Just Love: Transforming Civic Virtue

Acknowledgments

ix This is a book about the power of ordinary heroes, and I am grateful to many heroes in my life who played crucial roles in its writing. Although it is customary to acknowledge institutional supporters and scholarly colleagues first, and personal supporters afterwards, I invert that order here. Of course, that deviation from tradition is not due to any lack of appreciation for either the considerable institutional support that enabled, or the remarkable scholars who informed, this project. Rather, it is in the spirit of the book to highlight the ethical import of caring labor that is sometimes taken for granted. Such caring labor is as essential to academic life as to civic life. My family schooled me in virtues long before “virtue theory” became a trajectory of scholarly revival. Thanks to all of you for supporting my academic quests: Edward Mongoven, Judith Schroeder, Mary and Tom Conroy, Patrick and Tracy Mongoven, Miki Weisstein, Eric and Fei Weisstein , Cecily and Bob Jenkins, Tony Weisstein and Jerry White, Richard and Jo Stelmach, and in loving memory of Carmen Kostner Mongoven. My daughter Kelsey Kai-Yuan Mongoven, age nine, deserves thanks not only for giving up playtime while sections were being completed and for searching pages for space breaks, but also for being a patient teacher of mothering. My scholarly interest in friendship was sparked as much by the blessing of my friends as by trends in contemporary ethical theory. As the saying goes, a friend who helps you move is a true friend indeed. Several Acknowledgments x · Acknowledgments friends packed my house around me during three different moves while I was completing some stage of the manuscript: Donetta Cothran, Gretchen Horlacher, Rebecca Manring, Pam Kellett, Barbara Buhr, Maricel Cruz, Kerry and Kara Skora. Friends and family also provided child care during the writing, a gift to my daughter as well as to myself. Special thanks for child care to Dad, Judy, Xiu-Ying Dong, Mary and Tom, Donetta, Gretchen, Judy Andre, Bill and Peggy Diedrich, Char Muffitt, and Kathleen Lavey. Certain friends encouraged me to continue with this manuscript during difficult periods: Donetta when I suffered a medical setback; Thomas Grubb when I was editing in Japan far from my usual scholarly circles. Shu-Ming Chang and Heidi Doherty sustained final manuscript preparation. Many friends reached across geographic distance to cheerlead the project: Feng-Bang Lee, Michele Mack, Cynthia Martin, ZhaoYu Wan, Tammy Martin, Xiao-Ling Huang Early, Laura Pan Luo, Sylvia Griss. I am fortunate that my circle of personal and professional friends overlap. Special thanks to Helen Benet-Goodman, whose collegiality nurtured my soul and this project throughout its development. Friend and stepmother Judy generously invested her editorial acumen in the manuscript . Roz Lasker and Phil Lee reminded me to maintain the connection between my exploration of ethical theory and my practical interests in bioethical policy. In scholarly arenas, I am grateful for extensive institutional and personal support that enabled this project. A Jacob Javits Fellowship supported much of my graduate school training, while a University of Virginia Dissertation fellowship supported the first stages of this project in my Ph.D. dissertation. I owe gratitude beyond words to my dissertation director and great mentor James F. Childress, whose life as a teacher-scholar embodies the unity of virtue, character, and principles. I am grateful that my dissertation committee viewed scholarship as an adventure. Special thanks to committee members Larry Bouchard, Daniel Westberg, and Patricia Werhane. David Little’s smiling piques contributed to my thinking . Gene Rogers’s engagement spurred me on. Supporters of my Asian interests, especially Paul Groner and Ronald Dimberg, contributed to my evolving desire to articulate a conception of civic virtue adequately supple for a pluralistic democracy. Acknowledgments · xi Graduate school colleagues—Aline Kalbian, Margaret Mohrmann, Felicia Cohn, George Randels, Jessica Pierce, Cecilia Moore, Sidney Brown, Mark Hanson, Jeffrey Greenman, Robert Tuttle, John Portmann, and Jeff Reynolds—pressed me intellectually in ways that gave birth to this project . Special thanks to Richard Brown, who wrapped editorial advice in personal encouragement. Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics sponsored my participation in its 1997–98 cross-disciplinary seminar on civic virtue, the forum that first galvanized my interest in “transforming” civic virtue. I am grateful to facilitators Christopher Kulp and Philip Kain and to seminar co-participants for our conversations: Don Beggs, June Carbone , Jane L. Curry, Mickey Edwards, Nicholas F. Gier...