Papers by Mavis Biss
Philosophers' Imprint , 2019
This paper develops an account of moral friendship that both draws on and revises Kant’s concepti... more This paper develops an account of moral friendship that both draws on and revises Kant’s conception of moral friendship for the purpose of explaining how trusting and being trusted in the way that Kant describes supports moral self-perfection beyond increased self-knowledge and refinement of judgment. I will argue that cultivation of the virtues of friendship is important to the pursuit of moral self-perfection, specifically with respect to combatting the unsociable side of our unsociable sociability. Reciprocal trust shelters the individual’s predisposition to goodness, which comes under attack by the passions in social relations wherein distrust is the default. Reciprocal trust also enables communion, the importance of which has been undervalued in analyses of moral self-perfection.
forthcoming in Social Theory and Practice
This paper addresses the problem of explaining the relationship between social recognition and ju... more This paper addresses the problem of explaining the relationship between social recognition and justification of moral action, or “the problem of reception.” It is an especially acute and distinctive problem for agents who resist oppression by challenging established norms because action may be necessary even when good reception cannot be expected. I draw on recent work in Kantian ethics that acknowledges the conditions of socially embedded rational agency to argue that moral resisters misread actions may count as moral achievements, despite the fact that failed reception may frustrate the realization of moral ends, threaten moral confidence and inhibit rational flourishing.
Keywords: Moral innovation, Kantian ethics, moral failure, resistance to oppression, social uptake.
European Journal of Philosophy , 2018
This paper argues that recent accounts of Kantian virtue as “strengthened” inner freedom apply mu... more This paper argues that recent accounts of Kantian virtue as “strengthened” inner freedom apply much more clearly to the avoidance of violations of perfect duties than to the fulfillment of imperfect duties, leaving us with the question of how inadequate commitment to morally required ends impacts the exercise of inner freedom. The question is answered through the development of a model of inner freedom that emphasizes the relationship between moral self‐governance and participation in an ethical community.
Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 98:4, 618-635, 2017
To fulfill a perfect duty an agent must avoid vice, yet when an agent refrains from acting on a p... more To fulfill a perfect duty an agent must avoid vice, yet when an agent refrains from acting on a prohibited maxim she still must do something. I argue that the setting of morally required ends ought to consistently inform an agent’s judgment regarding what is to be done beyond compliance with perfect, negative duties. Kant’s assertion of a puzzling version of latitude of choice within his discussion of perfect duties motivates and complicates the case I make for a more expansive interpretation of the duty to pursue virtue.
Kantian Review vol. 20 (1), pp. 1-23, March 2015
In this paper I argue that a dominant strand of Kant’s approach to moral striving does not fit fa... more In this paper I argue that a dominant strand of Kant’s approach to moral striving does not fit familiar models of striving: Kant makes it very difficult to conceptualize a fit between the end of moral perfection and the means that could be taken to pursue “strengthened” maxims. I seek to address this problem in a way that avoids the flaws of synchronic and atomistic approaches to moral self-discipline by developing an account of Kantian moral striving as an ongoing contemplative activity complexly engaged with multiple forms of self-knowledge.
International Journal of Applied Philosophy vol. 28 (2), pp. 277-288, Fall 2014
Against the background of not-so-distant debate regarding “enhanced” interrogation techniques use... more Against the background of not-so-distant debate regarding “enhanced” interrogation techniques used by the United States during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which many understand to constitute torture, this essay explores the moral complexities of more “ordinary” interrogation practices, those that are clearly not forms of torture. Based on analysis of the written reflections of two United States interrogators on the work they did during the Iraq war, I categorize the roles played by multiple modes of empathy within interrogation and argue that empathetic responsiveness within the context of military interrogation poses a significant threat to the moral integrity of interrogators.
Metaphilosophy 47 (4-5), pp. 558-570, 2016
I will explore the implications of Claudia Card’s analyses of moral luck and taking responsibilit... more I will explore the implications of Claudia Card’s analyses of moral luck and taking responsibility in her 1996 book The Unnatural Lottery for an account of “radical moral imagination”, understood as the creation of new possibilities for moral action through the modification of meanings. Card writes, “Taking responsibility in the context of practices that we reject requires doing it at the level of meaning and definition.” I situate Card’s arguments in relation to work by other feminist philosophers in order to address a number of questions about her understanding of the relation between moral agency and the process of creating or imposing meanings.
This paper develops the basis for a new account of radical moral imagination, understood as the t... more This paper develops the basis for a new account of radical moral imagination, understood as the transformation of moral understandings through creative response to the sensed inadequacy of one's moral concepts or morally significant appraisals of lived experience. Against Miranda Fricker, I argue that this kind of transition from moral perplexity to increased moral insight is not primarily a matter of the “top-down” use of concepts. Against Susan Babbitt, I argue that it is not primarily a matter of “bottom-up” intuitive responsiveness to experience. Beyond courage and hope, radical moral imagination involves the articulation of inchoate experience, which allows individuals to make new kinds of moral moves and to lay claim to others' acknowledgment of the meaning of these moves.
This paper develops an account of moral imagination that identifies the ways in which imaginative... more This paper develops an account of moral imagination that identifies the ways in which imaginative capacities contribute to our ability to make reason practical in the world, beyond their roles in moral perception and moral judgment. In §1 I explain my understanding of what it means to qualify imagination as ‘moral’ and go on in §2 to identify four main conceptions of moral imagination as an aspect of practical reason in philosophical ethics. I briefly situate these alternative ideas in relation to standard accounts of moral perception and judgment with reference to some guiding examples. In §3 I argue that the fourth conception of moral imagination, moral imagination understood as the capacity to generate new possibilities for morally good action, is not well accounted for within the standard categories of practical reason. §4 clarifies the scope and importance of this capacity and defends its claim to increased theoretical attention.
