The Virtues of Our Vices: A Modest Defense of Gossip, Rudeness, and Other Bad Habits - Paperback

by Emrys Westacott (Author)

The hidden value of some of our everyday vices

Are there times when it's right to be rude? Can we distinguish between good and bad gossip? Am I a snob if I think that NPR listeners are likely to be better informed than devotees of Fox News? Does sick humor do anyone any good? Can I think your beliefs are absurd but still respect you?

In The Virtues of Our Vices, philosopher Emrys Westacott takes a fresh look at important everyday ethical questions--and comes up with surprising answers. He makes a compelling argument that some of our most common vices--rudeness, gossip, snobbery, tasteless humor, and disrespect for others' beliefs--often have hidden virtues or serve unappreciated but valuable purposes. For instance, there are times when rudeness may be necessary to help someone with a problem or to convey an important message. Gossip can foster intimacy between friends and curb abuses of power. And dubious humor can alleviate existential anxieties.

Engaging, funny, and philosophically sophisticated, The Virtues of Our Vices challenges us to rethink conventional wisdom when it comes to everyday moral behavior.

Back Jacket

"Works on ethics often float above the flux and confusion of everyday life. Not this engaging book! Brimming with lively examples, Westacott's meditation reveals the bright side of some of our darker practices, such as gossip, sick humor, and rude behavior. While the writing is breezy, the analysis is both rigorous and lucid. By the turn of the last page, the delighted reader is sure to have developed a more nuanced and perhaps forgiving grasp of some of our most common transgressions."--Gordon Marino, editor of Ethics: The Essential Writings

"Philosophy should encompass not only the summits of life-and-death issues but the lowlands and occasional quicksand of everyday manners. Emrys Westacott is an ideal guide to this terrain, especially to the ethics of guilty verbal pleasures. The Virtues of Our Vices is a provocative exploration of the big issues underlying small talk."--Edward Tenner, author of Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences

"With insight and rigor, Emrys Westacott shows that what is small is not necessarily trivial, that analytic precision is compatible with fully accepting the messiness of real life, and that what matters is often lost in the cracks of the obvious, big moral debates of the day. This is a refreshingly original work which promises to bring quotidian ethics the wider attention it deserves."--Julian Baggini, cofounder and editor-in-chief of the Philosopher's Magazine

"If you have ever been accused of being rude when you were merely stating the truth, or called a gossip because you like to dwell on other people's actions, Westacott is for you. His linked studies of everyday vices offer elegant analysis of the goods that lurk in behavior that is usually condemned. This wise book is practical philosophy in the best sense."--Mark Kingwell, --Mark Kingwell, author of In Pursuit of Happiness: Better Living from Plato to Prozac

"Emrys Westacott writes in an accessible way, and often with humor, about topics that are of wide interest. He is right that the ethical questions that confront ordinary people in everyday life are important, even if philosophy has tended to ignore them."--David Benatar, editor of Ethics for Everyday

"In this enjoyable book, Westacott shows that the question of whether rudeness, snobbery, and other vices are wrong is more nuanced and delicate than it might appear."--Caspar Hare, author of On Myself, and Other, Less Important Subjects

Author Biography

Emrys Westacott is professor of philosophy at Alfred University in Alfred, New York. His work has been featured in the New York Times and has appeared in the "Philosopher's Magazine," "Philosophy Now," the "Humanist," the "Philosophical Forum," and many other publications. He is also the coauthor of "Thinking through Philosophy: An Introduction."