Ami Harbin – författare

This book is a philosophical exploration of disorientation and its significance for action. Disorientations are human experiences of losing one's bearings, such that life is disrupted and it is not clear how to go on. In the face of life experiences like trauma, grief, illness, migration, education, queer identification, and consciousness raising, individuals can be deeply disoriented. These and other disorientations are not rare. Although disorientations can be common and powerful parts of individuals' lives, they remain uncharacterized by Western philosophers, and overlooked by ethicists.Disorientations can paralyze, overwhelm, embitter, and misdirect moral agents, and moral philosophy and motivational psychology have important insights to offer into why this is. More perplexing are the ways disorientations may prompt improved moral action.Ami Harbin draws on first person accounts, philosophical texts, and qualitative and quantitative research to show that in some cases of disorientation, individuals gain new forms of awareness of political complexity and social norms, and new habits of relating to others and an unpredictable moral landscape. She then argues for the moral and political promise of these gains. A major contention of the book is that disorientations have 'non-resolutionary effects': they can help us act without first helping us resolve what to do. In exploring these possibilities, Disorientation and Moral Life contributes to philosophy of emotions, moral philosophy, and political thought from a distinctly feminist perspective. It makes the case for seeing disorientations as having the power to motivate profound and long-term shifts in moral and political action. A feminist re-envisioning of moral psychology provides the framework for understanding how they do so.

This book is a philosophical exploration of disorientation and its significance for action. Disorientations are human experiences of losing one's bearings, such that life is disrupted and it is not clear how to go on. In the face of life experiences like trauma, grief, illness, migration, education, queer identification, and consciousness raising, individuals can be deeply disoriented. These and other disorientations are not rare. Although disorientations can be common and powerful parts of individuals' lives, they remain uncharacterized by Western philosophers, and overlooked by ethicists.Disorientations can paralyze, overwhelm, embitter, and misdirect moral agents, and moral philosophy and motivational psychology have important insights to offer into why this is. More perplexing are the ways disorientations may prompt improved moral action.Ami Harbin draws on first person accounts, philosophical texts, and qualitative and quantitative research to show that in some cases of disorientation, individuals gain new forms of awareness of political complexity and social norms, and new habits of relating to others and an unpredictable moral landscape. She then argues for the moral and political promise of these gains. A major contention of the book is that disorientations have 'non-resolutionary effects': they can help us act without first helping us resolve what to do. In exploring these possibilities, Disorientation and Moral Life contributes to philosophy of emotions, moral philosophy, and political thought from a distinctly feminist perspective. It makes the case for seeing disorientations as having the power to motivate profound and long-term shifts in moral and political action. A feminist re-envisioning of moral psychology provides the framework for understanding how they do so.

Fearing is a central part of how we relate to each other and the unpredictable world. Fearing badly is a key part of many of our moral failures and fearing better a central part of our moral repair. We might think that fearing is undesirable and should be avoided whenever possible, but, as Ami Harbin argues, avoiding fear causes some of our greatest threats.Fearing well is at the core of what it means to be responsible. By understanding fear as a relational practice, we can see that our relationships with other fearers shape what we fear, what fear feels like, how we identify and understand our fears, and how we cope with them. Bringing insights from philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, political theory, and mindfulness research, Harbin guides readers in coming to grips with what kind of fearers we want to be and become and what we owe each other when facing what we cannot control. Grounded in real-life cases that will be of interest to many readers--policing, prisons, pandemic, vaccination, borders, migration, parenting, gender, sexuality, health care systems, and more--this text addresses the moral quandaries and complexities of the ethics of fearing together.

Relational theory starts from the ontological fact of our being in networks of relationships and draws out what this means for theories of knowledge and for moral and political theory. This book uses insights from feminist relational theory to outline the ontological, epistemological, and moral/political implications of this theoretical approach.The chapters in this volume focus on relationships of power and oppression; how these relationships shape who is taken to have knowledge and who is dismissed or ignored; and what all of this means for theories of equality, justice, and moral and political theory more generally. A focus on relationships of power and oppression opens up an examination into structures such as colonialism and capitalism that shape interconnected networks of relationships between humans and human and non-human entities and ecosystems.This volume, which now includes eight additional chapters published both before and after the original special issue, offers a significant step forward in the development of feminist relational theory. Following early forays in identifying and criticizing mainstream liberal theory in the Western tradition, chapters in this collection draw on approaches by anti-oppression theorists found in critical disability, critical race, anti-colonial/decolonial, and non-Western theories to further broaden the descriptions and analyses of relationships and networks of relationships and to extend and advance feminist relational theory and its applications. The chapters in this book were originally published in the Journal ofGlobal Ethics.

Philosophers reflect on the significance of fear both in the history of Eastern and Western Philosophy and at the intersections of contemporary philosophy and other disciplines. The collection, edited by Ami Harbin, is divided into two parts. Part I begins with reflections on the centrality of fear in Confucian ethical-political thought and in the ancient Greek philosophy of Aristotle, before turning to the reflections on fear in medieval and twentieth-century philosophy. Part II presents contemporary philosophical work that expands the variety of approaches to fear, building connections with work in cognitive science, neuroscience, psychiatry, developmental psychology, and U. S. history. Fear as an emotion—though always present in the history of philosophy, and one of the key points of contact between philosophy and other empirically-informed disciplines—has received surprisingly little concerted attention within philosophy. This is the first collection from contemporary philosophers with the express goal of reflecting on fear in the history of philosophy and collecting perspectives on fear from philosophers engaged in interdisciplinary research.

The Moral Psychology of Fear brings together contemporary philosophers to consider how fear can shape or compromise moral motivation, and in particular the ways in which fear might motivate morally and politically troubling actions for individuals and communities. While the topics addressed by the chapters vary widely, the contributors share a commitment to analyzing the moral significance of fear for motivation, action, and responsibility in novel and creative ways.Edited by Ami Harbin, the volume is divided into four parts: In Part I, authors lay the groundwork for new philosophical analyses of fear by establishing some theoretical considerations about the connection of fear to injustice and the scope of what kinds of experiences count as fear. Part II turns to everyday experiences of fear—like fear of missing out and fear of one’s own death—that can have surprising moral implications. Part III delves into the way fears have been present in contexts of climate and public health crisis. Part IV offers reflections on the complex position of fear in some of the most charged political issues facing communities: migration, political polarization, violence, and oppressive ideologies more broadly.