17 Self-Respect, Fairness, and Living Morally LAURENCE M. THOMAS ‘The idea of self-respect is inextricably tied to the equality to all human beings. But if is obvious that all human beings are created equal, itis considerably less obvious in what way this is so. In fact, Its only in recent decades that the idea that all human beings are created equal has gained a seemingly unshakable hold upon social thought, although it was the Enlightenment period just under 300 years ago that gave this notion its philosophical underpinnings. Approximately 1,500 years earlier, Aristotle thought it natural that there should be slaves, although he did not take skin color to mark the difference between slaves and non-slaves; and he thought it natural that Women should be subordinate to men. With the Enlightenment (two key figures of which are Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant) came the recognition that there isa fundamental moral commonalty and equality among human beings notwithstanding the vast differences between them. ‘The commonalty aspect is that every human being has more in common with human beings than with creatures of any other kind. Thus, for example, only human beings are susceptible to the full range of moral sentiments which includes not only anger ~ a sentiment which many non-human creatures can experience — but gratitude, resent- ment, and indignation. And only human beings are capable of language. The equality aspect is that every human being is capable of being guided by moral considerations; accordingly, only human beings admit of moral praise and blame. What is more, any creature that is capable of the full range of moral sentiments is also one who is capable of being guided by moral considerations, and conversely. Taken together, these two con- siderations are thought to bespeak a moral worth which all human beings have in virtue of being such. Moreover, on account of this moral worth, it is maintained that there is a proper moral way In which all human beings should be treated notwith- standing the differences among them in physical features, social standing, or natural talents and accomplishments, ‘The contemporary idea of self-respect is to be located in the notion of moral worth Just explicated. Self-respect isthe psychological attitude that consists in having the con- Viction that, as with any other person, one is fully worthy of the moral treatment that is proper for any and all persons. As a psychological notion, self-respect admits of 293LAURENCE M. THOMAS degrees of conviction. A person's conviction that she is deserving of proper moral teat- ment could beso strong ~ that nothing short ofthe very worst forms of wrongful moral treatment would cause her to doubt whether she is deserving of proper moral treat- ‘ment, By contrast, a person's conviction in this regard could be sufficiently weak that even mild forms of wrongful moral treatment would incline her to wonder whether she really deserves proper moral treatment. The selérespect of the former person is very secure, but not so with the later. ‘My first aim in this essay isto offer a general account of self-respect, explaining wy the very obviousness of our humanity js no guarantee that persons will have self respect, Next, Ilook at the ways In which widespread and systematic injustices impact upon the self-respect of persons who are the target of such practices, Although the racial treatment of blacks in the United States isthe focus of this section, there ts no shortage of examples in world history where one group has systematically oppressed another. What perhaps is unique about the American case is that so much inequality ‘00k place in a country whose self-confessed commitment to equally for all peoples has hhad no equal in the world. Finally [raise a rather poignant question concerning this very matter. What shall we say about the moral character of persons who live morally in a society the social institutions of which do not just fail to underwrite their self respect, but actively conspire to undermine it? offer an example to show that there are instances in which i is plausible to suppose that doing what is morally right, In the sense of doing’s one's duty, might be properly understood as supererogatory behavior, want to make this very claim regarding blacks who lived morally ina society that was openly and sometimes viciously hostile toward them, regarding blacks who lived in a society that was on all accounts a systematic affront to their selFesteem. I. Self-Respect, Personhood, and the Fragility of the Self ‘The basis for self-respect is so stralghtforwardly tied to being a person that, at first lance, it can be difficult to see how anyone could fail to have secure self-respect. Yet, ‘we know that one of the profound effects of the institution of American Slavery, for instance, is that the self-respect of blacks was, in a great many instances, severely undermined. And, again, we know that sexist practices have been a most formidable obstacle to women having secure self-respect. But how can these things be? If people hhave never doubted whether they have limbs like others, how