Animalism is the view that we human individuals are animals. And standard animalists claim that if we are animals, we are animals essentially. This is because they believe that if we are animals, we are essentially members of the human kind (e.g., human animal, Homo sapiens), and as a result, we have the criterion of identity by virtue of that kind. The goal of this paper is to reject the claim that our (...) being animals implies our essentially being animals. I begin by reformulating the standard animalist’s argument for the claim that we are essentially biological entities of some sort. I then argue that the very same argumentative strategy can be applied against standard animalism. Specifically, the standard animalist’s reasoning for the claim that we are contingently psychological beings faces a dilemma that undermines the claim that we are animals essentially. In the remainder of the paper, I reply to various objections to my argument and consider a strategy that animalists can pursue in attempting to block the dilemma. (shrink)

Beginning with Descartes' caution not “imprudently” to “take some other object in place of myself”, I consider first the problems of self-identification confronted by various amnesiacs , both ordinary and Cartesian. Noting that cogitationes as such do not individuate, I proceed to examine conclusions drawn from certain sorts of “body-switching” thought experiments. This, in turn, gives rise to a general critique of “psychological connectedness” or “unity of consciousness” as a candidate criterion of personal identity. I conclude (...) class='Hi'>that our ability to apply any notion of personal identity is parasitic upon the existence of a conceptual apparatus for individuating, identifying, and reidentifying objects. Finally, I argue that, if ‘person’ is a proper sortal predicate to begin with, Descartes' res cogitans cannot be understood as a species of the genus res , distinct from res extensa and only problematically in “interaction” with it. Cartesian dualism is a multiply untenable doctrine. (shrink)

It is sometimes suggested that criteria of identity should play a central role in an account of our most fundamental ways of referring to objects. The view is nicely illustrated by an example due to (Quine, 1950). Suppose you are standing at the bank of a river, watching the water that floats by. What is required for you to refer to the river, as opposed to a particular segment of it, or the totality of its water, or (...) the current temporal part of this water? According to Quine, you must at least implicitly be operating with some criterion of identity that informs you when two sightings of water count as sightings of the same referent. For unless you have at least an implicit grasp of what is required for your intended referent to be identical with another object with which you are presented, you have not succeeded in singling out a unique object for reference. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Misprision of IdentityHarold Merskey (bio)Misprision the deliberate concealment of one's knowledge of a crime...A misreading, misunderstanding, etc.A failure to appreciate the value of a thing...(Concise Oxford Dictionary)There are options in the forms of identity that Charland's subjects assume. There are options as well in the meaning of this title, which may apply severally or individually to the choices under consideration. Are those who change their identity (...) with labels—or reject labels—correctly assuming accurate descriptions, or incorrectly misleading themselves and some others? In which of these cases are observation and intervention ethical, and do they pose demands on medical ethicists, or should they simply be ignored?Types of AutonomyParticipants in chat rooms on the Internet may justifiably be considered to be individuals who are seeking a current method of communication to promote a view of themselves, or ideas that they possess, or projects that they endorse. In this they may resemble others who have used more traditional methods of presenting their ideas, their claims, their wares, hard merchandise, literary material, or political or philosophical propositions to the public at large. These others may be sales persons, advertisers, poets, singers, clowns, buskers, politicians, preachers, missionaries, learned public speakers, television presenters, news commentators (but not necessarily reporters), and anyone indeed who talks to other people in public about matters that she or he wishes to bring forward. They have a point they want to make. They may be grouping themselves as 'survivors' or pro-anorexia, or Multiple Personality Disorder victims, but they are not necessarily operating as patients who are looking for a fiduciary relationship with physicians or other health care practitioners. It is thus a long step to turn them into individuals who may have a claim on the doctor–patient relationship.Do we wish to undertake research on them? Research or study in the first instance for these circumstances must be in the field of social science. The rules of what it is ethical for a sociologist to do apply first. The rules of situations where one person has more power and the other depends on that individual for assistance without exploitation may differ considerably from case to case. In so far