
"Playfulness as a Moral Virtue" with Michael Ridge (University of Edinburgh)
Thursday, February 16th
Lumpkin Auditorium (Close-Hipp, 8th Floor)
In this presentation, Professor Ridge argues that playfulness is a moral virtue. This might seem surprising, since playfulness is seen as frivolous, while morality is seen as serious, even profound. What is worse, some paradigmatic forms of playfulness can even seem morally vicious—think of the playfulness of a trickster like Loki, for example. Nonetheless, the idea has a lot more going for it than it might at first seem. Professor Ridge will start by drawing on some of his previous work on what play is to explain what playfulness as a character trait is. He will then defend a plausible sufficient condition for a character trait's being a moral virtue. With all these pieces in place, he will then offer several considerations in favour of the idea that playfulness is indeed a moral virtue—or, more cautiously, that for most people with a very basic level of moral integrity and moral competence, playfulness is a moral virtue.