can people have ever doubted whether they are as deserving of proper moral treatment as others are? ‘The Intuition behind this question, of course, Is that from the moral point of view, there can be no doubt that personhood is an all-or-nothing matter. From this intution, it follows that if one person Is deserving of proper moral treatment simply in virtue of being a person, then all persons are. But this intution Is very much a contemporary fone, which falls to appreciate the Ingenuity of human beings to fx upon a difference and invest it with great moral significance. While the most indisputable difference among human beings is the divide between males and females, others have supposed that there are natural differences between groups of human beings. Looking at the divide between women and men will be instructive, 294‘SELF-RESPECT, FAIRNESS, AND LVING MORALLY 1 remarked at the beginning of this essay that Aristotle held that women were morally inferior to men, As a master biologist the issue for him was never whether ‘women belonged to the same species as men. Rather, he took it to be obvious that as persons, women and men differ with respect to their “nature.” For Aristotle, the “nature” of a woman elevated her above a slave, allowed that she should be able toexer- cise deliberative powers in the home, yet placed her below a man in that she did not have a place in the body-poitic, nor could she participate in the highest form of friend- ship between equals. Why? Aristotle held that women are more femperamental and given to jealousy than men: hence, they were not as capable as men of the virtue of selfcommand. Thus, women could command (and, therefore, raise) children, but women commanding inen was simply out the question. Women, Aristotle thought, are property subordinate to men, ‘This view of the diference between women and men has to varying degrees been embraced down through the ages and across cultures. What is significant, for our pur- poses, though, Is that without ever denying the personhood of women, Its had been held that women are not entitled to the same moral treatment as men, because women and men differ in their moral nature and the moral nature of the former is, in some fiandamental respect, inferior to the moral nature of the later. ‘We have, then, an answer to the question with wach I began this section. Down through the ages, personhood has been regarded as compatible witha range of eiffer- ent moral natures, with some being inferior to the other. Accordingly. neither the moral nature of a group of people nor, therefore, whiat counts asthe proper moral treatment of them has been regarded as entirely settled by the fact of their personhood. Looking at this way of thinking through contemporary lenses, it is easy to dismiss itas just so much nonsense, But that would be a mistake, For one thing. if this line of thoughts just so much nonsense, then surely we need to explain how some ofthe most talented thinkers in the history of ideas could have embraced various forms of It. As some contemporary philosophers have noted (Goldberg 1993), the formldable philoso- pher Immanual Kant took itto be obvious that Negroes, as he would say, were morally and intellectually inferior to white people: and he also thought that Jews were some- ‘what morally bereft, thotigh he held them to be superior to Negroes. Yet, his writings, perhaps more than those of any other thinker, have inspired the idea of moral equall- ty among all persons. Kant's idea that all persons, in virtue of being such, should regard themselves and one another as members of what he called the Kingdom of Ends has no equal in terms of moral inspiration. There are two considerations which shed some light on the discrepancy between what people have believed and the obvious truth that there is a moral point of view from wich all persons are equal. First ofall, there is nothing about the logic ofa false view wiaich prevents it from being widely embraced: and a false view regarding people that is widely embraced takes for a social reality, A classic example here is that of ractal differences (see Zack 1993; 1998). Biologists and social scientists have argued with great force that the very notion of a race, over and above the human race, is a bogus one. And common sense attests to this. Does an abundance of melanin make someone a black person? Well, not if the {individual is from the sub-continent of india, Does it suffice, then, that one has African 295[LAURENCE M. THOMAS ancestry? Well, not quit, since there are whites who satisfy that condition; for the Dutch populated the southern tip of Africa more than 400 year ago. On the other hand, having both Aftican ancestry and an abundance of melanin will not do, since there are people ‘who would regard themselves (and are regarded by others as) black who do not meet both of these criteria, Among others, the actress and singer Lena Horne, the writer Richard Wright, and the politician Adam Clayton Powell come readily to mind. None have possessed the physical features characteristically associated with being black, so ‘much so that each could have passed for