This seminar will focus on the nature of persons and their ethical significance. We will discuss different philosophical theories about the nature of persons and personal identity through time and examine their implications for our views about prudence, moral responsibility, and distributive justice.
Personhood is sometimes said to be a normative category; persons are beings who are bearers of rights and responsibilities. If so, what must be distinctive of persons? How do they differ from human beings and other animals? Persons seem to persist through some physical and psychological changes, but not others. What are the conditions of personal identity through time, and how are they related to a person's physical and psychological characteristics? What unites different stages of a single life, and what distinguishes stages in different lives? Some views about personal identity are reductionist, claiming that a person's persistence is a matter of familiar physical and/or psychological facts; others deny these reductionist claims. How, if at all, do our views about the nature of persons affect our views about personal identity? We will look at the classical debate between reductionists, such as John Locke (1632-1704), and non-reductionists, such as Joseph Butler (1692-1752) and Thomas Reid (1710-1796), and then turn to contemporary discussions, especially the imaginative and resourceful defense of psychological reductionism by Derek Parfit.
Parfit argues that psychological reductionism makes best sense of our responses to a diverse range of thought experiments -- involving brain transplants, physical and psychological scanning and modification, physical and psychological fission (and fusion), and teletransportation. He also believes that psychological reductionism has some surprising consequences. According to psychological reductionism, my survival can be indeterminate. For instance, I might know all the facts about the future, including the fact that someone will suffer tomorrow, yet, according to reductionism, I might still not know whether it will be me that suffers. Psychological reductionism also seems to imply that the difference between myself and others is a difference of degree, not kind. Is this plausible, or is the separateness of persons some deep fact? If the intrapersonal/interpersonal distinction is not a fundamental one, psychological reductionism may force us to change some common assumptions. Perhaps my relationship to my distant future self is more like my relationship to another person. If so, this may lead us to reconsider the rationality of prudence. Psychological reductionism may also lead us to see some interpersonal associations -- for instance, those involving love and friendship -- as held together by the same sort of glue that holds together a single life. How might this conclusion affect our views of self-love and friendship? If there can be interpersonal, as well as intrapersonal psychological continuity, should this affect the way that we apportion responsibility for good and bad deeds? Perhaps parents should be held responsible, at least in part, for the crimes their children commit. What about distributive justice? It is sometimes thought that the importance of distributional norms -- such as a concern for equality -- depends on the separateness of persons. Both John Rawls (1921-2002) and Robert Nozick (1938-2002) rest their influential criticisms of utilitarianism (the claim that actions and institutions should aim to maximize human happiness) on the separateness of persons. How might our views about distributive justice change if we reject the separateness of persons? The metaphysical and normative implications of psychological reductionism are interesting and often revisionary. How revisionary a view is it, and is it ultimately plausible?
FORMAT
After our introductory meeting, we will have four substantive meetings.
Each of these will be centered on a small number of readings. I will
supply some background and structure to our discussion of the readings.
But the idea is for the seminar to contain lots of discussion and function,
in some ways, like a reading group (with a leader). With these topics
and readings, the ideas, arguments, and methods are often pretty provocative.
It shouldn't be hard to sustain discussion if you're doing the reading.
BOOKS
I ordered two required (paperback) books for the course, which should
be available at the campus bookstore.
RESPONSIBILITIES
As a seminar, discussion is critical. But discussion is possible
only if everyone has done the readings. To facilitate discussion
and to ensure that everyone is doing the readings, I'm requiring that for
each substantive meeting (meetings II-V), each student write a paragraph
that (a) summarizes some main idea or ideas in the readings and (b) raises
at least one issue or question about one of the readings. (b) can
be an attempt to clarify a position or argument; it can explore an implication
of a position or argument; or it can raise an objection to a position of
argument. These paragraphs need to be handed in at the beginning
of each meeting (students should probably print a second copy that they
can hang on to and refer to during the meeting). To receive a passing
grade for the seminar, students need only submit acceptable paragraphs
for each of the four substantive meetings.