Working It Out together

Resisting some of the leading conceptions of joint moral reasoning prominent in the philosophical tradition, such as Kant’s kingdom of ends and Habermas’s discourse ethics, because they are too idealized to be useful in understanding joint, socially embodied reasoning, this chapter sets out from a simple understanding of reasoning, centered on the idea of responsibly conducted thinking. It does so to support the book’s account of the moral community’s moral authority, which invokes the possibility of joint, socially embodied reasoning at three distinct levels. Reconciling the idea of reasoning to that of social embodiment requires reconsideration of the relationship of reason to power or empowerment, which can be helpful to reasoning, as well as inimical to it. Generality and inclusiveness are central virtues of the socially embodied reasoning considered here, and violence, epistemic injustice, and a lack of mutually attuned, open-minded responsiveness some of its most serious vices.