In her 1958 book The Human Condition, Hannah Arendt points to the potential of human action to in... more In her 1958 book The Human Condition, Hannah Arendt points to the potential of human action to initiate new beginnings, a capacity she calls natality, as the source of political renewal that could save the modern age from ruin. The question of the relationship between natality and theological concepts is one of the most perplexing points of dispute in the Arendt scholarship of the last two decades. The overall function of the concept of natality in Arendt’s thought has been variously categorized as ontological, political, “covertly” theological and “inconspicuously” messianic. This essay addresses the question of whether Arendt’s understanding of the essential natality of human action should be read as straightforwardly philosophical, as secularized theology or as “covert” or “inconspicuous” theology with a focus on how textual and contextual elements might be assessed in a way that does justice to the complexity of Arendt’s thought.
Aristotle's emphasis on sameness of character in his description of the virtuous friend as "anoth... more Aristotle's emphasis on sameness of character in his description of the virtuous friend as "another self" figures centrally in all his arguments for the necessity of friendship to self-knowledge. Although the attribution of the Magna Moralia to Aristotle is disputed, the comparison of the friend to a mirror in this work has encouraged many commentators to view the friend as a mirror that provides the clearest and most immediate image of one's own virtue. I will offer my own reading of Aristotle's theory of friendship, suggesting that the friend constitutes "another self" not as a mirror image but rather as a partner in moral perception.
Public Philosophy by Mavis Biss
The Atlantic , 2019
We argue that conscience is not an isolated space, cut off from the rest of the world. Rather, it... more We argue that conscience is not an isolated space, cut off from the rest of the world. Rather, it is what reminds us of our fallibility, and what makes us accountable to others. As measles spreads across the world, even in places where it is no longer endemic, the meaning of conscience suggests that none of us is exempt from our obligations to others.
The New York Times (The Stone), 2018
This piece written for The New York Times column The Stone draws on multiple philosophical tradit... more This piece written for The New York Times column The Stone draws on multiple philosophical traditions to address the impact of mass shootings on trust in public space.
Reviews by Mavis Biss
Kantian Review vol. 23 (1), pp. 153-156, 2018
When teaching historical texts I encourage students to always ask what is right, rather than ridi... more When teaching historical texts I encourage students to always ask what is right, rather than ridiculous, about a thinker’s perspective. We look for insights that might be reworked, refined or elaborated as part of what I consider collaboration with great authors. Michael Cholbi has written a guide to Kant’s ethics that is deeply informed by this pedagogical principle, as well as by the author’s own frustrations and gratifications as a student and teacher of Kant’s writing. Throughout the book, Cholbi focuses the reader on what is best and most worth defending in Kant’s moral theory, such that the student may better understand not just what Kant said, but “why what he said matters”(5). Cholbi aims to reduce the time and effort required to properly understand Kant’s ethics while clarifying why it is worth the investment of significant time and effort.
Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, 2015
This engaging collection brings together essays delivered at a conference on the highest good in ... more This engaging collection brings together essays delivered at a conference on the highest good in Aristotle and Kant held at the University of St. Andrews in 2010. It builds upon the influential reevaluation of the relationship between these two thinkers presented in Aristotle, Kant and the Stoics (1996),[1] but unlike its predecessor, this volume focuses on a specific concept and most of the essays are not primarily comparative. In their introduction the editors contrast the "structureless" version of the highest good at play in consequentialist theories with the more complex Aristotelian and Kantian conceptions of the highest good as "the source or condition of the goodness of other goods" (1). Aristotle's highest good is not something that can be maximized; rather, it is the end for the sake of which all other goods are chosen -- eudaimonia. Kant understands the highest good, most basically, as happiness proportionate to virtue, where virtue is the unconditioned good and happiness is the conditioned good. The main goal of the collection is to reestablish the centrality of these complex conceptions to their respective ethical frameworks and thereby refocus scholarship in the Aristotelian and Kantian traditions on value-theoretic questions. The editors wish to recover something that has been lost for the sake of enriching contemporary moral theory. After a brief overview of the contents I will focus my comments on the essays most relevant to this goal.
This retrospective essay is part of the Ethics 125th Anniversary Project and will be included in ... more This retrospective essay is part of the Ethics 125th Anniversary Project and will be included in the journal issue commemorating the first quarter century of the journal. W.P. Ker’s article "Imagination and Judgment" (11 (4), 1901) remains of interest partly because it anticipates some of the most important contributions to moral theory made by philosophers, most notably Iris Murdoch and Martha Nussbaum, who have developed conceptions of ‘moral imagination’ in more recent decades. More significantly, the less familiar aspects of Ker’s catalogue of the positive roles played by imagination in moral reasoning reveal that there is further work to be done in clarifying the concept of imagination in relation to practical reason.
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Papers by Mavis Biss
Keywords: Moral innovation, Kantian ethics, moral failure, resistance to oppression, social uptake.
Public Philosophy by Mavis Biss
Reviews by Mavis Biss
Keywords: Moral innovation, Kantian ethics, moral failure, resistance to oppression, social uptake.