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J Value Inquiry (2010) 44:477487 DOI 10.1007/s10790-010-9247-8
Jeanette Bicknell
Published online: 24 November 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010
We all know of persons whose words and actions we would at least sometimes want to describe as self-righteous. Indeed one striking feature of self-righteousness is its prevalence. It can be found across economic classes and political and social spectra. We can see it in religious believers of many different creeds, in humanists and atheists, in smokers and non-smokers, in vegetarians and omnivores, and on both the political left and the right. In fact people who have little else in common may share a tendency to self-righteous behavior. Yet it has no defenders, in the sense that no individuals would like to hear themselves or their friends described as self-righteous. It is difcult to imagine the non-sarcastic avowal of claims such as, Spending time with Bob is enjoyable, since he is really self-righteous or Jane would make a great colleague because she is so self-righteous. The designation self-righteous is a condemnation, if not an outright insult. This is paradoxical, as righteousness or justice is an aspect, perhaps the very foundation, of self-righteousness.
Self-righteousness consists in either exaggerated or inappropriate claims of moral injury or personal moral development, or excessive or misplaced public moral pronouncements, which may be true or false. In the rst case, the aptness of the charge of being self-righteous, and so a moral assessment of the actions or speech which are the target of the charge, rests on the acceptance or rejection of antecedent moral claims. Yet in the second case the resolution of the moral issue is different. Even when we are in the right, and know that we are clearly in the right, there is good reason to refrain from the kind of behavior that warrants a charge of self-righteousness.
J. Bicknell (&)
Toronto, Canadae-mail: [email protected]
Self-Righteousness as a Moral Problem
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478 J. Bicknell
Very little philosophical analysis has been done directly on self-righteousness and related moral attitudes and emotions.1 The concept is traditionally more at home in theology, where it is contrasted with righteousness in God and is seen as the enemy of repentance.2 However self-righteousness connects to a cluster of related and different issues, some of which...