Normative Identity (Values and Identities: Crossing Philosophical Borders) - Hardcover

Bauhn, Per

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1783485760 ISBN 13: 9781783485765

Verlag: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017

Inhaltsangabe

Normative Identity is about how we define ourselves and others in terms of our ideas about the good and the right. Conflict as well as cooperation spring from our normative identity. Terrorists as well as social reformers find meaning and justification for their actions in their beliefs about whom and what they are and should be. But normative identities are not immune to rational criticism. This book argues that we should try to develop for ourselves a complex normative identity, based on the values of truth, justice, and beauty and consistent with the requirements of rational agency. Per Bauhn develops distinct but interrelated themes in moral philosophy to offer a new understanding of the relation between identity, values, meaning and agency. Ultimately he outlines a normative identity that is both rationally justified and can function as a source of meaning and motivation.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Per Bauhn is Professor of Practical Philosophy at Linnaeus University, Sweden. His publications in English include Ethical Aspects of Political Terrorism (1989), Nationalism and Morality (1995), and The Value of Courage (2003).

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Normative Identity

By Per Bauhn

Rowman & Littlefield International, Ltd

Copyright © 2017 Per Bauhn
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-78348-576-5

CHAPTER 1

The Concept of Normative Identity

Identity is about sameness. But sameness can be accounted for in more than one way. A thing may, for instance, be quantitatively identical with itself but qualitatively identical with many other things. A red billiard ball is quantitatively identical only with itself (this particular red billiard ball cannot be anything else than this particular red billiard ball), but it is qualitatively identical with any other red billiard ball in the world (it could be replaced with any other red billiard ball without changing anything of relevance in the world of billiards).

When it comes to persons, identity becomes a more complicated matter. For one thing, persons change in appearance as they grow older, which forces us to consider the question of what identity over time can mean. And this is only a complication concerning physical identity. However, we also have to consider how a person conceives of herself. The identity of a person has something to do with how she identifies herself in relation to other people and to society, and to goals, projects, pursuits, values and norms. This book is about persons' identification with values and norms and their connecting a conception of who they are with a conception of what they ought to do. This form of identification constitutes a normative identity.

PERSONAL IDENTITY AND NORMATIVE IDENTITY

Personal identity can be conceptualized in different ways. It can be analysed as a quasi-logical relationship, stating that if a person A is identical with another person B, then all significant properties that can be ascribed to A must also be ascribable to B, and vice versa. This is a quasi-logical relationship, since it is modelled upon the image of logical identity, according to which '[t]wo things are called one, when the definition which states the essence of one is indivisible from another definition which shows us the other'. In relations of logical identity, conditions of quantitative as well as qualitative sameness must be fulfilled. Typically, an object can be logically identical only with itself. Applied to persons, however, while conditions of quantitative sameness may be satisfied, conditions of qualitative sameness will not, as human individuals change physically as well as psychologically over time.

Moreover, in talking of personal identity we normally do not refer to every characteristic of a person (e.g. the exact number of freckles on her arms) but only to her significant properties (and we may well have different opinions concerning which of her properties are significant). Hence, personal identity when it is expressed in terms of sameness can at best resemble the logical model, and therefore, the label 'quasi-logical' is apt. It is this quasi-logical sense of personal identity that has occupied philosophers such as Derek Parfit, who famously concluded that 'personal identity is not what matters'.

The reason for Parfit's pessimism about the significance of personal identity is his belief that psychological continuity over time, which is one of the aspects we usually find important in personal identity, does not presuppose such an identity. It is logically possible to imagine a person's brain being divided and transplanted into two other persons. Then both of these persons would be psychologically continuous with the donor (having her memories up to the time of the split of her brain), but none of them would be identical with her (neither quantitatively, since they are two and she is one, nor qualitatively, since she is dead and they are alive), hence Parfit's conclusion that personal identity is not what matters.

Perhaps Parfit is right, but probably only as long as we conceive of personal identity in quasi-logical terms, as stating conditions of sameness over time. However, the concept of personal identity does not have to be reduced to such an external and descriptive content, focusing on observable empirical criteria for sameness. We can also think of personal identity as having an internal and normative content, that is, in terms of the agent's beliefs not only about who she is but also about what she ought to do because of who she is. This is to discuss personal identity as normative identity.

When a person believes that she ought to avenge the killing of her brother because she is a member of a family the honour of which requires this, that she ought to risk her life in the defence of a particular country because she is a citizen of that country or that she ought to forgive her enemies because she is a Christian, then she is expressing various normative identities. Being a family member, a citizen or a Christian functions as normative identities in the examples given earlier since they connect a person's beliefs about who she is with beliefs about what she ought to do. However, it is also important to note that agents differ as regards how they connect one and the same description of themselves to certain norms. For instance, a person may well believe herself to be a family member, a citizen or a Christian without believing that she ought to avenge her brother's death, defend her country or forgive her enemies, respectively.

It is also important to note that when I talk in the present work about an identity as being normative, I intend this term to be understood from the point of view of an agent and her normative self- conception. I do not use 'normative' in the current 'norm-critical' sense, according to which the 'normative' just refers to some allegedly dominant perspective ('the norm'), that marginalizes other less privileged viewpoints. For instance, in Veronika Koller's discussion of 'homonormativity', she defines this phenomenon 'in parallel to heteronormativity, that is, as presenting homosexuality as part of someone's "true self" and privileging certain expressions of homosexual identity over others'. But when I talk of an agent having a normative identity, there is no implied assumption that this identity is in any way 'privileged' in comparison with other identities. An agent's normative identity tells us something about her normative beliefs, but whether or not these normative beliefs are socially favoured in any way is a separate question that has nothing to do with the idea of normative identity itself.

Now, the 'ought' of a normative identity is to be understood as a moral 'ought'. It refers to norms that regulate the agent's conduct in relation to other people, and these norms are perceived by the agent as justified independently of her personal desires and preferences. Even agents who explicitly deny being moved by moral considerations may still endorse a moral 'ought' in this sense. When Hermann Göring was interviewed by the prison psychologist G. M. Gilbert in Nuremberg, the topic of morality obviously annoyed him:

What the devil do you mean, morality? — word of honor? ... Sure, you can talk about word of honor when you promise to deliver goods in business. — But when it is the question of the interests of the nation!? — Phooey! Then morality stops! ... When a state has a chance to improve its position because of the weakness of a neighbor, do you think it will stop at any squeamish consideration of keeping a promise? It is a stateman's duty to take advantage of such a situation for the good of...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Rowman & Littlefield
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2017
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1783485760
• ISBN 13: 9781783485765
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 176
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: preigu GmbH & Co. KG; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; Niedersachsen; 49078; Deutschland