The Moral Habitat

Those who love philosophy books that present new, exciting, and complex theories have been given a gift in Barbara Herman’s The Moral Habitat. In my view, it is also a gift to Kant, since it develops a deeply Kantian account of deliberation as part of showing how perfect and imperfect duties can be seen as working together in a dynamic moral (eco)system of duties of right and of virtue. In the process of doing this, Herman develops a new, intriguing account of imperfect duties and replaces many of Kant’s bad examples with good ones, providing an ideal model for how to argue by example, whether one is Kantian or not. * Helga Varden, Philosophical Review *
This is an outstanding book: wide-ranging, beautifully written, well-organized, tightly argued, worth reading by any philosopher...[It] has an organic unity that lends structure to its effective defense of many of the main systematic aims of Kant's critical ethics. Herman has followed Kant's own trajectory with the realization that our moral life goes beyond individual judgments, and even a general capacity for moral literacy, since it must always be part of an ongoing construction of a surrounding and ever more adequate form of what Herman calls a “moral habitat.”. [The] work's interpretative as well as substantive considerations are convincing, an exceptional contribution even in an era in which many others have also worked hard to make Kant's ethics appear more appealing and less encumbered by widespread mischaracterizations. * Karl Ameriks, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *
I have no doubt that The Moral Habitat will be an important book. It puts forward an original systematic approach that will be sure to stimulate lots of discussion. It is written in an engaging and sometimes eloquent way with a distinctive philosophical voice. And it addresses important concrete issues, including some that are badly neglected by moral philosophers, in ways that illuminate both the moral habitat approach and the issues themselves. Perhaps most importantly, it stimulates its reader to think and inspires confidence that thinking within the moral habitat project will bear real fruit * Stephen Darwall, Yale University *