Contempt as a Moral Attitude

It is a common lament that moral philosophers often deny, misdescribe, or simply overlook significant features of the ethical landscape as everyday agents perceive it. Contemporary moral philosophers, sensitive to the charge, have increasingly taken up questions of moral psychology and moral emotion they might otherwise have neglected. For all the improvement, however, the cast of characters on offer in contemporary moral philosophy and the attitudinal repertoire they command remains, to my mind, fairly uninspired if not uninspiring. Indeed, it may well be the moral philosophers' concern to inspire us that accounts for omissions we might otherwise attribute, on a less charitable hypothesis, to mere lack of imagination.