Virtue Ethics

Josef Pieper Josef Pieper was born in Elte, in Westphalia, on 4 May 1904 and died in Münster on 6 November 1997. He studied philosophy, law and sociology at Münster and Berlin and took his doctorate in 1928. He worked first in sociological research and as an independent writer and, from 1959/1960, was full professor of philosophical anthropology at the University of Münster, where he taught for many years. In 1981 he received the Balzan Prize for Philosophy. His work, written in a deliberately clear style averse to academic jargon, draws chiefly on Thomas Aquinas, read in dialogue with Plato and Aristotle, and addresses questions of everyday life: work, free time, the virtues, hope, language. ...