published on January 11, 2022

Moral Friendship as Perfectionist Resistance

There are striking points of affinity between Hannah Arendt¡¯s concept of a politico-moral variety of allusive thinking, and Stanley Cavell¡¯s concept of aversive thinking characteristic of Emersonian Moral Perfectionism (EMP). Although both Arendt and Cavell¡¯s EMP are pessimistic if not hostile to the suggestion of the redemption of a vibrant public sphere, their thought suggests possible moves toward a practical politico-moral philosophy¡ªpolitical philosophy as provocative moral practice recognizable in Socrates and Diogenes of Sinope. The paper teases out threads of thought in Arendt and Cavell toward an account of a quasi-public perfectionist philosophical practice¡ªcall it moral friendship¡ªsupportive of political-moral judgment in response to social conditions of its repression. Moral friendship is ultimately the cultivation of moral taste that enables one to notice moral phenomena susceptible to one¡¯s judgment whose failure to be noticed is an occasion for regret.