Grit* Jennifer M. Morton and Sarah K. Paul
ARTICLES Grit* Jennifer M. Morton and Sarah K. Paul As psychologists have emphasized, achieving difficult, long-term goals requires the capacity for perseverance, or “grit.” We argue that grit is distinct from famil- iar philosophical notions like willpower and continence. Specifically, grit has an important epistemic dimension: quitting is often caused by a loss of confidence that continued effort will result in success. Correspondingly, successful exercises of grit often involve “epistemic resilience” in the face of setbacks suggesting that success is not forthcoming. We argue that resilient reasoning can be epistemi- cally rational to some extent, though it depends in part on whether the agent’s circumstances involve severe material scarcity or oppression. In theorizing about human agency, we philosophers tend to focus on short-term acts like flipping a light switch, pumping water to refill a cistern, or baking a cake. These mundane deeds are important to understand, but thereisasenseinwhichtheyareunrepresentativeofouragency.Manyof the small things we do are ultimately directed at much more diffuse goals that take weeks, months, or even a lifetime of effort to achieve. We turn on * Many thanks to audiences at the American University of Beirut, NYU–New York, NYU–Abu Dhabi, Ohio State, Stanford University, UNC–Chapel Hill, and the University of Southern California, as well as to the participants in workshops at the CSMN/University of Oslo, Florida State, NYU–Abu Dhabi, the NYC Early Career Ethics Workshop, the Uni- versity of Copenhagen, and the Yale Moral Psychology Working Group. Additional thanks are due to Michael Bratman, Harry Brighouse, Sarah Buss, Agnes Callard, Clinton Castro, Ben Schwan, and Mike Titelbaum for helpful conversations and to Nomy Arpaly, Luc Bovens, Michael Della Rocca, Beri Marušić, Sarah Stroud, two anonymous referees, and several asso- ciate editors at Ethics for written comments.
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