There is a distinction between actual full identity and self-represented identity. Actual full identity is constituted by the dynamic integrated system of past and present identifications, desires, commitments, aspirations, beliefs, dispositions, temperament, roles, acts, and action patterns, as well as by whatever self-understandings (even incorrect ones) each person brings to his or her life. Self-represented identity is the narratively constructed picture a person has of who he or she is. Self-representation takes actual identity as its proper object. The distinction between the two kinds of identity is needed to explain the project of seeking self-understanding, the possibility of selfdeception, and it helps explain why narratively guided efforts at self change often fail. The distinction also provides the basis of a plausible conception of moral self-respect: moral self-respect is based on a veridical sense that one's actual identity is morally respectable. Some recent psychological work claiming that there are no moral psychological gender differences is helpfully illuminated with the distinction between actual and self-represented identity. The claim is that because no statistically significant differences show up in tests using canonical procedures (either Kohlberg's or Gilligan's), there are no such differences. One tactic is to suggest that even if these results establish that there are no deep differences in male and female moral psychology, they do not cast doubt on the idea that men and women in our culture conceive of their moral lives in different terms. The results, in effect, have implications for what we can say about actual identity, but they have none for what we can say about selfrepresentation. In fact, the psychological findings are worth dismissing as claims about both kinds of identity. First, although the psychologists would like us to think that they have discovered procedures to get at the deep structure of moral psychology, current experimental procedures merely get people to say certain things. They ask people how they would respond to standard dilemmas and what sorts of problems they face in real life. It will not do to read the experiments as having consequences for what we can say about the deep-structure of moral psychology, but none or what we can say about self-expression and self-conception. The experiments in fact only test self-expression. Second, a close look at the experiements show that the no difference claim is made on the basis of the deeply problematic procedure of factoring out content. That is, although