Decency

Mathias Risse asserts, rightly, that there has been "little systematic treatment" of decency as a moral notion and so there is a "gap in our understanding of moral vocabulary." Risse believes that the notion of decency, in his own words, warrants a closer interest, and his account of it is an attempt to close the gap. "Decency" can be used in a description of a person's general character. A generally decent person knows how to act appropriately and is aware of the responsibility to do so, and can be relied on to resist temptations not to do so, or to overcome conflicts of interests that may stand in the way of doing so. If this is right, then there is no reason not to think of decency as a virtue. It is certainly not a spectacular virtue yielding supererogatory acts of great benefit to humankind. By the same token, there is no reason not to think of the lack of decency as a vice, though not on the same level as the vice of a scoundrel.