Katja Vogt
The Guise of the Good. Human Motivation and Ways of Life
Guise of the Good theorists tend to address particular actions in isolation: agents, the thought goes, are motivated to perform a given action by seeing the action or its outcome as good. I argue that the Guise of the Good Theory is more compelling if we distinguish between three levels: the motivation of small-scale actions, the motivation of mid-scale actions or pursuits, and the desire to have one’s life go well. This type of account is broadly speaking Aristotelian. In its Aristotelian version, the argument continues, the Guise of the Good Theory belongs to the theory of the human good.
Katja Maria Vogt is Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University. She specializes in ethics, normative epistemology, and ancient philosophy. She is the author of numerous books and articles, including Desiring the Good (2017), Belief and Truth (2012), Law, Reason, and the Cosmic City (2008), Skepsis und Lebenspraxis (1998). Vogt serves as an editor of Nous and Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie. Among many awards, she received the Columbia Distinguished Faculty Award and was the Class of 1932 Fellow in Classical Philosophy at Princeton University. Before coming to Columbia, Vogt taught at the Humboldt University Berlin.