyday

persons. “A person with a particular set of moral ideals can be understood as having self-imposed

duties of this sort – where she is rational to feel shame for failure, but where these self-imposed

ideals and duties are not full-fledged moral requirements that all virtuous ideal observers would

judge as required of an agent in the given circumstances.”14 Moral saints may thus be understood

to be individuals who have high, self-imposed standards, and live up to those standards. Just

because a saint feels a personal obligation to give nearly all of her money away to charities, and

to spend every evening working at a shelter, does not mean that these things are required of

every moral agent. These demands may be particular to each person, and could even plausibly be

demands that, if one fails to meet them, are the cause of shame. For example, a moral saint might

feel shame for failing to perform a morally supererogatory action, where that shame “can be

primarily a result of (and thus focused-upon) transgressing some rule or violating some sanction,

particularly in cases where an agent commits herself to a particular moral code with a range of

rules that she sees as binding upon her, though they are not binding upon others.”15 Nevertheless,

because these actions are self-imposed, they are not actions that are in themselves morally

obligatory.

What is important on this account is that there are actions that are, as noted, beyond the

scope of what is morally required, as well as actions that are morally obligatory according to the

14 Kawall 2009, p. 195. 15 Kawall 2009, pp. 192-3.

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given ethical theory. For Kawall’s virtue ethics, morally obligatory actions are simply those

actions that all fully informed, unimpaired, virtuous observers would deem to be so. Relevantly

analogous ways of differentiating between obligatory and supererogatory action for both

consequentialist and deontic accounts have also been developed that are capable of preserving

the notion of the saint as that person who is committed to moral action in a way that is not

binding upon others.16

We may note a tension already in this response. First, while it might be the case that

individuals are capable of meeting the minimum demands of an ideal ethical system without

forfeiting the benefits of a flourishing and happy life, it has not been shown that people actually

ought to be saints. This alone should be alarming. If an ethical system is supposed to offer ideal

prescriptive power, then the person who best embodies the ideals of that system should be the

kind of person worth emulating. Moreover, while the supererogatory acts that define the saint are

praiseworthy in themselves, we need only note that a full-fledged commitment to a morally

supererogatory lifestyle will lead to just the problem that is noted by Wolf.

If it would be responded that sainthood does not require or entail that one always perform

these exemplary acts, then the question must be asked, “At what point is someone a moral saint,

rather than a good person who occasionally goes beyond basic moral expectations?” Does one

supererogatory act make one a saint? This seems too weak. Conversely, if we require every act a

saint performs to be supererogatory, then Wolf is correct in asserting that this person must have

some psychological problem, which imposes unrealistic demands upon her.17 Setting the bar

16 See: Isaacs and Jeske 1997, McElwee 2010. 17 Wolf proposes that there are two ways to understand the moral saint. This person will either be what Wolf refers to

as the “Loving Saint,” whose pleasure is derived solely from the happiness of others, or the “Rational Saint,”

who acts out of a stifling sense of duty. “The Loving Saint one might suspect of missing a piece of perceptual

machinery, of being blind to some of what the world has to offer. The Rational Saint, who sees it but foregoes it,

one suspects of having a different problem – a pathological fear of damnation, perhaps, or an extreme form of

self-hatred that interferes with his ability to enjoy the enjoyable in life”(p. 424).

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anywhere between these two extremes will be arbitrary, and open to various sorites problems.18

In short, an account of supererogation is capable of meeting the first concern raised by

showing that moral saints problems need not problematize the notion of morality in general, but

it fails to assuage the second and third concerns. For one, following the standards of most ethical

theories, the moral saint will turn out to be an unappealing and somehow deficient person. Thus

the notion of a moral saint is still problematic. With this in mind, the third concern is still present

– there is a problem with any moral system in which ideal moral agents (those agents who fully

embody the norms of a given ethical system) turn out to be less-than-ideal human beings. While

an account of morally obligatory and morally supererogatory action is capable of showing how a

person can adhere to the demands of a particular ideal ethical system without necessarily being

responsible to actualize the highest ideals of that system in every situation, Wolf’s critique still

stands. We should be dubious of any ethical theory that, if ideally realized, produces individuals

unworthy of imitation.

