Michael Slote

Michael A. Slote is a professor of ethics at the University of Miami and an author of a number of books.

He was previously a professor of philosophy at the University of Maryland and at Trinity College Dublin. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University.

He argues that virtue ethics, in a particular form which draws on the concept of an ethics of care, offers significant intuitive and structural advantages over deontology, utilitarianism, and common-sense morality. He has also recently endorsed the meta-ethical view of moral sentimentalism in opposition to moral rationalism (see his articles from 2003, 2004, 2005a and his books (2007 and 2010)).

Most recently he expanded his work on sentimentalism into a philosophy of mind (book 2014). In his latest work he also stresses the importance of receptivity as a virtue, a value and as a psychological characteristic (article 2014 and book 2013). The significance of receptivity feature was first considered by Nel Noddings in 1984, but did not receive further attention in the ethics of care neither was it used to criticize typical Western philosophical values. In The Impossibility of Perfection, he argues against moral perfection as it was endorsed by Aristotle and the Enlightenment and defends a more realistic view of moral issues.