a non-black had he or she chosen to doso. With regard to what makes a person a black person, things do not fare any better if the question is: What makes a person of African descent? A present day white person could have a tineage of 400 years in Aftica. These considerations alone suggest that the notion of race Is hardly about facts of the matter, atleast notin any rigid way. Still, no matter how untenable the notion might be from a scientific point of view, te social significance of the idea of race remains undeniably real: and phenotypical features used to make racial classifications are stil treated by many asif these features represented deep biological diflerences. The notion of racial groups has such a soclal reality among the way people generally view one another that its often more conveni- ent, as in this essay, to adopt the language of racial groups than not - more conventent, even though one is self-consciously aware that as a conceptual idea the notion is intel- Jectually bankrupt. ‘A second, and perhaps more philosophical consideration, regarding the Idea that people may differ in moral nature according to their biological group has its basis in the obvious truth that individuals belonging to the same biological group differ with respect to thelr talents and moral temperment. From this truth, itis a small slide to the view that each individual has a natural moral temperment; and this view is easily extended, although erroneously, to entire biological groups which are considered a product of nature and which are treated on the model of an individal. Thus, If per- sonhood is no barrier to persons of the same biologic group diflering with respect to their natural moral temperment. then personhood can hardly be a barrier to groups. which are supposedly based upon biological differences, differing with respect to their moral nature, where the idea of a moral nature is essentially @ way of talking about natural temperment with respect to groups. One very profound aspect of the fragility of the self is that prevailing and long- standing social views about a group are often embraced, albeit to varying degrees, by many members of the group itself, even if the views are false and portray the group in a quite negative fashion. This happens because social views are underwritten by @ myriad of social practices which significantly shape the beliefs and feelings which people have about themselves. In Dusk of Dawn, Du Bois observed that nothing was @ more successful threat to blacks having a positive view of themselves than the absence of arecord of actual success. His point, which is readily generalizable to any group that has known litle or no success, is that nothing better staves off selfloubt about one's abilities like @ record of success. Accordingly, a society which does not allow an ident- flable group ofits citizens to pursue well-established avenues of success thereby ensures that many members of this group will be plagued with self-doubt about its abilities. Du Bois's point was not about the innate abilities of blacks, which he took to be equal to the innate abilities of others, Rather, he was addressing the circumstances under which 296SELF-RESPECT, BAIRNESS, AND LIVING MORALLY blacks might have a very secure sense of their own innate abilities being equal to that of others. If this is ight, then the most eloquent rhetoric of equality cannot make up for the absence of success. This is because imagined successes, no matter how vivid, cannot bring about the feelings of affirmation that come with actual success. Nor can imag- ned successes silence those who would question one’s abilities with the force that actual successes can. Perhaps nothing can force others to believe in one's successes, But chis gets to the very heart of Du Bois's observation. When others refuse to believe fn one's abilities, nothing staves off the self-doubt that would be caused by the disbelief of others than a history of actual successes. ‘Thus, itis important to distinguish a society's official political rhetoric from its pre- -valling soctal views ~ that is, the views actually embraced by most of the members of society: Arguably, The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution of the United States both contain some of the most eloquent political language of equality even ‘written. Recall the powerful words of The Declaration: “We hold these Truths to be self- evident that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights. ...” The Preamble of The Constitution reads: “We the people of the United States In order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ... and secure the Blessings of Liberty ... do hereby ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America.” Yet, when the magisterial words of these two documents were penned, the prevailing social view was that blacks did not even count as full- fledged persons. Neither did women, although (harkening back to Aristotle) their social status was superior to slaves in some respects. ‘The fragility of self-respect, then, can be put as follows: Generally speaking, in order to have self-respect, persons