Quotable: Mark Johnson on Selfhood

“Human beings are not at all like this [the Enlightenment picture]. We are far more socially constituted, far more historically situated, and far more changeable than objectivism allows. The self is defined not only be its biological makeup as a physical organism, but also by its ends, its interpersonal relationships, its cultural traditions, its institutional commitments, and its historical context. Within this evolving context it must work out its identity.”

Mark Johnson, The Moral Imagination, 150.

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