The power to promise and forgive: Stabilizers of action and the moral ecology

Abstract

As human beings, we do not live in a world devoid of value, but rather in what could be called a moral ecology that gives us reasons for action. Theorists of social practice such as Alasdair MacIntyre have analyzed the moral ecology as practices with inherent values and goods, but they have given less attention to the moral agents living in the moral ecology. In this article, I build on Hannah Arendt’s analysis of promising and forgiving and argue that these are “stabilizers of action” that cut across various practices and constitute a moral life of self-constancy. Human beings are moral agents in virtue of these moral powers, and they must be cultivated within the social practices where humans develop. This is made difficult in a liquid modern world that puts emphasis on change and flexibility rather than on integrity and self-constancy.