Decency

Abstract 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.