I suggest that exemplarist virtue theory offers a more intuitive and plausible response to

this problem. It should be noted that the account I will here present does allow room for morally

supererogatory action, but as this is not of primary concern, it does not fall prey to the same

problems as such an account taken on its own. This is important, since an account of virtue ethics

as a system leading to flourishing should, if ideally actualized, produce individuals that are not

only perfectly virtuous, but ideal in a well-rounded sense – in a word, the sage of virtue ethics

should be admirable.

What I take to be the fundamental question as to how we define the virtuous sage is

whether we take the sage herself, or the actions she performs, to be conceptually prior. For

18 By sorites problem I mean that there will be no warrant for setting the bar at one point rather than another. i.e. if

30 supererogatory acts makes one a saint, then so will 29. If 29, then 28, and so on.

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example, Kawall assumes that moral actions are conceptually prior to the virtuous sage.19 This

assertion posits an external standard of moral action by which we are capable of defining the

activities of a moral saint. Kawall takes it to be a fact that there are morally permissible acts,

morally required acts, and morally supererogatory acts independent of the flourishing life –

actions which the virtuous saint somehow reliably tracks. Understanding virtue in this way

distances virtue from the notion of flourishing. If virtue is adherence to certain norms, then it is

plausible that a person could adhere to these norms without actually flourishing.

In the next section I will highlight Linda Zagzebski's account of moral exemplars, which

flips the relationship between good people and good actions, in order to illustrate how such an

understanding of virtue is capable of responding to the concerns raised by Wolf. Zagzebski does

not specifically respond to moral saints problems, but her account is open to such use. Rather

than the flourishing life being that life where all the moral virtues are present (making

flourishing derivative of the moral virtues), moral virtues are best understood as derivative of a

flourishing existence. In other words, the saint is not such because she instantiates every virtue,

but simply because she admirable and worthy of emulation. Virtues may then be understood to

be just those things that contribute to such an existence. On this account, the moral sage or

exemplar serves as an example of what kinds of attitudes, actions, commitments, and states of

affairs lead to flourishing. Unlike more traditional ethical accounts that take things like virtue,

good states of affairs, The Good, correct operation of the will as an expression of reason, and so

on, as foundational, exemplarist ethics takes that person (where “that person” is a person who is

admirable in some paradigmatic way) to be foundational to moral theorizing.

19Kawall 2009, p. 182.

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IV. Inverting the Ideal

Zagzebski defines the exemplar as a, “paradigmatically good person. An exemplar is a person

who is most admirable.”20 Most importantly for this project, exemplarist theory offers a picture

of the virtues as less foundational to morality than is the good person. The basis of this account is

the admirable person. Virtues, right actions, duties, good states of affairs, and so on, are

derivative of the admirable person. This can operate in two ways. It could be that the exemplar is

the person who is conceptually ideal, meaning that we could imagine what the ideal person

would look like should she exist, and use this model to determine what conditions would best

lead to such a life. Alternatively, one could look to an actual person as exemplar. This second

approach is adopted by Zagzebski, who notes that her theory “is foundational in structure, but the

foundation is not conceptual. Instead, the construction of the theory begins with direct reference

to exemplars of moral goodness.”21 While both approaches have historical application22 and both

are capable of offering what I take to be analogous responses to moral saints problems, I will

simply focus on the approach that takes concrete persons as exemplars.

Exemplarist virtue theory, then, does not begin with virtues that characterize the good

life. Rather, by referencing admirable persons, we are capable of understanding what traits,

attitudes, and actions characterize those persons. The exemplar is not the person with the perfect

bundle of the virtues like justice, temperance, courage, and wisdom – she is the person who is

admirable simpliciter. Awareness of traits only comes after awareness of the exemplar.

