The first English translation of the prize winning Dutch title Leven is Een Kunst, this is a fascinating book, in which prominent ethicist and Nietzsche specialist Paul van Tongeren creates a contemporary version of classical virtue ethics. Virtue ethics goes right back to the moral philosophy of Aristotle and some could argue is nothing new. However, Van Tongeren demonstrates how the original Artistotlean approach been extended and corrected throughout the centuries by the Stoics, Christianity, and Nietzsche and how we now need new kind of ethics - a creative, artful ethics that takes seriously the desire to 'live well'.
Acting as both a brilliantly clear introduction to virtue ethics and moral philosophy and a serious work of original philosophy, this book connects philosophy with real lived experience and tackles, head-on, the perennial philosophical question- how do we live well?