Chapter 4
Co-authoring ethical selves and identities
You can be mad but you can’t be evil . . . being mad is saying you feel angry but being evil is hurting and you mustn’t be evil . . . Sometimes I’m mad but I’m never evil. ‘Would you kill all monsters?’ ‘Oh no, only those that have done many, many, many mean things . . . killing people mostly’ ‘And what would you do before deciding you had to kill it?’ ‘I’d teach it to stop doing those mean things.’
Michael made the above statements when he was about four-and-a-half. They were his articulation of core dispositions in his ethical identity. In previous chapters I examined how particular interactions in and around child–adult play supported ethical action and contemplation. In this chapter I consider the formation of Michael’s ethical identity from early childhood into young adulthood. I have shown how Michael authored meaning and authored possible selves and identities. Now I analyze how Michael’s ethical identity was co-authored in and around our pretend play as I also discuss the formation of my own ethical identity. People’s ethical identities intersect with their socio-cultural identities to provide them with beliefs about how people ought to act toward one another. My ethical identity provides me with permeable and gradually changing moral lenses. I can use these lenses to look backward to make ethical sense of previous interactions, and to move forward as I act with an ethical self in daily life. How people identify with others is apparent in their daily practices toward others. Facets of a person’s ethical identity are made visible in how they are answerable for their actions, and how they discursively position themselves in their everyday relationships. They will use present deeds as well as narratives of past actions to interpret how they ought to act in relation to others.