need a social environment wherein they are, simply in virtue of one’s humanity, treated as an Individuals who are worthy of moral respect. ‘The obvious truth that one is just as much a buman being as any other person does ‘ot entail that one will have the conviction one is as much deserving of full moral treat- ment as any other person. Having this latter conviction Is inextricably tied to the ways in which others actually treat one. This truth brings out the extent to which human beings are quintessentially social creatures. The moral uptake, if you will, of indis- putable factual claims is tied to the waysin which persons are treated. Accordingly, se- respect is not something that persons can just will in or out of place, which is not to say that persons cannot do things which will have the effect of underwriting or, for that ‘matter, undermining one’s sel-respect. II Self-Respect and Fairness If following John Rawls (1971), justice ts properly regarded as the fist virtue of social ‘institutions, then fairness Is surely the fundamental pillar of Justice It is conceptually impossible that a society could be just but not far, and conversely. On the one hand, though, fairness hardly requires equality of outcome or distribution of goods in all cases, Presumably, some win-lose situations are surely fair. Not everyone can win the same lottery drawing or have the winning entry of the best painting. And even Marxist theory, which is diametrically opposed to capitalist theory, allows that need, which 297LAURENCE M. THOMAS differs across persons, can be a fundamental basis for distribution of important social goods. On the other hand, its clear that fairness and equality are very much inter- connected, A fair society could not be one in which gross inequlties prevailed. The issue, of course, is what counts asa (unacceptable) inequlty. For Marxists, the vast inequities of wealth permitted ina capitalist soclety are unacceptable and, therefore, a capitalist society is an unjust society. Capitalists are simply not persuaded. Fortunately, we need to settle this debate in order to arrive at an important insight regarding self-respect. fairness, and justice. While both Marxists and capitalist difer ‘with regard to what counts as acceptable inequities, they are all humanity egalitarian, Thats, they all agree that natural talent is randomly distributed across humanity and, therefore, no ethnic group, as such, i from the standpoint of biological endowment the bearer of greater natural talent than another. There are, to be sure, preferences and acumen owing to traditions, culture, and upbringing, However, the preferences and acumen of groups do not point to a deeper fact pertaining to the biological endowment of one group as opposed to another. In the United States, for instance, it was often said in times past that blacks have hhythm’ and whites do not. This was sald as as Ifthe difference really had some bo-' logical basis. Contemporary times, however, makes it abundantly clear that the only basis this diference realy iad was early exposure on the part of whites to the music of blacks, According to humanity egalitarians, the alleged deep diferences between blacks ‘and whites in the United States has turned out to have just the sort of explanation it should have had. Asan aside the issue of rhythm isa paradigm example ofa false view that is widely embraced by everyone. It is not just whites who have held that blacks, ‘unbke whites, haverhythm, but blacks themselves. et, the issue of rhythm isjust about perfectly analogous to accent, Asa soclal phenomenon, itis true that persons who learn tospeaka foreign language after their thirties will almost certainly speak that language with an accent that bespeaks thelr native language. And everyone supposes that the explanation for this is precisely what itis, namely that the foreign language was not learned until well-after a given speaking pattern had been informed. No one has ever claimed, or even been tempted to proffer, a biological difference between nations as an explanation for this phenomenon. ‘At any rate, If It is true that natural talent is randomly distributed across all of humanity, then in ajust society, and so one which treats allo ts citizens fairly, should not turn out that one group (identifiable along ethnic or religious lines, for instance) languishes while all others flourish, whatever the economic structure of the society might be, unless that group has explicitly adopted a set of values whereby success and thriving are quite differently measured. Religious groups such as the Amish come readily to mind here. tis neither an accident of history nor the result of injustice that ‘Amish homes do not have modern appliances in their homes (dishwashers, washers and dryers, microwave ovens, and so forth), that the horse and carriage remaln theit basic mode of transportation, and that they are not on university campuses as ethet faculty or students or that in general they are not apart of the American mainstream. ‘The Amish do not, for instance. run for political office. Asa people, the Amish have sel consciously and feely chosen this lifestyle in accordance with thele conviction that their lifestyle pleases God. Needless to say, it would not occur to the Amish to think of themselves as languishing. And surely we should not either. 