as there may be some special rules as to what is fair, reasonable, just, kind, merciful, or prudent to study individuals who expose themselves and their interests publicly, this is perhaps best done first by reference to standards for journalists.That criterion may be too lenient a standard for most health professionals because journalists seem to be quite willing to expose the subjects of their observations to public obloquy and to [End Page 351] present information about many individuals—information that the persons themselves do not consent to see in the public domain, but that the journalist, having acquired, feels entitled to make known. Still there are believed to be some standards that journalists observe and these tend to protect the weak and the more vulnerable, although that does not mean that they are regularly followed. They tend to emphasize not printing material that is salacious or very lewd and would have personal reference, but they do not withhold comparable information if they consider that it is accurate and describes the behavior of individuals who are of interest to the public which, in certain circumstances, may mean almost anybody.So up to this point it seems that our normal respect for the autonomy of the individual in chat rooms can be balanced against our interest in freedom of speech, which leads to open and very broadly based publication of information and observations.The Burden of the LabelOnce the medical label is affixed, a different level of stringency begins to apply to what may be studied or published. Because we feel that individuals' self-esteem is at risk and perhaps their lives, we hesitate to make cutting or pejorative comments about distressed people. Such diagnoses as cancer or depression may be held back from the patient (and, certainly, in the case of depression, even more may be kept from others around the patient). Likewise unspoken thoughts may be automatically acknowledged and, like radical material, may be carefully segregated and... (shrink)

I am grateful to the commentators for their thoughtful engagement with my paper.1 I am unable in this short response to reply to all of the important questions raised. Instead, I will focus on the practical application of identity-relative paternalism. Some commentators felt that this novel concept would yield implausible implications,2 others that it would have no impact because of uncertainty,3 or because existing ethical principles would yield the same conclusion.4 In the paper, I proposed the following (...) principle: > Identity-relative paternalistic intervention: Individuals should be prevented from doing to future selves (where there are weakened prudential unity relations between the current and future self) what it would be justified to prevent them from doing to others. What sorts of intervention might fit under this principle? Garstman et al give the example of living kidney donation.2 They imagined ‘Beth’, who altruistically decides to donate a kidney to a third party. Beth’s decision would mean that a future BethT2 would be deprived of a kidney, be at risk of immediate perioperative complications and would be at (somewhat) higher risk of long-term health complications including renal failure. But they argue that we would be justified in preventing someone from inflicting such harms on a third party (eg, we should stop someone from stealing a kidney). Hence, they claim that identity relative paternalism would rule …. (shrink)

This paper discusses some of the ways in which Martin-Löf type theory differs from set theory. The discussion concentrates on conceptual, rather than technical, differences. It revolves around four topics: sets versus types; syntax; functions; and identity. The difference between sets and types is spelt out as the difference between unified pluralities and kinds, or sorts. A detailed comparison is then offered of the syntax of the two languages. Emphasis is placed on the distinction between proposition and judgement, drawn (...) by type theory, but not by set theory. Unlike set theory, type theory treats the notion of function as primitive. It is shown that certain inconveniences pertaining to function application that afflicts the set- theoretical account of functions are thus avoided. Finally, the distinction, drawn in type theory, between judgemental and propositional identity is discussed. It is argued that the criterion of identity for a domain cannot be formulated in terms of propositional identity. It follows that the axiom of extensionality cannot be taken as a statement of the criterion of identity for sets. (shrink)

This paper discusses some of the ways in which Martin-Löf type theory differs from set theory. The discussion concentrates on conceptual, rather than technical, differences. It revolves around four topics: sets versus types; syntax; functions; and identity. The difference between sets and types is spelt out as the difference between unified pluralities and kinds, or sorts. A detailed comparison is then offered of the syntax of the two languages. Emphasis is put on the distinction between proposition and judgement, drawn (...) by type theory, but not by set theory. Unlike set theory, type theory treats the notion of function as primitive. It is shown that certain inconveniences pertaining to function application that afflicts the set-theoretical account of functions are thus avoided. Finally, the distinction, drawn in type theory, between judgemental and propositional identity is discussed. It is argued that the criterion of identity for a domain cannot be formulated in terms of propositional identity. It follows that the axiom of extensionality cannot be taken as a statement of the criterion of identity for sets. (shrink)

