What’s Civility Got to Do With It? A Murdochian Response
Megan Laverty (Teachers College)

05.30-07.00PM (BST)

All are welcome. The paper is attached here.  Further inquiries: alison.brady.14@ucl.ac.uk

Civility is now more necessary than ever, but we don’t know how to think about it. Some theorists dismiss civility on the grounds that it promotes superficiality, insincerity, and hypocrisy. Yet, for Iris Murdoch, civility is associated with social virtues, such as courteousness, magnanimity, and kind-heartedness. I argue that she conceives civility as a modality of attention ‘at a distance’. It encompasses those small, socially communicative rituals that express and promote attention and are subject to ongoing refinement and adaptation. As I read Murdoch, it is through such social formalities that we importantly touch the formlessness of our existence.
 
Megan Laverty is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research interests are philosophy of education, moral philosophy and education, and pre-college philosophy of education. She is the author of Iris Murdoch’s Ethics: A Consideration of her Romantic Vision (Bloomsbury, 2007). Together with Maughn Rollins Gregory, she edits the Philosophy for Children Founders series (Routledge). Together with René Arcilla, she edits the Philosophies of Education in Art, Cinema, and Literature series (Bloomsbury). Together with David T. Hansen, she edited the five-volume series, A History of Western Philosophy of Education (Bloomsbury 2021).
 
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