298‘SELE-RESPECT, FAIRNESS, AND LIVING MORALLY But with other ethnic and religious groups in America, things are quite diferent. ‘The treatment of blacks in the United States stand as a paradigm example of a people being treated unfairly and, therefore, unjustly by American society If blacks have lan- ‘guished in the United States thisis not surprising, The ignominy of racismisthat society takes a palpably relevant set of features of an identifiable group of persons in society ‘and maintains as a societal truth that, on the basis ofthis set of features, these indi- viduals are not worthy of being treated fully in accordance with the precepts of justice, ‘And this American institutions did with an ingenuity that borders on incredulity rom the onfe-dop rule according to which a person with one drop of black blood Isblack and so isto be consigned to the dustbin of society (whatever her physical fea- tures might in fact be) to the Jim Crow practices of the Old South, requiring among other things separate water fountains for blacks and whites, to treating blacks as second-class citizens in an army which, in the name of humanity. sought to liberate Jews from the Nazis: Political, social, and educational institutfons across the country took a palpably insignificant, and sometimes elusive, set of features of a group of people and endowed those features with moral significance. A black could not count upon the very law which held him accountable for his misdeeds to protect him in the face of even blatant wrongdoing against him. Thus, in a country where political equality was regarded as the fundamental cornerstone, it was possible fora white person who was utterly lacking in either moral sensibilities or accomplishments to fee! morally superior to any black, regardless of the moral virtues which that black might possess. In a word, then, owing to systematic unfairness, the institutions of America were a brazen affront to the self-respect of all black citizens. That i, the lack of freedom and privileges accorded blacks and the concommitant indifference was tied to a normative conception of blacks which if they came to embrace would entail that they saw them- selves as not worthy of being treated fully in accordance with the precepts of justice. ‘What is more, and this gets to the very heart of the matter, i itis true that how people feel about themselves profoundly shaped by the ways in which they are treated In the soclety in which they live, then there can be no doubt that the selF-respect of many blacks was deeply, undermined by the unjust practices that prevailed. In terms of ‘modern psychology, the widespread unjust practices of the American society resulted Jn considerable cognitive dissonance on the part of many blacks regarding the belief that they are as worthy as anyone of proper moral treatment. For their belie in them- selves as full moral beings was shorn of experiential anchoring, of the alirmation that springs from experience which not even the most vivid imagination can match, ‘To be sure, blacks could gather among themselves and affirm their moral worth (McGary 1999}; and this must have had a salubrious effect in numerous instances. In this connection, the black church comes to mind as having been of considerable impor- tance (Freeman 1993. Allthe same, affirmation such as this did not remove, and could ‘ot have removed, the daily reminders of inequality that existed throughout soclety, Likewise, such alfirmation was not, and could not have been, a substitute for the expe- Hence of equality. ‘Now I have claimed that the vast inequality towards blacks was an affront to their selfrespect. [also want to make another claim, namely that as a result of this system- atic affrontery @ great many blacks suffered from a lack of self-respect. But these two claims are logically distinct. piece of behavior can certainly be an affront toa person's 299LAURENCE M, THOMAS dignity or se-respect or character in general without diminishing that person's dignity or self-respect or character. Accordingly, systematic affrontery undoubtedly affects dif- ferent people differently. This s true ofall forms of egregious wrongful behavior. The will to survive and the wherewithal to believe in oneself isa function of a variety of factors. contingencies, and confluences. Iti said that the refusal of Rosa Parks to give up her bus seat to a white person precipitated the Civil Rights Movement. But itis also true that she was sitting in the “colored section” located at the rear of the bus; and the bus then became crowded. Suppose that she had mistakenly sat in the “white section” of the bus, and she was then asked to take an available seat in the “colored section.” It's not inconceivable that she would have complied with this request, although the very idea that tax-paying blacks should have had to sit in the back of buses paid for by tax dollars isan affront to the self-respect of blacks. Did