A view of individuals as constituted of quantities of matter, both understood as continuants enduring over time, is elaborated in some detail. Constitution is a three-place relation which can't be collapsed to identity because of the place-holder for a time and because individuals and quantities of matter have such a radically different character. Individuals are transient entities with limited lifetimes, whereas quantities are permanent existents undergoing change in physical and chemical properties from time to time. Coincidence, (...) considered as a matter of occupying the same place, is developed, alongside sameness of constitutive matter, as a criterion of identity for individuals. Quantities satisfy the mereological criterion of identity, applicable to entities subject to mereological relations and operations such as regions of space and intervals of time. A time-dependent analogue of mereological parthood is defined for individuals, in terms of which analogues of the other mereological relations can be defined. But it is argued that there is no analogue of the mereological operation of summation for individuals. (shrink)

In 1907 Einstein had the insight that bodies in free fall do not “feel” their own weight. This has been formalized in what is called “the principle of equivalence.” The principle motivated a critical analysis of the Newtonian and special-relativistic concepts of inertia, and it was indispensable to Einstein’s development of his theory of gravitation. A great deal has been written about the principle. Nearly all of this work has focused on the content of the principle and whether it (...) has any content in Einsteinian gravitation, but more remains to be said about its methodological role in the development of the theory. I argue that the principle should be understood as a kind of foundational principle known as a criterion of identity. This work extends and substantiates a recent account of the notion of a criterion of identity by William Demopoulos. Demopoulos argues that the notion can be employed more widely than in the foundations of arithmetic and that we see this in the development of physical theories, in particular space–time theories. This new account forms the basis of a general framework for applying a number of mathematical theories and for distinguishing between applied mathematical theories that are and are not empirically constrained. (shrink)

‘When we see, hear, smell, taste, feel, meditate, or will anything, we know that we do so. … Consciousness … is inseparable from thinking, and essential to it. …’John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding ‘Psycho-analysis … cannot accept the identity of the conscious and the mental. It defines what is mental as processes such as feeling, thinking and … willing. … ’Sigmund Freud, Introductory Lectures on Psycho-analysis.In this paper I shall provide a novel version of a traditional epistemic (...) criterion for distinguishing mental entities from nonmental ones, and defend it from likely sorts of objections. By the phrase ‘criterion of the mental’ I mean a set of conditions which is necessary and sufficient for an entity's being mental. (shrink)

The recognition of species proceeds by two fairly distinct phases: (1) the sorting of individuals into groups or basic taxa (‘discovery’) (2) the checking of those taxa as candidates for species-hood (‘justification’). The target here is a rational reconstruction of phase 1, beginning with a discussion of key terms. The transmission of ‘meaning’ is regarded as bimodal: definition states the intension of the term, and diagnosis provides a disjunction of criteria for recognition of its extension. The two are connected (...) by a spectrum, with purely theoretical definition at one pole and purely ‘operational’ diagnosis at the other, with the more operational elements explained by the more theoretical. The current plethora of species concepts provides a good example. Accepting the Ghiselin–Hull thesis, that a species is an individual, a basic taxon is therefore also an individual with organisms as its parts. In a generalised synchronic individual its parts are conceptually integrated by an integrating principle (IP), which consists of a relation applying within a plan or rule. Fully developed, such an IP ensures the maximisation of the information content of the individual. A diachronic individual is then the set of its component synchronic parts, and its IP is provided by near-identity in an appropriate space-time (not necessarily physical). The integration of parts of an individual is illuminated by Gasking's concept of a proper group (in this case a chain-group), whose members are related by the relation serially fitting together with, the IP completed by an appropriate plan or rule. Gasking also applied the term cluster to a proper group persisting over a substantial period of time, individuated by any member acting as focus. A basic taxon is therefore a cluster of individuals, integrated by the relation significantly taxonomically similar and the rule in character-space-time. The nature of those concepts is discussed and defended. A species will inherit certain of the attributes of the preceding basic taxon (taxa). In at least the synchronic version its parts (individuals) will resemble each other significantly, providing the intuitive applicability of ‘members of’ and ‘instances of’ a species. Also, the notion that a species’ name is given by pure ostension, via a name-bearer (holotype) is empirically incoherent: the name cannot be applied in practice without an appropriate set of diagnostic traits. (shrink)

