Memoir Ethics

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Memoir Ethics: Good Lives and the Virtues is a philosophical study of moral themes in memoirs. It explores how memoirists present and defend perspectives on good lives. Particular attention is paid to the interplay of the virtues, including their interplay with additional (non-moral) types of values in good lives. More generally, it explores the relevance of memoir to moral philosophy, and in turn how moral philosophy enters into elucidating and critiquing memoirs. Memoirs are understood as non-fiction narratives written by oneself and significantly about oneself (including full-life autobiographies). I explore perspectives on good lives as they are expressed in memoirs written by both philosophers and non-philosophers. Most of the chapters focus on one of the generic aspects of good lives: moral goodness, authenticity, meaningfulness, happiness, health, and self-fulfillment. An early chapter clarifies how memoirists often employ life-based arguments in defending value perspectives. A penultimate chapter discusses whether philosophers memoirs are distinctive, compared to memoirs by non-philosophers and also compared to other forums for doing philosophy. A concluding chapter highlights some parallels between features of good lives and features of memoirs, for example, both can be said to be meaningful, authentic, and having virtues such as wisdom and courage.