Encountering Beauty, Enacting Self-Love: Toward an Ethic of Black Self-Regard

Abstract

This article focuses on the relationship between evaluations of beauty and the ethics of living well. Separating these ideas typically involves understating how racism and patriarchy shape wider cultural and aesthetic sensibilities. I counter this tendency by foregrounding the precarity of vulnerable black children and the importance of self-love in their efforts to flourish. My strategy involves placing Toni Morrison in conversation with Alexander Nehamas and Harry Frankfurt, philosophers who have carefully engaged the topics of beauty and love. By situating aesthetic judgment within ongoing practices of social formation and political contestation, I reveal the importance of linking beauty with practices of self-regard while also detailing my criticisms of thinkers who downplay their significance. The effect is to position Morrison as an instructive guide for scholars interested in aesthetics, ethics, and politics.