Past Event:
Political Philosophy and Race Speaker Series: Lionel McPherson (Tufts)
This event has passed.
Location: WLH 207
Title: “Not Like Us”: Respect, Standing, and White Tribalism
Abstract:
There are supposed to be deep contradictions between Enlightenment moral ideals and inherited slavery. This has led to undying inquiry into Western slavery’s moral justification, as if such a possibility were conceivable. The standard story locates normative error in mistaken beliefs about human beings or vicious attitudes now commonly understood to be racist. In this talk, Professor McPherson (author of The Afterlife of Race: An Informed Philosophical Search, Oxford University Press 2024) rejects that story and its underlying emphasis on lack of respect for enslaved Africa-identified persons (“blacks”) by “white” Europeans. Social standing, McPherson argues, is normatively more fundamental than respect. Acknowledged status as human beings does not presuppose or rationally entail social standing as members of a law-governed community that ultimately answers to its own insider norms and prerogatives.
