Kwame Anthony Appiah – The Ethics of Identity

373 Pages·2008·1.65 MB·English

Copyright©2005byPrincetonUniversityPress
PublishedbyPrincetonUniversityPress,41WilliamStreet,
Princeton,NewJersey08540
IntheUnitedKingdom:PrincetonUniversityPress,3Market
Place,Woodstock,OxfordshireOX201SY
AllRightsReserved
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Appiah,Anthony.
Theethicsofidentity/KwameAnthonyAppiah.
p. cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN0-691-12036-6(alk.paper)
1.Ethics.2.Groupidentity—Moralandethicalaspects.
3.Identity(Psychology)—Moralandethicalaspects.I.Title.
BJ1031.A642005
170—dc22 2004044535
BritishLibraryCataloging-in-PublicationDataisavailable
ThisbookhasbeencomposedinMinion
Printedonacid-freepaper.∞
pupress.princeton.edu
PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
u For Henry Finder
“totum muneris hoc tui est ...”
—HORACE, Odes 4.3

Contents
u
PREFACE ix
Chapter One The Ethics of Individuality 1
THE GREAT EXPERIMENT—LIBERTY AND INDIVIDUALITY—
PLANS OF LIFE—THE SOUL OF THE SERVITOR—SOCIAL
CHOICES—INVENTION AND AUTHENTICITY—THE SOCIAL
SCRIPTORIUM—ETHICSINIDENTITY—INDIVIDUALITYAND
THESTATE—THECOMMONPURSUIT
Chapter Two Autonomy and Its Critics 36
WHATAUTONOMYDEMANDS—AUTONOMYASINTOLERANCE—
AUTONOMYAGONISTES—THETWOSTANDPOINTS—
AGENCYANDTHEINTERESTSOFTHEORY
ChapterThree The Demands of Identity 62
LEARNINGHOWTOCURSE—THESTRUCTUREOFSOCIAL
IDENTITIES—MILLETMULTICULTURALISM—AUTONOMISM,
PLURALISM,NEUTRALISM—AFIRSTAMENDMENTEXAMPLE:
THEACCOMMODATIONISTPROGRAM—NEUTRALITY
RECONSIDERED—THELANGUAGEOFRECOGNITION—THE
MEDUSASYNDROME—LIMITSANDPARAMETERS
Chapter Four The Trouble with Culture 114
MAKING UPTHE DIFFERENCE—ISCULTURE A GOOD?—THE
PRESERVATIONIST ETHIC—NEGATION AS AFFIRMATION—
THEDIVERSITYPRINCIPLE
viii u CONTENTS
Chapter Five Soul Making 155
SOULSANDTHESTATE—THESELF-MANAGEMENT
CARD—RATIONAL WELL-BEING—IRRATIONAL IDENTITIES—
SOULMAKINGANDSTEREOTYPES—EDUCATEDSOULS—
CONFLICTSOVERIDENTITYCLAIMS
Chapter Six Rooted Cosmopolitanism 213
AWORLDWIDEWEB—RUTHLESSCOSMOPOLITANS—
ETHICALPARTIALITY—TWOCONCEPTSOFOBLIGATION—
COSMOPOLITANPATRIOTISM—CONFRONTATIONAND
CONVERSATION—RIVALROUSGOODS,RIVALROUSGODS—
TRAVELINGTALES—GLOBALIZINGHUMANRIGHTS—
COSMOPOLITANCONVERSATION
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 273
NOTES 277
INDEX 341
Preface
u
IN CONTEMPORARY philosophical discussion in the
English-speaking world, there is a broad consensus on the outlines
and the history of a liberal political tradition. It is conventional, for
example,tosupposethatthistraditionowesmuchtoLocke’sconcep-
tionofreligioustolerationandtohistheoryofproperty;thatthelan-
guage of human equality and human rights, which was developed in
the French and American Revolutions, is central to the heritage; that
it is natural for a liberal to speak of human dignity and to suppose
thatitis(ceteris,asusual,paribus)equallyapossessionofeachhuman
being.Itisalsoregularlyassumedthatthetraditionisethicallyindivid-
ualist—in the sense that it assumes that, in the end, everything that
mattersmorally,mattersbecauseofitsimpactonindividuals—sothat
if nations, or religious communities, or families matter, they matter
becausetheymakeadifferencetothepeoplewhocomposethem.1We
may have learned to think of these core elements of the liberal tradi-
tion as contested: so that, to put it crudely, liberals are not people
whoagreeaboutthemeaningofdignity,liberty,equality,individuality,
toleration, and the rest, but are, rather, people who argue about their
significance for political life. We may have learned, that is, that the
liberal tradition—like all intellectual traditions—is not so much a
bodyofdoctrineasasetofdebates.Still,itiswidelyagreedthatthere
is such a tradition.
