Unbecoming Persons: The Rise and Demise of the Modern Moral Self, Ladelle McWhorter’s fascinating genealogical study of the notion of personhood, is hot off the press. Here is a description of this wonderful new book:

A damning genealogy of modern personhood and a bold vision for a new ethics rooted in belonging rather than individuality.

In the face of ecological crisis, economic injustice, and political violence, the moral demands of being a good person are almost too much to bear. In Unbecoming Persons, Ladelle McWhorter argues that this strain is by design. Our ideas about personhood, she shows, emerged to sustain centuries of colonialism, slavery, and environmental destruction. We must look elsewhere to find our way out.

This history raises a hard question: Should we be persons at all, or might we live a good life without the constraints of individualism or the illusion of autonomy? In seeking an answer, McWhorter pushes back on the notion of our own personhood—our obsession with identity, self-improvement, and salvation—in search of a better way to live together in this world. Although she finds no easy answers, McWhorter ultimately proposes a new ethics that rejects both self-interest and self-sacrifice and embraces perpetual dependence, community, and the Earth.

You can find out more about the book and order it at The University of Chicago Press website here.

Sarah Tyson at the New Books Network interviewed Ladelle about the book here.

An interview that Kristin Rodier and Emily R. Douglas conducted with Ladelle about this new book, as well as about genealogy as a method, the imbrication of race and ableism, and more, will be included in the forthcoming special issue of Feminist Philosophy Quarterly that I am guest editing on the theme “Foucault and Feminist Philosophy: Other Perspectives and Approaches.” This issue of the journal is intended to commemorate the centennial anniversary of Michel Foucault’s birth in 1926.