Self-Respect and a sense of positive power: on protection, self-affirmation, and harm in the charge of "acting white

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Abstract

In the liberal tradition, self-respect is most often associated with Kantian moral philosophy, which suggests a focus on individual responsibility. While the individual plays a part in the development of his or her self-respect, so, too, do his or her environmental and cultural conditions. In this essay, I distinguish between conceptions of self-respect, especially those that focus on it as a duty to oneself, and having a "sense of one's own positive power," a Deweyan educational ideal. A sense of positive power is partly directed by the individual but is also clearly conditioned by the ways in which one's culture treats and reacts to one's efforts. Thus, a sense of positive power, as a concept, reveals the powerful role of one's wider culture in frustrating or enabling a vital element of personal growth necessary for justice. I test the distinction with respect to the difficult and harmful charge of "acting white," which concerns self-respect and the role of oppressive forces conditioning people's senses of their power in an unjust society.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)45-63
Number of pages19
JournalJournal of Speculative Philosophy
Volume30
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 2016

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© Copyright 2016 The Pennsylvania State University.

Keywords

  • Acting white
  • John dewey
  • Justice
  • Positive power
  • Self-respect

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Philosophy

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