Itisaninterestingquestionwhetherwecan,infact,identifyatradi-
tion of thought that includes these elements; and it is, of course, a
question that would require serious historical inquiry. My own suspi-
cion is that if you began such an inquiry, the intellectual antecedents
of Mill or Hobhouse or Berlin or Rawls would turn out to be more
x u PREFACE
multifariousthansingular,andthatwhatwenowcalltheliberaltradi-
tion would look less like a body of ideas that developed through time
andmorelikeacollectionofsourcesandinterpretationsofsourcesthat
we now find useful, looking backward, in articulating one influential
philosophicalviewofpolitics:yetanotherinstanceoftheOwlofMin-
erva’s taking wing as the light fades. One reason—a shallow one, per-
haps,butithasimpressedme—forthinkingthatliberalismisacreation
ofhindsight isthatthe useof theword“liberalism,” asthename fora
politicalfaith,isanineteenth-centurydevelopment;itoccursnowhere
in the writings of Locke or the American Founders, in whose absence
the history of liberalism we now tell would be sorely depleted.2
So you might try to identify liberalism with traditions of practice,
instead of thought. Taking a feet-first rather than headfirst approach,
you could point to the development over the last few centuries, but
especially since the American and French Revolutions, of a new form
of political life. This form of life finds expression in certain political
institutions: among them elected rather than hereditary rulers, and,
moregenerally,somesortofappealtotheconsentofthegoverned,but
also limitations on the power ofthose who govern—even in the name
of a majority—expressed in a legal system that respects certain funda-
mental rights. These civil or political rights carve out for citizens a
corresponding sphere of freedoms, including freedom of political ex-
pression and freedom of religion. To be sure, each of these elements
can come on its own: there were republics in Europe as far back as
Athens; the first German emperors were elected;3 and freedom of the
pressandreligioustolerationdevelopedinEnglandwithinamonarchi-
cal scheme. What characterizes the beginnings of liberalism, then,
wouldseemtobeacombinationofpoliticalinstitutions:constitutions,
rights, elections, and safeguards for private property. In the twentieth
century,acrossbothEuropeandNorthAmerica,thesethingsweresup-
plemented by a public concern to guarantee certain minimum condi-
tions of welfare for every citizen.
Still,talkofpracticewon’tprotectyoufromtheperplexitiesofprin-
ciple,andyouwon’tgetveryfarwiththeattempttodrawalinebetween
thetwo.Fortheoriesofpoliticsaren’tliketheoriesofcelestialmechan-
ics: in the realm of the political, theories have a tendency to become a
partofwhattheytheorize.Ifthereisaliberalformoflife,itwasalways
PREFACE u xi
characterized not onlyby institutions but also by arhetoric, a body of
ideas and arguments. When the American colonists declared it to be
“self-evident” that they had inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness, they sought to make it so. It’s possible, though,
that an emphasis on practices rather than principles can be helpful in
showingjusthowheterogeneousthoseprinciplescanbe.Forexample,
historians have debated the importance, for America’s Founders, of
classical republicanism—of a politics founded upon ideals of citizen-
ship,ratherthanuponnotionsofindividualrights.Butonceyouaccept
thatliberaldemocracyhasbeeninformedbytalkofcivicvirtuesaswell
as talk of rights, than you might well conclude that liberalism should
be taken to subsume such putatively contending traditions. Not only
does liberalism, takenin this loose and baggysense, encompass nearly
allmembersofnearlyallofthemainstreampoliticalpartiesinEurope
and North America; it also encompasses theorists who, in criticizing
“atomism”ordeontology,say,regardthemselvesashostiletotheliberal
traditionratherthanpartofit.Letting“liberalism”absorbmanyofits
ostensiblerivalsmayinvitechargesoflexicalimperialism.Butitwillat
least forestall those grindingly familiar arguments about whether this
or that putatively liberal position is or isn’t really liberal. Such argu-
ments are often illuminating in their substance, but not, I think, as
arguments over a word.