Photo ID 222412412 © US Navy Medicine | Dreamstime.com ABSTRACT In a non-military setting, the answer is clear: it would be unethical to treat someone based on non-medical considerations such as nationality. We argue that Battlefield Triage is a moral tragedy, meaning that it is a situation in which there is no morally blameless decision and that the demands of justice cannot be satisfied. INTRODUCTION Medical resources in an austere environment without quick recourse for resupply or casualty (...) evacuation are often limited. The shortage extends not only to supplies like blood products and drugs, but physicians and other medical personnel. In the midst of a mass casualty scenario, such as a battle that includes intense ground fighting, the medical staff will stretch scarce resources and triage casualties according to specific criteria. Typically, they proceed by providing care for the most severely wounded first, referred to here as conventional triage. At times, though, the staff may reverse the triage so that soldiers with minor wounds can return to the fight. In a mass casualty situation, when medical personnel apply conventional triage and treat casualties from opposing forces, a dilemma may arise. We argue that it can be permissible for military physicians to prioritize their own soldiers over enemy combatants in a mass casualty triage, where reverse triage does not apply. The case we will focus on is as follows: Battlefield Triage: During combat operations on a remote island in the Pacific Ocean, a compatriot soldier and an enemy combatant arrive at the compatriot soldier country’s medical treatment facility. Both have similar gunshot wounds to the abdomen, and they arrive with similar conditions. Both have low oxygen saturation and excessive blood loss. The sole physician only has enough time to stabilize one person. The scenario is brief, and we are aware that medical rules of eligibility will most often dictate how the physician proceeds,[1] but this scenario is useful in setting up the question we focus on in this paper: would it be wrong to favor the stabilization of a soldier just because the soldier is the physician’s compatriot? In other words, can nationality serve as an ethically justified tiebreaker in a situation such as Battlefield Triage?[2] In a non-military setting, the answer is clear: it would be unethical to treat someone based on non-medical considerations such as nationality. The AMA’s Code of Medical Ethics asserts that physicians have “ethical obligations to place patients’ welfare above their self-interest and above obligations to other groups.”[3] The World Medical Association’s Declaration of Tokyo affirms that “no motive, whether personal, collective or political, shall prevail against this higher purpose” of alleviating distress.[4] Physicians are taught early on that triage decisions must be medically indicated and made without consideration of factors such as race, ethnicity, religion, social status, and nationality. They are taught that public trust and obligations of justice grounded in equality demand that only medical indications be considered. But military physicians in a military setting are beholden to obligations, duties, and responsibilities as members of the military, and when these obligations, duties, and responsibilities conflict, as they do in Battlefield Triage, which loyalties win out and why?[5] Critics of partiality on national grounds argue that partiality undermines public trust in medicine and justice because everyone should be treated equally regardless of nationality.[6] Proponents of partiality argue that military obligations supersede equality and that justice requires partiality in such cases.[7] Despite the critics’ disagreement, both agree that there is a morally right, perhaps even blameless, course of action. Drawing on insights from virtue ethics, we argue that Battlefield Triage is a moral tragedy in which justice is unattainable and there is no action without moral cost. The assumption that there is a morally right choice is flawed. We argue that while no decision in this scenario is free from moral blame, there are reasons to favor treating one’s soldiers over enemy combatants. I. The Case Against Partiality There is a common assumption that there is a morally right or just decision in Battlefield Triage. A number of organizations and scholars claim that it is wrong for military physicians to favor their own soldiers on the grounds of nationality or some form of ‘group membership.’ (In a conflict involving service members from multiple nations working as a coalition, a soldier from an allied country may receive the same priority as the US service member due to ‘group membership.’) The World Medical Association’s WMA Declaration of Lisbon on the Rights of the Patient, which was reaffirmed in 2015, posits that, “[i]n circumstances where a choice must be made between potential patients for a particular treatment that is in limited supply, all such patients are entitled to a fair selection procedure for that treatment. That choice must be based on medical criteria and made without discrimination.”[8] This echoes what was set forth in Article 12 of the Geneva Conventions, which states that “[o]nly urgent medical reasons will authorize priority in the order of treatment to be administered.”[9] The argument for impartiality in Battlefield Triage is that every person is morally equal, and equality entails that medical distribution is, “based on a combination of medical need and urgency.”[10] This is in keeping with the bioethical principles that are generally applied.[11] II. The Case for Partiality On the other side, there are arguments that favoritism is the ethically right decision in Battlefield Triage.[12] The argument asserts that members of the military form a morally significant community of friends and participation in these relationships demands partiality. Just as parents have strong ethical duties to their children and not just any children, military personnel have ethical duties to their group, a group that involves an affirmation of mutual aid and support. Some have termed these ‘associative duties. According to Michael Gross, obligations of friendship, care, and solidarity “leave very little room for generally applicable principles of justice that would obligate a medic to treat enemy or non-compatriot wounded ahead of their compatriots.”[13] This is true in Battlefield Triage, but it may also be true even if the enemy’s soldier were more seriously wounded: “the ethics of small group cohesion, largely an ethics of care, mostly replaces the demands of impartial justice.”[14] In a more recent article, Gross explains that preferential treatment is ethically justified based on fighting capability and “the special obligations people owe friends, family, and, no less, comrades-in-arms.”[15] To not show partiality to the US soldier would be morally wrong on the grounds of friendship and mutual care.[16] III. The Moral Tragedy of Battlefield Triage Defenders and critics of Battlefield Triage favoritism based on nationality both frame their position as just or fair. For example, Justin List argues that physicians are “bound to practice medical neutrality,”[17] Marcus Adams denies that physicians “possess special ethical obligations” to enemy combatants because of their profession.[18] These perspectives assume that there is a morally right decision and that justice is attainable. The assumption that there is or can be a morally right Battlefield Triage decision, and we need to put our heads together to figure it out, remains strongly entrenched. However, the facts of the situation should give us pause; there are too many people and too few resources, and this demands a decision-making process that determines who will receive scarce resources. By its very nature, a battlefield triage decision has to be made based on some characteristic or value, a characteristic or value that will inevitably favor some at the expense of others. This is precisely why competing analyses “in the military context struggle to resolve these conflicts satisfactorily.”[19] Drawing on the insights of virtue ethics, we suggest that Battlefield Triage is a moral tragedy. Virtue ethics suggests that morality is about acting virtuously, which is to say that we should do what a virtuous person would do in the situation. Ethics is about figuring out how a just, wise, compassionate, loving, and fair person would act, and then doing that, as one grows in virtue. But life is not always clear cut, and it is possible that virtuous people may find themselves in a moral tragedy, a situation in which, through no fault of one’s own, a person must make a morally objectionable decision. After the action the virtuous person “emerges having done a terrible thing, the very sort of thing that the callous, dishonest, unjust, or in general vicious agent would characteristically do.”[20] Stated differently, a moral tragedy presents a virtuous person with two or more courses of action, all of which have a moral cost.[21] In Battlefield Triage, no matter how the physician goes about deciding, there is going to be defensible concern from those not saved. The fact that there are more people than can be helped fosters competing values in battlefield triage: maximize lives saved, treat people equally, treat the worse off, and support the war effort. Treating people equally may create tension between treating the worse off, maximizing lives saved, and supporting the war effort. Reverse triage is a case in point, as supporting the war effort conflicts with treating the worse off first, as is a fair lottery system since deploying a lottery may not maximize lives saved or support the war effort. There can be reasons why one person is selected over another, to be sure. Yet, there are reasons for making a decision, and that the decision is subject to legitimate moral concern is