ABSTRACT

This chapter elaborates the virtue theoretic approach to creative character and the nature of the challenge. Once the conceptual landscape has been laid out one might look at evidence for thinking that creative people often tend toward vanity and then go on to develop a new account of just what vanity is which helps to explain why this might be so. The chapter explores the putative benefits and costs of vanity for creativity. In most creative domains one might rely heavily upon collaboration and co-operative activity. Even where collaboration seems far from central, one might typically depend on broader co-operative activity. Features of vanity and narcissism such as grandstanding, disagreeable responses and praise or blame shifting often play a role in co-operative breakdowns. Such behaviour naturally tends to lead to puzzlement, disappointment and resentment from others. Vanity takes indicators of creative success as the end to aim at for the sake of self-glorification.