What is a person? What makes me the same person today that I was yesterday or will be tomorrow? Philosophers have long pondered these questions. In Plato's Symposium, Socrates observed that all of us are constantly undergoing change: we experience physical changes to our bodies, as well as changes in our 'manners, customs, opinions, desires, pleasures, pains, [and] fears'. Aristotle theorized that there must be some underlying 'substratum' that remains the same even as we undergo these changes. John Locke rejected Aristotle's view and reformulated the problem of personal identity in his own way: is a person a physical organism that persists through time, or is a person identified by the persistence of psychological states, by memory? These essays - written by prominent philosophers and legal and economic theorists - offer valuable insights into the nature of personal identity and its implications for morality and public policy.
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Introduction; Acknowledgments; Contributors; 1. Experience, agency, and personal identity Marya Schechtman; 2. When does a person begin? Lynne Rudder Baker; 3. Persons, social agency, and constitution Robert A. Wilson; 4. Hylemorphic dualism David S. Oderberg; 5. Personal identity and self-ownership Edward Feser; 6. Self-conception and personal identity: revisiting Parfit and Lewis with an eye on the grip of the unity reaction Marvin Belzer; 7. The normativity of self-grounded reason David Copp; 8. Rationality means being willing to say you're sorry Jennifer Roback Morse; 9. Personal identity and postmortem survival Stephen E. Braude; 10. 'The thing I am': personal identity in Aquinas and Shakespeare John Finnis; 11. Moral status and personal identity: clones, embryos, and future generations F. M. Kamm; 12. The identity of identity: moral and legal aspects of technological self-transformation Michael H. Shapiro.
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The essays in this volume, first published in 2005, offer valuable insights into personal identity and its implications for morality and public policy.

Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9780521617673
Publisert
2005-07-04
Utgiver
Cambridge University Press
Vekt
561 gr
Høyde
229 mm
Bredde
153 mm
Dybde
23 mm
Aldersnivå
P, 06
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Antall sider
404

Biografisk notat

Ellen Frankel Paul is Deputy Director of the Social Philosophy and Policy Center and Professor of Political Science at Bowling Green State University. Fred D. Miller, Jr. is Executive Director of the Social Philosophy and Policy Center and Professor of Philosophy at Bowling Green State University. Jeffrey Paul is Associate Director of the Social Philosophy and Policy Center and Professor of Philosophy at Bowling Green State University.