Premium
The Promise: On the Morality of the Marginal and the Illicit
Author(s) -
Garcia Angela
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
ethos
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.783
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1548-1352
pISSN - 0091-2131
DOI - 10.1111/etho.12038
Subject(s) - morality , punitive damages , ambiguity , punishment (psychology) , context (archaeology) , addiction , psychology , odds , moral development , sociology , social psychology , social cognitive theory of morality , environmental ethics , criminology , political science , law , medicine , philosophy , paleontology , linguistics , logistic regression , neuroscience , biology
Moral engagement in the setting of drug addiction is often at odds with prevailing moral discourse and is treated in punitive terms. In this article, I explore how one moral gesture—a promise between a heroin‐using mother and daughter—embodies the difficulty and ambiguity of moral experience in the context of addiction and offers insight into how it is profoundly shaped by social processes. By offering a close description of the promise over time, I show how morality is lived through sentiments and practices of care and commitment, which are vulnerable to isolation, punishment, and wounding. The story of the promise thus offers a way to reflect upon morality as the blurring of these different intensities.