the widespread affront of social inequality have an adverse elfect upon many blacks? I believe that it did. Many blacks were willing to accept their inferior position in society. In fact, some rationalized the acceptance of thelr inferior place in society by insisting that their just reward would be in heaven. This should come as no surprise ‘The best psychological evidence available suggests that systematic abuse, of which sys- tematic and egregious unfairness is surely an instance, takes its tol. The issue here is not whether black families loved their children or whether biacks were in various ways supportive of one another. Surely these things were true, The point, rather, is that neither parental love or community support as such is ikely to be a sufficient buffer ‘against the constant tide of systematic injustice. We know that Frederic Douglass and Harriet Jacobs, for instance, threw off the mantel of slavery with incredible majesty and ingenuity. There can be no doubt that these two individuals had self-respect. But there is little evidence that their lives were representative ofthe lives of slaves in general. Accordingly, when we consider the case of blacks between the Reconstruction and Civil Rights eras, there is good reason to believe that the self-respect of many blacks was adversely affected by the injustices that the American society relentlessly visited upon its black citizens. I Self-Respect and Living Morally ‘Amos interesting question arises regarding the moral character of blacks who, in some cases, suffered from a dimination of self-respect owing tothe deep and systematic njus- tices of American socety which, in any case, was unquestionably an aflront tothe sl respect of all blacks. Significantly, such a soclety was not conducive to blacks living ‘morally Ths sso, at any rate if one supposes that our will fo live morally i profoundly affected by the way in which we are treated by others. Surely a person who later acts with good will towards someone who has egregiously harmed her exhibits considerable strength of characte. Typically, the supererogatory is understood as going sufficiently over and above the call of duty. But we might also suppose that a person acts supererogatory in doing what is morally right by those who have treated her in a most oppressive and inhumane way. Ifa woman has been raped by the man who is her neigh- bor, would she not be exhibiting extraordinary moral fortitude if, the next day, she 300‘SELE-RESPBC, FAIRNESS, AND UVING MORALLY should report to the police the scoundrels who were then attempting to set his house on fire? If, instead, she turned a blind eye, would this not be entirely comprehensible? ‘Assurnihg that she could so without bring on any harm to herself, it would certainly be wrong of her not to turn them in, Yet, if she turned a blind eye who could blame her? Would it not be something akin to moral arrogance to take the moral high ground here and insist that her failing to turn in the scoundrels renders her morally blame- worthy? Or, to take a very diferent example, suppose that Mary has beaten up Rachel day after day forthe past 4 years while they were in middle school. They are now in difer- ent high schools; and in the meantime, Rachel has been going to the gym, learning karate, and so forth. Final, not only is she in a positon to defend herself against the likes of Mary, she is able to demolish Mary completely. Now, the fact that Mary had beaten Rachel up daily in middle school hardly constitutes a moral reason for Rachel tobeat Marl up~and certainly not a moral reason to pick a fight with her. tis morally permissible to defend oneself ~ not to showrase one's fighting ablities by picking fights with otherst Stil, I suspect that we would all understand Rachel if, as we say, she just so happened to find herself walking past Mary's high school, not with the intention to pick a fight with Mary, but to well-defend herself should Mary take the initiative, as in middle school In both examples, we have an attitude that {shall refer to as the expressive symme- tty of seli defense. When we have been wronged by another especially in an egregious ‘manner, we typically want there to be a moral leveling between us and the person who hhas wronged us. And to this end, we will often refrain from behaving in certain ways onbehalf of the other, expecting that asa result a measure of moral leveling will occur. ‘his s the case with the first example. Or, as with the second example, we may position ourselves in the hopes that the person's behavior will require us to exercise certain Powers against her or him, When a person has been egregiously wronged by another, but nonetheless fails to have an expressive symmetry of self-defense posture towards that person, then the person who has been wronged exhibits a considerable level of ‘moral excellence. Its not always easy todo whet Is right. And when one does so under the most irying circumstances this deserves commendation, Itis one thing to tell the truth, and quite another to do so at the risk of losing one's life There are numerous occasions when doing what is morally right