CEPPA Talk – Kimberley Brownlee (University of British Columbia)

TITLE: ‘Interactional Wrongs and Vices’

ABSTRACT: This paper explores a domain of action that we often regard as a minor moral matter, the domain of ordinary interactions. Yet, ordinary interactions are morally significant for two reasons: they are the primary vehicle through which 1) we show respect and disrespect for each other, and 2) we either grease the wheels or put a spanner in the wheels of healthy human sociability. Interactional ethics concerns both our first-order conduct within a given interaction and our second-order management of our interactional lives. At both levels, we can act well or badly and thereby do great good, harm, justice, and injustice. This paper homes in on first-order and second-order interactional wrongs. It isolates distinct wrongs that we can do at each of the three key stages of an interaction – the initiation stage, execution stage, and conclusion stage – including, notably, engage in interactional outsourcing. It then examines specific second-order patterns of wrongdoing – interactional vices – that we can display as we manage our interactional lives.