another. To recognize the moral tragedy of Battlefield Triage is to recognize the impossibility of acting blamelessly in the situation. In this situation, the virtuous military physician is going to have to sacrifice important values such as justice, compassion, and respect for others, even with a defensible criterion in hand. The physician will grieve this sacrifice accordingly. The physician may find her decision difficult or stressful, and rightly so, because of what her circumstances require of her. This kind of moral tragedy results “in actions which betray and violate the rights of persons to whom there may be a strong duty of care. When this happens, it properly triggers an appropriate moral emotion since our moral integrity has been violated and this affects how we think of ourselves and what we have become.”[22] Rather than view her triage decision as the morally superior choice, the virtuous military physician will view her decisions in these circumstances in a different light: it is the least bad option in a terrible situation, and she did something ethically problematic, something that is contrary to her moral character. She deeply regrets the circumstances in which she had to act. IV. Virtue Ethics A virtue ethicist has insight into how one should go about deciding what to do in a moral tragedy, although virtue ethics may not be as helpful as one may hope. The goal of the virtuous military physician in Battlefield Triage is to adopt the best course of action or the action that she feels she ought to do, all things considered. This does not make her choice devoid of serious wrongdoing—a decision must be made, but that does not make it just. The virtuous military physician will approach the situation with courage, responsibility, and insight. She will think about the decision carefully, wisely, and conscientiously; she will weigh the goods and harms of the choices before her, in conjunction with a proper conception of the good life, human worth, and understanding of her obligations to others—including chain of command, fellow soldiers, and the medical community. She is attuned to the value of human life and has a reasonable idea of the various ways her decisions will affect others. She recognizes that she is in this non-ideal situation through no fault of her own: she is not the one fighting in battles; she is serving her country as a physician, whose job it is to save lives, treat everyone justly, and promote military objectives. She regrets the decision she is forced to make in battlefield triage, acting “with immense regret and pain,” Hursthouse explains, “instead of indifferently or gladly.”[23] This is because, no matter what decision is made, the virtuous military physician “does something terrible or horrible,” something she otherwise would not do and is contrary to her values.[24] V. A Resolvable Moral Tragedy Instead of asking whether there is a morally right decision, in which a decision is morally blameless and above reproach, the virtue ethicist asks whether there is a decision with a convincing rationale, knowing that a decision can have a clear rationale but still be morally tragic. It is perfectly reasonable to think that different virtuous persons will arrive at different courses of action: “two virtuous agents, in the same situation,” Hursthouse writes, “may act differently” in irresolvable moral tragedies, in cases in which there is no clear course of action.[25] Because a person must act in a moral tragedy, one goal is to identify reasons for choosing the chosen action. Some decisions are clearly indefensible—treating neither the compatriot soldier nor the enemy combatant in Battlefield Triage would be wrong—and some decisions are more problematic than others. If the military physician selects to treat the soldier because she does not like the enemy combatant’s skin color, such a reason would be deeply problematic. But much of the debate over how to act in a moral tragedy is not over clearly indefensible or problematic criteria. Instead, the literature is largely about different standards or implementations of justice. Some scholars defend nation-impartial triage as right, while others defend nation-aware triage as right, and each argues that the other side is promoting an unjust or otherwise wrong solution to Battlefield Triage. We suggest that Battlefield Triage is a resolvable moral tragedy and that virtue ethics offers convincing reasons to prefer the treatment of the compatriot soldier rather than the enemy combatant on the grounds of national identity. Virtues are integral to living a good life, a flourishing life, but as Aristotle observed long ago, human beings are inherently social, interdependent and interconnected in profound ways.[26] This goes beyond the obvious fact that we need each other to survive day to day (one person makes clothes, another farms, and another makes tools); the claim is that a good or flourishing life depends in large part on one’s social network or community. This is why many of Aristotle’s moral virtues are other facing: justice, friendship, generosity, and magnanimity, to name a few. Courage, a typically self-facing virtue, is understood by Aristotle to be the virtue that regards one’s fear of death in battle, a battle fought on behalf of one’s city.