understandably requires all the strength of will that one can muster. Indeed, fr just this reason, there are occasions when its far from obvious that one could expect a person to do what is eht. Viewing morality in this ven, then the notion of supererogation might be usefully extended. As Ihave said, the root idea behind the notion of supererogatory isa morally 00d act that is morally permissible, but not morally required; accordingly, the person isnot morally blameworthy for failing to perform the act although it is one that she could have performed. I suggest that there are times when an act may be supereroga tory even though it is morally required, precisely because the circumstances under ‘hich the act must be performed are such that iti far too understandable if morally Aecent person should nonetheless lack the will to act as is required of her or him. It is far too understandable if a mother should le if that is the only way in which she can 301[LAURENCE M. THOMAS save the life of her child, If @ person has just been raped, it is far too understandable they will lack the wherewithal to call for an ambulance because the rapist, In the attempt to escape, was hit and seriously harmed by a hit-and-run driver. Yet, this would be the minimally decent thing to do.The Jew in Auschwitz who made an extraordinary effort, who put her very life on the line, to save the life of a dying Nazi would strike us as almost too moral for words. In my view these are all acts of supererogation. ‘This extended view of supererogation will not be as neat as the traditional view, simply because the latter is defined in terms of doing a significant good that is not regulred of one. On the other hand, the extended view is very much In keeping with the spirit of the traditional view. Typically, an act of supererogation is not the same thing as an act of generosity. For a person can be enormously kind without burdening herself, as when a multi-billionaire gives a multi-million doar gift to @ charitable foun- dation. On the traditional view, an act of supererogation typically involves helping ‘another atthe risk of one's life or, at any rate, enormous harm to oneself. And the idea is simply that it cannot be reasonably expected of 2 person to rsk his life or physlcal ‘well-being for another. The idea behind the extended view is that sometimes it cannot be reasonable, in just the same sense of the traditional view, not to expect persons to behave in certain ways, even if thisis precisely what morality requires. Let us apply the extended view of supererogation to blacks in the United States. ‘The viciousness of slavery and postslavery racism in America is too obvious for words. During slavery, a black man had little or no legal standing in the courts of the United States. And this was de facto the case after slavery's end, Depending upon the ‘mood that whites were in, a black man could be lynched for merely looking at a white person, especially a woman, the wrong way. Whites were utterly indhiferent to the devastation that this would have upom his family. During slavery, a black woman could be raped by a white man without any legal recourse. After slavery, it was only a legal fiction that she had any legal recourse. From slavery up until the Civil Rights Era, white American society barely acknowledged the humanity of blacks. Quite the contrary, social institutions brutally and systematically called into question the humanity of blacks. Yet, for all of this brutality and utter indifference on the part of whites, forall the ‘unabashed ill-will that biacks had to endure atthe hands of whites, instances of blacks turning on whites were relatively rare until after the Civil Rights Era. Why was this? One explanation, of course, is fear which is as powerful a motivating factor as there 's, Were blacks to have started turning on whites, then blacks would have seen uncom promising wrath at the hands of whites. So on this view, prudence alone suffices to explain the absence of widespread hostility on the part of blacks towards whites between the Reconstruction and Civil Rights Bras. There can be litle doubt that pru- ence, anchored in the fear of being harmed, is an explanation for why persons some- times do what is morally right. But as any good Kantian would say in this instance, we have the right behavior but the wrong motivation for executing it. Indeed, one hardly has to be committed to a Kantian conception of morality to think this. By contrast, however, suppose that, between the Reconstruction and the Civil Rights ras the moral sensibilities of blacks were such that in general blacks were never much concerned with behaving in a morally hostile fashion towards whites. Suppose that, notwithstanding all the ill-treatment which they endured atthe hands of whites, blacks 302SELF-RESPECT, FAIRNESS, AND LIVING MORALLY never lost sight of the humanity of whites: and this perspective stayed the moral hand of blacks. In steadfastly refraining from engaging In such behavior, were not blacks exhibiting a level of moral goodness that perhaps could not have been reasonably expected of them? ‘Again, recall the story