Conclusion

This concluding chapter summarizes the main arguments of the book. In order for moral improvement to be a practical project, it must work from a psychologically plausible picture of human nature and it must rely on ideals that have normative authority and regulative efficacy for the person who is aiming to improve. The book argues that we should understand moral improvement as the cultivation of an aspirational moral identity. The cultivation of this identity takes place in social contexts that affect its trajectory. Moral improvement requires good moral neighborhoods, or normative structures that facilitate moral improvement by enabling us to enact fictive moral selves. In this way, moral neighborhoods help us close the gap between our moral ideals and the flawed reality in which we live.

The Veil of Philanthropy

This chapter defends the practice that Kant described as “throwing the veil” of philanthropy or charity over the moral flaws and failings of other people. This practice requires not just avoiding making defamatory remarks and spreading unpleasant gossip but also actively working to generate charitable narratives about other people and their actions. The veil of philanthropy serves as a buffer against natural human tendencies toward self-conceit and misanthropy. The practice is essential to good moral neighborhoods because it enhances and reinforces individual and collective commitments to moral improvement, and it expresses faith in the eventual success in the project. Good moral neighborhoods depend on participants being able to maintain hope in moral progress. In other words, in order for moral improvement to be successful, it is necessary to act as though it could be.

Social Pretense

This chapter defends social pretense as an essential element of moral stagecraft and of good moral neighborhoods more generally. It argues that social pretense plays several important roles in social interactions. Pretense functions as a tool for setting the boundaries of the normative space in which social interactions take place. Social practices of interpersonal notice involve many social conventions that require pretending not to notice people and what they are doing. Such practices enable communication about the terms of social interaction or the narrative that is being enacted. Mutual pretense is useful for constructing the normative space of good moral neighborhoods and helping participants remain within that space. It enables people to act as their fictive moral selves in circumstances where they are falling short. When motivated and guided by a commitment to aspirational moral identities, the practice of social pretense can be supportive of those identities.

Moral Neighborhoods

This chapter presents an argument that moral identities are cultivated within shared normative spaces called moral neighborhoods. Moral neighborhoods are constructed through networks of social practices and conventions that are situated in specific physical and social environments. The chapter draws on Confucian ideas about the role of ritual in moral formation, as well Jane Austen’s novels, to argue that these networks of social practices are important for moral improvement. Good moral neighborhoods enable participants to work out and enact shared moral aspirations in the form of jointly constructed narratives. The social practices of good moral neighborhoods create normative spaces in which we enact fictive moral selves. Because moral neighborhoods are constructed in non-ideal conditions, they must be responsive to the underlying social and physical landscape if they are to reflect shared moral aspirations. Creating a good moral neighborhood is thus a practical exercise in non-ideal theory.

Moral Aspirations

This chapter takes up the question of what it means for a person’s moral identity to be aspirational and how we can go about cultivating aspirational moral identities that are conducive to moral improvement. It considers the role of conflict and crisis in precipitating critical reflection on existing moral identities. It also considers the ways in which a person can enhance her capacities for the requisite kind of reflection, with a particular focus on perspective shifts, imagination, and the use of exemplars. The chapter draws on work by Agnes Callard and David Velleman to argue that aspirational moral identities are cultivated proleptically through developing and enacting imaginative self-conceptions that reflect moral aspirations. These imaginative self-conceptions take the form of what the chapter describes as fictive moral selves.

Moral Identities

This chapter is an exploration of moral identity, as both a psychological and a philosophical concept. It begins with the phenomenon of an identity crisis, employing Mr. Stevens, the butler from Kazuo Ishiguro’s Remains of the Day, as an illustration. The chapter develops an account of moral identity that seeks to be consistent with psychological conceptions while also generating the normative authority and regulative efficacy necessary for moral identity to function as a moral ideal. The chapter argues that person’s moral identity is not separable from her other practical identities and standpoints, and that it derives its content from her efforts to work out how to live well within the normative structures of those other identities. It also argues that an individual’s moral identity is intertwined with her social context in ways that shape the content of that identity and her ability to live in accordance with it.

Where We Stand

This chapter considers the obstacles that stand in the way of moral improvement, particularly the challenges that human beings face in trying to acquire self-knowledge. It aims to set out a psychologically realistic picture of how human beings think about themselves and their actions, and what that means for moral improvement. It focuses on our epistemic limitations and how those interfere with our capacities for accurate self-perception and reflection. Those epistemic limitations are significant and any account of moral improvement must take them seriously. The chapter claims that moral improvement projects can still can get off the ground, even if we assume that moral reflection is standardly haphazard, unsystematic, and prone to error. Moral improvement is described as an effort to pull a coherent moral self together from threads of existing, messy, and conflicting practical identities and standpoints.

Introduction

This short introductory chapter sets out the aims and scope of the book as a whole, with the goal of orienting the reader. It explains the motivation for the project and the philosophical inspirations for the approach, as well as the limitations. The chapter begins by explaining the gap referenced in the title in terms of a gap between moral ideals and the reality of human beings and human life. Moral improvement is the practical project of trying to narrow that gap as far as possible. Understood as a practical project, it is fundamentally first-personal. It is also, however, fundamentally social. Moral improvement is something we do together. The social aspect of moral improvement consists in constructing joint normative spaces in which we can make ourselves better. The chapter concludes with brief summaries of individual chapters.

Self-Deprecation

This chapter takes up the social practice of self-deprecation, or the deliberate lowering of one’s social position in a given social interaction. The social practice of self-deprecation is distinguished from the virtues of modesty and humility and from the social practice of humblebragging. When self-deprecation is used well, it alters the normative space of a social interaction in ways that restore or maintain equality. Used badly, it threatens that equality and undermines respect and self-respect. How self-deprecation affects the normative space of an interaction depends on the social landscape in which it occurs, especially social power relationships. The account of self-deprecation defended in this chapter distinguishes between morally constructive and morally destructive self-deprecation.

The Gap

This chapter unpacks the idea that the project of moral improvement aims at narrowing the gap between our moral selves and our moral ideals. The shape of the gap depends on how we conceptualize our moral ideals and what we presuppose about our actual moral situation. For moral improvement to be a practical project, it must meet two requirements. First, it must operate with a psychologically realistic picture of actual human capacities for self-knowledge and reflection. Second, it must employ a moral ideal that is normatively authoritative and regulatively efficacious for the person undertaking the project. She must regard it as an ideal for herself and as having practical upshot for how she conducts her life. The chapter concludes with the claim that we should think of moral ideals in terms of aspirational moral identities and moral improvement as a project of articulating and inhabiting a moral identity.