Decency

Bibliographic Data

ID21395030
AuthorsJon Garthoff (0000-0003-0599-1619, Department of Philosophy University of Tennessee Knoxville Tennessee USA, corresponding author)
Year2026
Volume64
Issue1
Pages5-20
Publication date2026-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Southern Journal of Philosophy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0038-4283 • E-ISSN: 2041-6962
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/sjp.70002
OpenAlexW4411421115
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited21

This essay provides an account of the virtue of decency in the context of both ethics and politics. This virtue is distinctive because it is keyed to the moral status of thinking animals. Decency is not unique in being keyed to a moral status. As this essay explains and supports, humaneness is keyed to the status of conscious animals more generally, whereas justice is keyed to the moral status of conscious persons more specifically. Decency is less discussed than these virtues, in part due to a common failure to distinguish it from justice. John Rawls is an important exception, and this essay recovers Rawls's understanding of decency as a special case. Its account generalizes far beyond Rawls's conception, however, by emphasizing a contrast between capacities of thought and critical reason. This essay is part of a larger project of carefully distinguishing thought from critical reason in order to explain central phenomena in ethical theory

Context (archaeology) · Economic Justice · Economics · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Order (exchange) · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Virtue · Virtue ethics · History · Law · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment