Regina Rini, "The Ethics of Microaggression" (Routledge, 2020)
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What is the central ethical question about microaggressions that the episode explores?
Hi everyone, this is Marshall Poe. I'm the founder of the New Books Network, and I'm also a historian. I used to be a history professor, and I love maps, so I'm especially happy to tell you that this episode is sponsored by What's Your Map, which was the winner of the Best Education Podcast at the 2025 British Podcast Awards. What's Your Map is hosted by historian and prize-winning author Professor Jerry Broughton. In each episode, he invites a guest to share a map close to their heart and unfurl the ideas, inspirations, and stories behind it. I can tell you I've listened and it's fascinating. The podcast is in its sixth series and is enjoyed by audiences around the globe. You can explore all the maps in the podcast online.
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Hello. Thanks for joining us for this episode of New Books and Philosophy, which is part of the New Books Network. I'm Robert Talese. I'm professor of philosophy at Vanderbilt University. I co-host the program with Carrie Figter, Alexis McLeod, and Sarah Tyson. My guest today is Regina Rini. Regina is the Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Moral and Social Cognition at York University in Toronto. Her research focuses on moral and political philosophy. broadly construed to encompass moral psychology, applied ethics, social philosophy, and political epistemology. Her new book has just been published with Routledge. It's titled The Ethics of Microaggression. Seemingly fleeting and barely legible insults, slights, and diminutions might seem morally insignificant.
They're byproducts of ordinary thoughtlessness and insensitivity. Moreover, insofar as they inflict harm at all, the harm seems pretty minuscule. Hurt feelings, disappointment, annoyance, momentary frustration, and the like. Aren't such things as insults and put-downs in the eye of the beholder anyway? Surely, for the moral philosopher, they're bigger fish to fry. In The Ethics of Microaggression, Regina Rini takes seriously this kind of skeptical stance towards the phenomena of microaggression. Indeed, she finds that a common understanding of microaggression is vulnerable to skeptical challenges. However, she then develops and defends an alternative conception of microaggression, one that preserves the experiences of those who suffer it while quelling skeptical objections.
Along the way, she also proposes strategies for morally dealing with microaggressors. Now, as usual, there's a lot to talk about, but why don't we begin as we typically do with the guest? Hi, Regina. Hi, Bob. Thanks so much for having me on. Well, thank you for joining us. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Sure. So I teach at York University in Toronto, where I've been for a few years. Before that, I lived in New York City for about 10 years and various other places along the way, but I'm originally from Detroit. I mention all that since sometimes the national context matters. So I'm writing for a British publisher while I live and work in Canada, but my own background is American. So in case anybody's wondering what the various cultural things are, I'm trying to deal with all three.
Okay.
So I'm, like you said, I'm a moral philosopher and I got into this project because it was not something I'd been researching for a long time. Rather, the broad category I'm interested in has to do with moral disagreement and competing values. And so I came across a lot of these debates online about microaggression that at least to me initially seemed like somebody was misunderstanding how morality works or how moral blame works.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the central ethical question about microaggressions that the episode explores?
0:00–7:38
2
How does Regina Rini describe her personal background and motivation for studying microaggression?
7:38–17:29
3
What is the historical origin of the term “microaggression” and how did it develop?
17:29–27:41
4
How does the book distinguish between different skeptical views on microaggressions?
27:41–35:30
5
What is the ambiguous‑experience account of microaggression and why does it matter?
35:30–44:03
6
How does the structural account differ from the ambiguous‑experience account?
44:03–52:19
7
What is proleptic blame and how is it proposed as a response to microaggressions?
52:19–59:11
8
What future projects does Regina Rini plan and what final take‑aways does the interview highlight?
59:11–1:00:38
Speakers
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