Social Goodness

Book Review
Social Ontology
Charlotte Witt’s Social Goodness is a must-read.
Author

Kevin Richardson

Published

February 3, 2025

I’ve written a review of Witt (2023), so I’ll just gently place it here. Here is the beginning of my review.

It is incredibly difficult to say something new about social norms. The question “What is a social norm?” has been given many detailed answers by philosophers and social scientists. Social norms are often theorized as rules of some kind; most of the ensuing literature concerns the nature of such rules and how they are established or maintained. Despite the mountain of literature on social norms, Charlotte Witt’s Social Goodness not only makes an original contribution to the literature, but it also does so in a way that points toward important, underexplored regions of conceptual space.

There is another review in Philosophical Quarterly by Luca Moretti.

I’ve also given comments on the book in Inquiry.

I recommend reading this book if you’re interested in a genuinely different approach to social norms.

References

Witt, Charlotte. 2023. Social Goodness: The Ontology of Social Norms. Oxford University Press.