The Gap

Abstract

Abstract This chapter unpacks the idea that the project of moral improvement aims at narrowing the gap between our moral selves and our moral ideals. The shape of the gap depends on how we conceptualize our moral ideals and what we presuppose about our actual moral situation. For moral improvement to be a practical project, it must meet two requirements. First, it must operate with a psychologically realistic picture of actual human capacities for self-knowledge and reflection. Second, it must employ a moral ideal that is normatively authoritative and regulatively efficacious for the person undertaking the project. She must regard it as an ideal for herself and as having practical upshot for how she conducts her life. The chapter concludes with the claim that we should think of moral ideals in terms of aspirational moral identities and moral improvement as a project of articulating and inhabiting a moral identity.