After Bill’s response to my quick question, I feel reasonably placed to write something I’ve been mulling over during the discussion between meself, Alec, and Brendan; specifically, that many of our methodological differences can be explained in terms of ethics (especially virtue ethics). I think I’m right in saying that all our reflections have been circling around what it means to practise philosophy ethically; that when we speak of rigour, clarity, precision, tradition, and so on, we’ve been trying to identify certain philosophical virtues. It also seems to me that these philosophical virtues can be derived from the more obviously ethical virtues such as charity, humility, temperance, prudence, diligence and kindness (stolen from the Wikipedia list of the seven heavenly virtues). And insofar as we’re trying to practise theology in an explicitly religious fashion, I think I’m also right in saying that we’re trying to figure out how to practise…