Open AccessMaking Peace with Moral Imperfection
Author(s) -
Camil Golub
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of ethics and social philosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1559-3061
DOI - 10.26556/jesp.v16i2.767
Subject(s) - regret , order (exchange) , epistemology , moral disengagement , moral psychology , identity (music) , personal identity , social cognitive theory of morality , sociology , psychology , social psychology , law and economics , environmental ethics , philosophy , economics , computer science , aesthetics , self , finance , machine learning
How can we rationally make peace with our past moral failings, while committing to avoid similar mistakes in the future? Is it because we cannot do anything about the past, while the future is still open? Or is it that regret for our past mistakes is psychologically harmful, and we need to forgive ourselves in order to be able to move on? Or is it because moral mistakes enable our moral growth? I argue that these and other answers do not properly resolve the problem of temporal asymmetry in our attitudes toward moral imperfection, and I defend an alternative response, centered on our personal attachments and our biographical identity.