Race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, sexuality: in the past
couple of decades, a great deal of attention has been paid to such
collective identities. They clamor for recognition and respect,
sometimes at the expense of other things we value. But to what extent
do "identities" constrain our freedom, our ability to make an
individual life, and to what extent do they enable our individuality?
In this beautifully written work, renowned philosopher and African
Studies scholar Kwame Anthony Appiah draws on thinkers through the
ages and across the globe to explore such questions. The Ethics of
Identity takes seriously both the claims of individuality—the task
of making a life—and the claims of identity, these large and often
abstract social categories through which we define ourselves. What
sort of life one should lead is a subject that has preoccupied moral
and political thinkers from Aristotle to Mill. Here, Appiah develops
an account of ethics, in just this venerable sense—but an account
that connects moral obligations with collective allegiances, our
individuality with our identities. As he observes, the question who we
are has always been linked to the question what we are. Adopting a
broadly interdisciplinary perspective, Appiah takes aim at the
clichés and received ideas amid which talk of identity so often
founders. Is "culture" a good? For that matter, does the concept of
culture really explain anything? Is diversity of value in itself? Are
moral obligations the only kind there are? Has the rhetoric of "human
rights" been overstretched? In the end, Appiah's arguments make it
harder to think of the world as divided between the West and the Rest;
between locals and cosmopolitans; between Us and Them. The result is a
new vision of liberal humanism—one that can accommodate the vagaries
and variety that make us human.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781400826193
Publisert
2013
Utgiver
Vendor
Princeton University Press
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter