Navigating Moral Struggle: Toward a Social Model of Exemplarity. Issue 3 (16th August 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Hamilton, Brian
• Is Part Of: Journal of religious ethics. Volume 47:Issue 3(2019)
• Page Start: 566
• Page End: 582
• Publication Date: 2019-08-16
• Subjects: virtue ethics -- exemplarist moral theory -- social ethics -- oppression -- racism -- Martin Luther King -- Jr.; Ethics -- Periodicals; Religious ethics -- Periodicals; Morale religieuse; Religion; Théologie; 205
• DOI: 10.1111/jore.12276
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0384-9694

Abstract

Abstract: Exemplars have the power to help people navigate various levels of moral struggle, from the relatively straightforward problem of lacking motivation to the much deeper problem of failing to see the moral realities that surround us. But there are also serious moral risks in the appeal to exemplars: we romanticize them, we make use of them in authoritarian ways, and we tend to forget how our choice of exemplars is conditioned by oppressive cultural formations. I argue that we need to develop a social model of exemplarity, attuned to social contexts of our exemplars themselves as well as the social processes of constructing and appealing to exemplars. More particularly, I argue that we need to develop space for thinking about exemplary groups, not just exemplary individuals, in order to develop the strengths and avoid the weaknesses in exemplarist moral theories.