Abstract
Recent work in moral philosophy and psychology has made deep connections between questions of morality and identity, suggesting that orientation to a moral framework, through community practices and discourses, contributes to the individual sense of self. I argue that contemporary Liberal Quakers in Britain thus use their moral judgments among other things to reinforce their social identity as Quakers, emphasising a shared approach to ethical framework and sources of authority over the substantive content of the judgments. The favoured ethical framework of Liberal British Quakers appears to be a form of virtue ethics, and I explore the possibility that links between virtue ethics on the one hand and the concepts of testimony and discernment on the other, enable the use of a virtue ethics approach to reinforce a sense of Quaker identity.
Keywords
discourse ethics, deontology, ethics, Religious Society of Friends, Quaker, virtue ethics
How to Cite
Scully, J., (2009) “Virtuous Friends: Morality and Quaker Identity”, Quaker Studies 14(1), 108–122. doi: https://doi.org/10.3828/quaker.14.1.108
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