Professor Roger T. Ames was the Director of the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of Hawaii for ten years, and has been the Editor ofPhilosophy East and West since 1987. His teaching and research interests focus on comparative philosophy, the philosophy of culture, environmental philosophy, classical Confucianism, and Taoism. He has written many interpretive works on Chinese philosophy and culture, and has over the past d...

Notes Virtue encompasses and extends beyond moral and religious contexts. The ideas transcend reality through compelling stories. The necessity of virtue is both for the individual and for society. The Origins of Virtue You cannot understand what makes a virtue until you modulate what constitutes being. Modern people are fundamentally materialistic. And there is some utility in that. We are masters of material transformation. And th...