Key Arguments

• Ricoeur asks "by what right the self is declared to be worthy of esteem" and answers that it is "not prin cipally by reason of its accomplishments but fundamentally by reason of its capacities."
• To clarify 'capacity' he returns "to Merleau-Ponty's 'I can' and extend[s] it from the physical to the ethical level."
• He defines the ethical self in these terms: "I am that being who can evaluate his actions and, in assessing the goals of some of them to be good, is capable of evaluating himself and of judging himself to be good."
• He underscores that this is a discourse in the first person, but that "the main emphasis is to be placed on the verb, on bcing-able-to-do," and then makes the ethical correspondence explicit: "to which corresponds on the ethical plane, being-able- to-judge."
• By rooting self‑esteem in capacities (power, 'I can') rather than factual achievements, he also prepares the later link to Aristotelian power/act and to the role of others in realizing capacities.

Source Quotes

In this regard, the reflexivity from which self-esteem pro ceeds remains abstract, in the sense that it does not mark the difference between me and you. Another preliminary observation: if one asks by what right the self is declared to be worthy of esteem, it must be answered that it is not prin cipally by reason of its accomplishments but fundamentally by reason of its capacities. To understand the term "capacity" correctly, we must return to Merleau-Ponty's "I can" and extend it from the physical to the ethical level.

Another preliminary observation: if one asks by what right the self is declared to be worthy of esteem, it must be answered that it is not prin cipally by reason of its accomplishments but fundamentally by reason of its capacities. To understand the term "capacity" correctly, we must return to Merleau-Ponty's "I can" and extend it from the physical to the ethical level. I am that being who can evaluate his actions and, in assessing the goals of some of them to be good, is capable of evaluating himself and of judging himself to be good.

To understand the term "capacity" correctly, we must return to Merleau-Ponty's "I can" and extend it from the physical to the ethical level. I am that being who can evaluate his actions and, in assessing the goals of some of them to be good, is capable of evaluating himself and of judging himself to be good. The discourse of "I can" is, to be sure, a discourse in I.

I am that being who can evaluate his actions and, in assessing the goals of some of them to be good, is capable of evaluating himself and of judging himself to be good. The discourse of "I can" is, to be sure, a discourse in I. But the main emphasis is to be placed on the verb, on bcing-able-to-do, to which corresponds on the ethical plane, being-able- to-judge. The question is then whether the mediation of the other is not required along the route from capacity to realization.

Otherness, therefore, repossesses the rights that philau- tia appeared to eclipse. It is in connection with the notions of capacity and realization — that is, finally of power and act13 — that a place is made for lack and, through the mediation of lack, for others. The famous aporia, consisting in determining whether one must love oneself in order to love someone else, must not blind us.

Key Concepts

• if one asks by what right the self is declared to be worthy of esteem, it must be answered that it is not prin cipally by reason of its accomplishments but fundamentally by reason of its capacities.
• To understand the term "capacity" correctly, we must return to Merleau-Ponty's "I can" and extend it from the physical to the ethical level.
• I am that being who can evaluate his actions and, in assessing the goals of some of them to be good, is capable of evaluating himself and of judging himself to be good.
• The discourse of "I can" is, to be sure, a discourse in I. But the main emphasis is to be placed on the verb, on bcing-able-to-do, to which corresponds on the ethical plane, being-able- to-judge.
• capacity and realization — that is, finally of power and act13

Context

Still in the early part of subsection 2, Ricoeur clarifies what grounds self‑esteem by thematizing 'capacity' (I can) and shifting emphasis from the grammatical subject 'I' to the verbal structure of being‑able‑to‑do and being‑able‑to‑judge.