Charles Mills' Radical Black Liberalism and the Category of Moral Personhood

In his recent account of 'radical black liberalism,' Charles Mills appropriates the category of the moral person from Rawls and employs it as a normative basis for countering white supremacy. I argue that the category of a moral person is too weak to accomplish the latter task and advance a tripartite basis for social critique, where the category of moral person is relegated to a person's legal standing within the state as a rights bearer. I additionally appeal to non-alienated black labor and the social basis for self-respect in civil society. I argue that these two additional normative bases substantially contribute to countering white supremacy in a way that the category of the moral person alone cannot, since it is largely a legalistic concept. I thus aim to contextualize the category of the moral person as one aspect of social freedom’s realization in the state and civil society.