Everyday Ethics and Social Change

Anna L. Peterson has hit upon an important topic: that there is a profound disconnection between the private virtues we evince in caring personal relationships and the ethical decisions we make in the public arena. Exploring the reasons for this disconnection, Peterson contends that we need to generalize and project the best of our private virtues into the public sphere. Her book challenges readers to acknowledge this disconnection and seek ways to overcome it. -- David Harmon, the George Wright Society Everyday Ethics and Social Change offers a different conception of utopia, as well as an unorthodox route to reach it. Anne L. Peterson does so in a thoughtful, sensible, sensitive way. -- Anthony Cunningham, St. John's University, and author of The Heart of What Matters: The Role for Literature in Moral Philosophy

Americans increasingly cite moral values as a factor in how they vote, but when we define morality simply in terms of a voter's position on gay marriage and abortion, we lose sight of the ethical decisions that guide our everyday lives. In our encounters with friends, family members, nature, and nonhuman creatures, we practice a nonutilitarian morality that makes sacrifice a rational and reasonable choice. Recognizing these everyday ethics, Anna L. Peterson argues, helps us move past the seemingly irreconcilable conflicts of culture and refocus on issues that affect real social change. Peterson begins by divining a "second language" for personal and political values, a vocabulary derived from the loving and mutually beneficial relationships of daily life. Even if our interactions with others are fleeting and fragmentary, they provide a viable alternative to the contractual and atomistic attitudes of mainstream culture. Everyday ethics point toward a more just, humane, and sustainable society, and to acknowledge moments of grace in our daily encounters is to realize a different way of relating to people and nonhuman nature--an alternative ethic to cynicism and rank consumerism. In redefining the parameters of morality, Peterson enables us to make fundamental problems such as the distribution of wealth, the use of public land and natural resources, labor and employment policy, and the character of political institutions the preferred focus of debate and action.