Volume 29, Number 1
November 2024
ARTICLE

The Moral Virtue of Social Consciousness

Volume 29, Number 1, November 2024, Pages 1–28
https://doi.org/10.26556/jesp.v29i1.3805
PDFPDF
MP3

Abstract

Social consciousness—which amounts to something like “being woke”—is a cognitive sensitivity to social injustices in one’s local environment and broader culture. From here, social consciousness can be accounted for in a variety of ways. Recently, it’s been suggested that we can understand social consciousness through the lens of moral encroachment. To be social consciousness, on this account, is to believe in accordance with the dictates of moral encroachment. After considering this account, I raise a few worries: it involves controversial theoretical commitments, entails unintuitive verdicts in important cases, and appears to be too demanding. In light of these worries, I develop a new account of social consciousness as a morally virtuous cognitive disposition that manifests primarily in certain doxastic states. I argue that we should favor the virtue account because it weathers the worries that trouble the encroachment account, and better captures several important features of social consciousness.
Copyright © 2024 Anna Brinkerhoff
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license.
|

Unifying Moral and Epistemic Praiseworthiness

Leo Eisenbach

Being Wronged and Understanding Moral Wrongness

Daniel Vanello

When Enough Is Not Enough: Satisficing and Moral Efficiency

Konstantin Weber

Parents and Peers: A Kantian Moral Development

William Grant Ray

Soldiers and Moral Tragedy: Comments on Renzo

Christopher Kutz

Responsibility and the Social Dimension of Addiction

Keyao Yang

Moral Disagreement and the Question Under Discussion

Stina Björkholm

The Moral Harms of Homelessness

Bradley Hillier-Smith

It’s Only Natural! Moral Progress Through Denaturalization

Charlie Blunden

The Overweighted Integrity Problem: Conscience, Complicity, and Moral Standing

Kyle G. Fritz

Moral Worth in Gettier Cases

Neil Sinhababu

Moral Demandingness and Modal Demandingness

Kyle York

Portico