Defiance is sometimes treated as behavior that needs to be punished or even diagnosed, especially when it is expressed by the subjugated. In contrast to that view, I argue that the readiness to be defiant is a virtue. Drawing upon an Aristotelian framework, updated by an uncompromising challenge to hegemonic power differences, I indicate a way for the subjugated and disenfranchised to recoup self-worth and moral agency. Defiance even may help correct for burdened virtues, as Lisa Tessman analyzes them. Thus, this article falls within the domains of moral psychology and social change. Difficulties in conceptualizing and operationalizing defiance as a virtue, especially since defiance tends to be divisive within society, are discussed in terms of cases. Special attention is paid to medicalizing discourses that take defiance to be a sign of pathology, especially with members of oppressed groups.
BestS. (1995). The politics of historical vision: Marx, Foucault, Habermas. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
4.
BoxillB. (1995). Self-respect and protest. In DillonR. (Ed.), Dignity, character, and self-respect (pp. 93–104). New York, NY: Routledge.
5.
CalhounC. (2004). Common decency. In CalhounC. (Ed.), Setting the moral compass: Essays by women philosophers (pp. 128–142). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
6.
CardC. (1990). Gender and moral luck. In FlanaganO.RortyA. (Eds.), Identity, character, morality: Essays in moral psychology (pp. 199–218). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
7.
CharlandL. (2006). Moral nature of the DSM-IV cluster B personality disorders. Journal of Personality Disorders, 20(2), 116–125.
8.
ChengN. (1988). Life and death in Shanghai. New York, NY: Penguin Books.
9.
Dan-CohenM. (1994). In defense of defiance. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 23(1), 24–51.
DozaC. (2001). Bloodlove. In FindlenB. (Ed.), Listen up! Voices from the next feminist generation (pp. 40–47). Emeryville, CA: Seal Press.
12.
Falcón y TellaM. (2004). Civil disobedience and test cases. Ratio Juris, 17(3), 315–327.
13.
FergusonA. (2001). Bad boys: Public schools in the making of Black masculinity. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
14.
FryeM. (1983a). Oppression. In The politics of reality: Essays in feminist theory (pp. 1–16). Freedom, CA: Crossing Press.
15.
FryeM. (1983b). A note on anger. In The politics of reality: Essays in feminist theory (pp. 84–94). Freedom, CA: Crossing Press.
16.
FulfordK.W.M. (2000). Teleology without tears: Naturalism, neo-naturalism, and evaluationism in the analysis of function statements in biology (and a bet on the twenty-first century). Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, 7(1), 77–94.
17.
GilliganC.BrownL. (1992). Meeting at the crossroads: Women’s psychology and girls’ development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
18.
GoldfarbJ. (1998). Civility and subversion: The intellectual in democratic society. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
19.
HackingI. (1999). The social construction of what?Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
20.
HibbinS. (Producer), & LoachK. (Director). (1994). Ladybird, Ladybird [Motion picture]. United Kingdom: Channel Four Films.
21.
HillT. (1995). Servility and self-respect. In DillonR. (Ed.), Dignity, character, and self-respect (76–92). New York, NY: Routledge.
22.
LefkowitzD. (2007). On a moral right to civil disobedience. Ethics, 117, 202–233.
23.
LinehanM. (1993). Cognitive-behavioral treatment of borderline personality disorder. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
24.
MacIntyreA. (1984). After virtue. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
25.
McGregorJ. (2004). Civility, civic virtue, and citizenship. In SistareC.T. (Ed.), Civility and its discontents: Essays on civic virtue, toleration, and cultural fragmentation (pp. 25–42). Lawrence: University of Kansas Press.
26.
MegoneC. (2000). Mental illness, human function, and values. Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, 7(1), 45–67.
27.
MurdochI. (1970). The sovereignty of good. London, UK: Routledge.
28.
NoddingsN. (1991). Women and evil. Berkeley: University of California Press.
29.
OzmentS. (1996). The bürgermeister’s daughter: Scandal in a sixteenth-century German town. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press.
30.
Plato. (1974). The republic (GrubeG.M.A., Trans.). Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.
31.
PopenoeD. (2000). Life without father. In DanielsC. (Ed.), Lost fathers: The politics of fatherlessness in America (pp. 33–50). New York, NY: Macmillan.
32.
PotterN. (2000). Giving uptake. Social Theory and Practice, 26(3), 479–508.
33.
PotterN. (2001). Is refusing to forgive a vice? In DesAutelsP.WaughJ. (Eds.), Feminists doing ethics (pp. 135–150). New York, NY: Rowman-Littlefield.
34.
PotterN. (2002). How can I be trusted? A virtue theory of trustworthiness. Lanham, MD: Rowman Littlefield.
35.
PotterN. (2009). Mapping the edges and the in-between: A critical analysis of borderline personality disorder. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
36.
SadlerJ. (2005). Values and psychiatric diagnosis. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
37.
SchonsheckJ. (2004). Rudeness, rasp, and repudiation. In SistareC. T. (Ed.), Civility and its discontents: Essays on civic virtue, toleration, and cultural fragmentation (pp. 169–185). Lawrence: University of Kansas Press.
38.
ShermanN. (1991). The fabric of character: Aristotle’s theory of virtue. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.
39.
SittenfeldC. (2001). Your life as a girl. In FindlenB. (Ed.), Listen up! Voices from the next feminist generation (pp. 3–10). Emeryville, CA: Seal Press.
40.
SorabjiR. (1980). Aristotle on the role of intellect in virtue. In RortyA. (Ed.), Essays on Aristotle’s ethics (pp. 201–219). Berkeley: University of California Press.
41.
SzaszT. (2000). Second commentary on Aristotle’s function argument. Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, 7(1), 3–17.
42.
TessmanL. (2005). Burdened virtues: Virtue ethics for liberatory struggles. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
43.
ThortonT. (2000). Mental illness and reductionism: Can functions be naturalized?Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, 7(1), 67–77.
44.
WakefieldJ. (1992). The concept of mental disorder: On the boundary between biological facts and social values. American Psychologist, 47(3), 373–388.
45.
WakefieldJ. (2000). Aristotle as sociobiologist: The ‘function of a human being’ argument, black box essentialism, and the concept of mental disorder. Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, 7(1), 17–44.
46.
ZacharP.PotterN. (2010a). Personality disorders: Moral or medical kinds—or both?Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, 17(2), 101–117.
47.
ZacharP.PotterN. (2010b). Valid moral appraisals and valid personality disorders. Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, 17(2), 131–142.