20Zagzebski 2010, p. 54 21Zagzebski 2010, p. 49 22 For example, while the Stoics typically considered the sage to be either extremely rare or even completely absent,

Stoic writings often encourage the use of an actual person as exemplar. An example of this is Epictetus, who

encourages his reader to ask himself “What would Socrates or Zeno have done under these

circumstances”(Enchiridion, XXXIII). Thus Stoic practice incorporates both aspects of moral modelling by

incorporating the conceptual as well as the concrete models. A certain reading of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics

offers an example of a purely conceptual approach to exemplarism.

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Another feature of this account is that observers of exemplars need not know at the outset

what features are constitutive of the good life. Zabzebski points out that, “Perhaps there are

nonevaluative descriptions of these persons that are sufficient to determine their moral goodness;

perhaps not. Perhaps their goodness is not determined by any descriptive properties we know

how to apply. The exemplarist approach has the advantage that neither these metaphysical

matters nor substantive matters about what makes a person good need to be settled at the

outset.”23 All that matters on this account is that people are able to pick out exemplars who are

actually good people. It is not necessary that a person is able to know what it is that makes a

person good, since what is the object of moral appraisal in this context is a person worthy of

imitation. It is not even troubling that such ascriptions may often be wrong, since what is

important is not that every ascription of value be correct, but that it is possible and likely that we

can identify the exemplar. Regarding this concern, Zagzebski points out that, “People can

succeed in referring to good persons as long as they, or at least some people in their community,

can pick out exemplars... Practices of picking out such persons are already embedded in our

moral practices. We learn through narratives of both fictional and nonfictional persons that some

people are admirable and worth imitating.”24 Just as we are able to successfully identify things

like water, gold, and so on, without knowing what it is that makes them what they are, we are

able to pick out exemplars without knowing exactly what it is that makes them good people.

Exemplarist virtue theory need not require that each exemplar is a perfect model of moral

life, but simply that those whom we take to be exemplars are admirable in a paradigmatic way.25

This fits with Wolf's reasoning that, “We may make ideals out of athletes, scholars, artists – more

23Zagzebski 2010, p. 53. 24Zagzebski 2010, p. 51. 25Zagzebski 2010, p. 52.

13

frivolously, out of cowboys, private eyes, and rock stars. We may strive for Katharine Hepburn's

grace, Paul Newman's 'cool'; we are attracted to the high-spirited passionate nature of Natasha

Rostov; we admire the keen perceptiveness of Lambert Strether.”26 It might not be the case that

Paul Newman or Katherine Hepburn are perfect, but the fact that they embody ideals that are

admirable allows them to serve as exemplars in at least some respect.

It is important to keep in mind that a moral theory does not solely serve as a guide for

right action, but also serves to explain pre-existing moral intuitions and practices. This point is

only confirmed by the moral saints problem. If all that we cared about was the right moral theory

and the discovery of those persons who offer an ideal picture of that moral theory, then we

wouldn't be troubled by the fact that the moral saints of ideal ethical theories turn out to be

lacking in some way. The problem is itself motivated by the fact that people have strong (and

often correct) intuitions about what kinds of people are admirable. Exemplarism is able to

accommodate this intuition, while responding on the same grounds. Because the moral exemplar

is just that person who is worthy of admiration, and thus emulation, our intuitions about good

people are able to be preserved. Wolf does well to note that if the saint of a given theory is not

worthy of emulation, there is something troubling about that theory. It would be startling if those

persons whom we would normally consider worthy of emulation were, in fact, morally depraved.

Rather than discarding what seem to be plausible moral intuitions in favor of prescriptive ethical

theories, it makes sense that we should take those intuitions seriously.

On this account, the moral exemplar is just that because she is admirable and imitable.

Thus the concern of moral saints falls away. The moral saints problem points out that the saints

of ideal ethical systems are explicitly not admirable in the sense that they are lacking some

26Wolf 1982, p. 422.

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important aspect of character. Exemplarist virtue theory is not prone to this problem, since the

examplar is nothing other than the person who is admirable. Moreover, understanding virtue as

derivative of the admirable person allows for non-moral features of life to count as praiseworthy

in at least some respect. Wolf's concern that the moral saint will not be funny or interesting,27 is

dispelled, since both humor and wittiness are (in their place) admirable.