Sowhyridethatswaybackedsteed,weigheddownwithitsmultifari-
ous semantic baggage, in the first place? That’s a good question. I
should admit I’d once hoped to be able to write this book without
recourse to it. That I didn’t get very far is a reminder that all of our
political terms are shopsoiled by history; to talk about autonomy or
toleration or dignity is to join a conversation that has been ongoing
long before you arrived and will continue long after you’ve departed.
The problems I’ll be exploring have arisen for those of us who find
ourselvesbroadlyconvincedthatcertain values,nowassociatedbyan-
glophone philosophers with the word “liberal,” matter to the lives we
lead,andtothepoliticswewishtofashion.Atthesametime,theprob-
lems I want to discuss are of significance whether or not “liberalism”
istherightnamefortheprojectwithinwhichtheyarise.Indeed,Ihope
topersuadeyouthattheyaresignificantevenif,mirabiledictu,youdo
not find yourself disposed to think of yourself as a liberal at all.
xii u PREFACE
u
Let me sketch out a picture within which the problems I want to talk
aboutarise.Eachofushasonelifetolive;andalthoughtherearemany
moral constraints on how we live our lives—prominent among them
being constraints that derive from our obligations to other persons—
these constraints do not determine which particular life we must live.
Wemustnotlivelivesofcrueltyanddishonesty,forexample,butthere
aremanyliveswecanlivewithoutthesevices.Therearealsoconstraints
on how we may live that derive from our historical circumstances and
ourphysicalandmentalendowments:Iwasbornintothewrongfamily
to be a Yoruba chief and with the wrong body for motherhood; I am
tooshorttobeasuccessfulprofessionalbasketballplayer,insufficiently
dexterous to be a concert pianist. But even when we have taken these
thingsintoaccount,weknowthateachhumanlifestartsoutwithmany
possibilities. Some people have a wider and more interesting range of
optionsthanothers.IoncehadaconversationwiththelateNobellau-
reate Jacques Monod—one of the founding fathers of molecular biol-
ogy—who told me he had had to choose, at a certain point in his life,
amongbeing(asIrecall)aconcertcellist,aphilosopher,andascientist.
But everybody has, or should have, a variety of decisions to make in
shaping a life. And for a person of a liberal disposition these choices
belong, in the end, to the person whose life it is.
This means at least two things. First, the measure of my life, the
standard by which it is to be assessed as more or less successful, de-
pends,ifonlyinpart,onmylife’saimsasspecifiedbyme.Second,my
life’s shape is up to me (provided that I have done my duty toward
others), even if I make a life that is less good than a life I could have
made. All of us could, no doubt, have made better lives than we have:
but that is no reason for others to attempt to force those better lives
upon us. Thoughtful friends, benevolent sages, anxious relatives will
rightlyoffer usboth assistanceandadvice asto howtoproceed. Butit
willbeadvice,notcoercion,thattheyjustlyoffer.And,justascoercion
will be wrong in these private circumstances, it will be wrong when it
isundertakenbygovernmentsinterestedintheperfectionoftheirciti-
zens.Thatiswhatitmeanstosaythat—onceIhavedonemyduties—
theshapingofmylifeisuptome.WhatMilltaughtustocallindividu-