Review Essay - Exemplarist Moral Theory

This review essay provides a critical discussion of Linda Zagzebski's Exemplarist Moral Theory (2017). Having provided a summary of the text, we then argue that moral exemplarism faces some important challenges, firstly, in dealing with the fallibility of admiration, which plays a central role in the theoretical framework, and secondly, in serving as a practical guide for moral development. However, despite these worries, we suggest that Exemplarist Moral Theory offers a rich discussion of topics that will be of interest to philosophers with a range of interests, including ethical theory, moral psychology, philosophy of language, and philosophy of religion.