Finally, we may respond to the issue of supererogatory acts. Is there a place in

exemplarism for such an account? I suggest that there is. I also suggest that the exemplar need

not be generally characterized by such actions. While the person worthy of admiration may act in

ways that are beyond typical, what makes her an exemplar is the fact that she is able to be and

ought to be imitated. It may be the case that our role models do perform outstanding actions, but

what is significant is that they are presented to us as role-models, meaning that their character

traits and attitudes are imitable. An account of supererogatory action may be required to sort out

what aspects of exemplars are and are not practically imitable. This does not place a theory of

supererogation as primary, but rather, as secondary – it may serve the overall project of

establishing moral exemplars, and determining what about them is able to be and should be

imitated. We might admire certain aspects of Ghandi or Jesus, but understanding what makes

them exemplary might require us to parse out whether or not those particular aspects should be

imitated. Admirability and imitability are not identical, and an account of supererogation may

help to better understand this relationship.

V. Conclusion

Wolf's moral saints problem may be seen as a serious concern, or as a valuable tool for moral

theorizing that is useful in that it offers clues as to the direction that moral theorizing ought to

27“The worry is that, as a result, he will have to be dull-witted or humorless or bland”(Wolf, p. 422).

15

look. In this essay I highlighted what has come to be a fairly typical response to the problem of

moral saints. Accounts of supererogatory action are often used to reply to this problem, but it is

not clear that delineating between morally obligatory acts and morally supererogatory acts is

actually capable of resolving the issue. In response to this concern, I outlined a response based

on exemplarist virtue theory. By understanding the moral saint according to this view, all three of

the concerns raised by Wolf are answered. First, it is clear that an exemplarist theory of virtue

that takes flourishing as its principle is free from the concern that morality on the whole is

implausible or in serious trouble. If what is valued is a flourishing existence, then we need not be

concerned that certain ethical ideals will lead to less-than-ideal lives, since the ideals that we

pick out are just those ideals which do lead to an ideal life. Second, it is clear that the notion of

the moral saint or virtuous sage is safe. While certain ethical theories base actions or norms as

prior to exemplars, which leads to moral saints problems in many cases, exemplarism takes the

saint or sage to be prior to moral norms. The moral and ethical norms of exemplarism are

derivative of the good person (whether that person be actual or conceptual), which completely

dispels the second concern. Finally, the third concern – that any moral system, in which ideal

moral agents turn out to be less-than-ideal human beings, should give reason for pause – is not

even present. The moral saint or sage will be just that person who is an ideal person in some

paradigmatic way.

Finally, I showed that embracing exemplarist theory does not entail a forfeiture of an

account of supererogatory acts. An account of what kinds of actions are morally required, and

what kinds of actions are beyond normal ethical expectations allows for a better understanding of

exactly what features of an exemplar are to be imitated. While it is admirable to perform

extraordinary moral feats, exemplarism calls for imitation of those features that are not only

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admirable, but also imitable.

The upshot of Wolf’s article is that it serves as a reminder that moral theorizing does not

terminate in prescribing ethical norms, but should also be capable of explaining and justifying

preexisting moral practices and intuitions. Exemplarism is able to incorporate these intuitions by

inverting the notion of what constitutes a virtue. Virtue is derivative of the good person, and the

moral saint is just that person who is admirable and ought to be imitated. Moral exemplarism is

attractive in that it offers prescriptive norms for moral theorizing without forfeiting many of the

common intuitions we have about moral activity. Wolf is correct to note that there is a problem

with moral theories which produce saints who are impoverished in some way. By taking moral

saints to be those people who are admirable in a paradigmatic way, rather than those people who

perfectly instantiate various virtues or traditionally defined “moral” actions, we are able to

identify moral saints as just those people who are not impoverished – people who live exemplary

lives that are admirable and worthy of imitation.

17

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