282 Toni ;Llorrison

Notes

1 Killis Campbell, "l'ne's Treatment of the Negro and of the Negm Dialect," Studies in English, 16 (193 6). p. 106.

2 Willa Cather, Sqphira and the Slu~v Girl (New York: M r e d A. Knopf, 19401, p. 249.

Modernity, Race, and Morality

David Theo Goldberg

i [. . .] Moral discourse has both reflected and refined social relations, ten-

! h-ally defining changcd images of socid subjectivity across time and place. Indeed, h e differences hctvlrce~l these images are suggested by the syntax c ~ f their basic terms: We are virtuous; rve sin: we have obligations: we bdng about or effect utility: we are h e bearers of rights. 1 have indi- cakd initial ways in which historically dominant pictures 01 moral nalure have been key in forming both social self-conception and the figure of the Other: what each agent at some conjuncture codd be, expect, and achieve. And the forms of excIusion each enables are per- fectly general. ln so far as they excIude at all, they may do so in terms of varying Corms of related group membership: class, ethnicity, gender, national or religious amiiation, The form 1 am centrally interested in here i s racial. hly concern is to see horv, in fact, racial exclusions have been effected, what their relations are lo these other forms of exclusion, how lhey have bccn legitimated and may disturbingIy be justifred in terms of lhe hisloricalty prevailing mnception of moral subjectivity

Race, Morality, and Subjectiity

1'. . .I Kace is a morally irreIerant category in the Greek social formation, but on empirical grounds not normative ones. There are no esactly mcial