Ami Harbin’s first book, Disorientation and Moral Life, is a much-welcomed contribution to the field of feminist philosophy. Drawing on a rich tradition of thought in moral psychology, philosophy and feminist theory, as well as on first-person accounts of the disorientations of migration, trauma, queerness, illness and feminist and anti-racist consciousness-raising, Harbin provides readers with a compelling and conceptually astute reading of the moral significance of disorientations. In reconsidering the significance of these experiences through the prism of moral life, Harbin describes disorientations as “temporally extended, major life experiences that make it difficult for individuals to know how to go on” (2).

Harbin’s description of disorientations as a “family resemblance concept” (17) includes very different experiences that nonetheless share “overlapping similarities” (17). Disorientations encompass a broad spectrum of experiences, ranging from those of bereavement and grief (Chapter 2), to life under racism (Chapter 3), to the debilitating impact of illness and disability (Chapter 4). In view of the disparities between different types of disorientation, as well as between the moral agents who experience them, Harbin’s argument treads cautiously towards conclusions. Although she ultimately makes some prescriptive recommendations (Chapter 6), the vast majority of chapters flesh out a descriptive analysis of disorientations and of what they do or, more accurately, undo. As Harbin convincingly argues, and although they have not been given sufficient attention thus far, the largely unpredictable and uncharted effects of disorientations make up an important part of the moral landscape of our lives. What’s more, some individuals, groups and communities might be more exposed to specific types of disorientations by virtue of unjust social structures and contingent social norms. While most disorientations are seriously upsetting and call into question central aspects of our lives, not all disorientations are harmful in the same way. A white lawyer gaining awareness of her privilege in a workspace through a discussion with a black maintenance worker might feel disoriented and experience a “dizzying feeling of not knowing how to go on” (87) with her work in the same way. Her colleague’s disorientation in a predominantly white society, however, is compounded with the harms of living through systemic discrimination on a daily basis. Purposely echoing claims made by feminist philosophers about “the moral significance of everyday practices of relating to other agents and to contexts within which we live” (xiv), Harbin vitally integrates considerations of race, gender, class, disability and sexuality into her account of disorientations. Thus, her analysis of the moral relevance of these disruptions also concerns itself with the intersection of oppression, privilege and disorientations.

The crux of Harbin’s argument in this book, however, lies in the claim that, in addition to playing a part in most of our lives, the ‘soundwaves’ of disorientations are “morally promising” (29). Harbin’s more distinctive claim, then, is that, although disorientations typically strike us as negative experiences that hinder more “sure-footed ways of being” (63), the various ways in which subjects are challenged by these disorientations can play a significant role in their development as moral agents. To make this point, in Chapter 2, Harbin persuasively re-examines philosophical accounts of moral life and challenges the importance attributed to decision making, clarity of thought and resoluteness in classic models of moral agency. In this section, she lays the groundwork for her own account of moral agency (Chapters 3, 4, 5, 6) by surveying traditional accounts of moral motivation and the dominant “legacy of resolvism”(48) that threads through moral philosophy at large. In Harbin’s view, this legacy is perhaps best evidenced by moral theory’s general appraisal of contexts in which agents “[know] what to do, [feel] able to do it, and successfully [carry] out the required action” (36-37). On this view, admittedly, experiences of disorientation are conflated with feelings of fear, uneasiness and discomfort of having one’s abilities curtailed. As Harbin further argues in Chapter 6, friends, partners, family members, institutions at large and disoriented individuals themselves might feel compelled to override disorientations, reorient their lives and the lives of those around them and dismiss the expression of feelings of disorientation. Acting with resolve and resolving how to act become the norm from which experiences of disorientation are felt to deviate from and should gravitate back towards.

In Disorientation and Moral Life, Harbin, however, reminds us that, although we might sometimes feel engaged in resolute paths of action, it is more likely that “processes of becoming morally motivated to act are more complex than simply becoming informed about how to apply a moral framework to a moral dilemma” (xiv). The mercurial aspects of the problems we face and the convoluted ways in which our lives are coiled with the lives of others requires a serious readjustment of this view. Moral agents might need to learn to confront situations of injustice without being fully determined on a course of action (Chapter 5); they might need to tenderize their expectations in the face of uncertainty and change (Chapter 4) or develop moral insight and epistemic humility from a gained awareness of the political complexity of social norms without instituting new assumptions about their situations (Chapter 3). Simply put, the morally significant effects of disorientations cannot be chiefly understood in terms of an improvement of our abilities to solve problems decisively, but rather and more fundamentally through the slow nurturing of “new ways of relating to, caring for, acting with and relying on other people” (34). Harbin writes: “To maintain the expectation that one could be fully prepared for the future, invulnerable, independent, or at ease within norms in a world of unpredictability, vulnerability, interdependence and harmful norms is to be in denial” (121). In developing an account of disorientations that both critically and compassionately re-examines their moral significance, Harbin’s book is a key contribution to the strenuous task of addressing our vulnerabilities and making disorientations more livable.