of rape given above. Surely, one would naturally expect the ‘woman to be sufficiently angry at her neighbor for having raped her that she could hardly bring herself to turn in the scoundrels who attempted to burn down his house. If in spite of having endured this horror, she found the wherewithal to turn in those ‘who have attempted to harm her rapist, then her behavior is most admirable morally. ‘Some might argue that no woman could be in the throes of all the pain of rape and yet, have any feelings of compassion for her rapist ~ certainly none that would lead her to aactas Ihave described. While itis understandable that one hold such an event unlikely, there is no argument that would show that such behavior is conceptually ruled out of court. An explicit Christian commandment is that one should love one’s enemy. No fone has ever argued that living up to this commandment constitutes a conceptual Impossibility: Nor has anyone ever dented its inspirational power. Christianity played an abiding role in the lives of blacks during slavery and up until the Civil Rights Bra. Thus, to an extent that has never been acknowledge, itis posst- ble that blacks in America have masterfully exhibited the moral virtue of good will and forgiveness. In a society that referred to them as “niggers" and treated them as such, blacks found the will to live morally ~ to do what Is right by whites. This blacks did all the while receiving little or no moral credit for doing so. This is an extraordinary testimony to the strength of thelr moral character. I want to bring this section to a close by briefly drawing attention to non-tnvidios distinction between American Slavery and the Holocaust that I have made elsewhere (Thomas, 1993). "The aim of the Holocaust was the extermination of the Jews, and not they should behave in a morally decent way towards others. And to this end, sheer force was the fundamental weapon of the Nazis against the Jews. The aim of American Slavery was that blacks should exhibit morally decent behavior towards whites even as, whites systemmatically ignored the humanity of blacks. On my view, morally decent behavior on the part of blacks towards whites and Jews towards Nazls would count as supererogatory behavior. However, there was not the expectation of such behavior on the Nazis with respect to the Jews. Indeed, the Nazis systemmatically used force to ‘nsure compliance on the part of the Jews. On the other hand, whites did expect such behavior from blacks. And in the absence of force, it Is precisely such behavior that blacks exhibited. Self-Respect and Moral Character ‘The arguments of this essay leaves us with some very poignant considerations. Self respect may be a very fundamental good. Yet, it would not seem necessary to live a moral fe~at least notif the history of blacks in Amerlea any indication. With unpar- allied commitment and integrity, many blacks dd what was right by thei slavemas- ter with an undying commitment. In the name of theory, one could insist that such ‘moral behavior on the part of blacks missed the moral mark, since a black slaves alled 303LAURENCE M. THOMAS to take themselves seriously as individuals with full moral status ~ as members of the kingdom of ends. But theory. however, elegent must always bow to reality If slaves could be loyal and faithful to their masters, as surely many were, then their moral behavior towards their masters could be as robust as the moral behavior of any flly selrespecting person. Accordingly, we have seen that persons whose lives are lacking self-respect may nonetheless exhibit not just morally proper behavior, but moral behay- ior that deserves tobe regarded as supererogatory, given the pain of inequality ‘The good of self-respect, i seems, consists not so much in marking off the ways in ‘which we should treat others, but the ways in which we should expect others to treat us. The authors of the Declaration of Independence thought t obvious that no self-respect ing persons would tolerate injustices against them, insisting that people have aright to revolt when a government comes up short in this regard. Ala, the case of American slavery may show that regarding the significance of having slF-respect, the authors of the Declaration of Independence got it exactly right. As Socrates claimed, and Martin Luther King, Jr.echoed so very much later: Perhaps the problem with self-respect, I you ‘ills Just that one is prepared to dle for some things, Acknowledgment In writing this essay, I am deeply grateful to Claire Zeppelli for conversations, to John Pittman for detailed and astute comments, and to the Centre de Recherche en Epistemologie Appliqué (CREA) in Paris for Its constant philosophical support. In ‘writing section II, in particular, a special word of thanks goes to Nasri Abdel-Aniz, References Baler, Annette (1995), Moral Prejudices (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Bonil, Bernard (1983), Blacks and Socal Justice (Rowman and Little) Mallassoux, Claude (1998), Anthropologie de l'sclavage (Pais: Presses Universitaires de France). Freedman, §. 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