[27] All of this remains true today. Namely, there is an important sense in which our community matters to our lives: it is easier to live a good, flourishing life if one is part of a good, flourishing community. Our community is made up of smaller groups, and it is more accurate to say that we are simultaneous members of different groups within a broader community. A person may be part of a family, friend group, research team, large state university, city, state, and nation. Groups can function well or not, as we all have experienced, and this suggests that there are virtues or excellences that groups can instantiate. Good groups are unified in purpose, with each member doing their duty alongside others for the attainment of that purpose. Good groups manifest solidarity among their members. Although Aristotle does not list solidarity as a virtue, a number of modern-day virtue ethicists have begun examining how group solidarity can be a virtue that contributes to a good or flourishing life.[28] Solidarity is not conceptualized as an individual virtue, a virtue possessed by a person in isolation of others; instead, it is a collective virtue, a virtue that is shared among members of a defined group with particular ends.[29] “A group has solidarity to the extent that its members are disposed to: (1) share values, aims, or goals; (2) care about those values, aims, or goals; (3) act in accordance with those values, aims, or goals; (4) trust the testimony of other group members with respect to those values, aims, and goals; and (5) feel a sense of belonging to the group.”[30] The virtue of collective or group solidarity involves individuals having special concern for each other, shared aims and values, trust, loyalty, and a sense of belonging with these specific others. There is a oneness to the group in the pursuit of a definite goal or purpose, involving mutual support and affirmation of each member. As such, the group has ends and goods above and beyond the good of each individual person. Sometimes solidarity requires personal sacrifice for the collective (for example, a father sacrificing food so his child can eat). The virtue of collective or group solidarity is important to the military and medical community at every level, and for clear reasons. In the military, there is a clear hierarchy of command, unity of purpose and end, mutual trust and support in complex settings, and so on. Soldiers need to know they can count on one another, and solidarity grounds a soldier’s ability to trust others and be assured of mutual aid. In medicine, solidarity maintains self-regulation of the profession, shared values and goals, as well as public support, not to mention that day-to-day operations require physician trust, engagement, and effort toward the ends of clinical care. Physicians need to work together, along with others, in pursuit of health, and disunity is sowed when there is mistrust, selfishness, or disengagement among the healthcare team and organization. Importantly, just as we are all members of various groups and hence may manifest group solidarity in different settings, the virtuous military physician instantiates collective solidarity with both the medical profession and the military. Her dual loyalty contributes to the moral difficulty of acting in Battlefield Triage. The military physician has competing obligations to distinct groups and cannot satisfy all obligations in Battlefield Triage. Solidarity with the military supports the consideration of favoring the soldier for reasons of national identity, whereas solidarity with the medical community does not. Something has to give, which is why it is a moral tragedy. The virtuous military physician, therefore, must weigh the costs of each course of action. To fulfill her obligations to the medical community would require that she does not use nationality and other non-medical considerations in Battlefield Triage. Since the soldier and enemy combatant are equally injured, justice would demand a random process, perhaps a flip of the coin. Although this may satisfy obligations the military physician has to the medical community, this would be costly to the physician’s military group. If word gets out that the physician decides who to treat based on a coin toss, soldiers, families, and citizens may become frustrated and angry. Soldier morale may go down if it becomes known that a coin flip led to the preventable death of a soldier and the saving of an enemy combatant who had killed (or attempted to kill) other soldiers. As Gross highlights, military solidarity involves a mutual aid promise that military personnel promise to help one another.[31] A military physician is part of the military and, as such, is part of the mutual aid promise, which would appear to be violated if the physician flips a coin. Treating a member of one’s own team may be psychologically more beneficial than treating an enemy combatant and may lead to less moral distress.[32] Finally, treating soldiers rather than enemy combatants promotes broader military and social aims, including returning soldiers to health, maintaining unity of purpose, and minimizing community suffering from a soldier’s death. Favoring members of one’s group, that is, triage based on nationality in Battlefield Triage, would fulfill obligations of military group loyalty, which is contrary to the values and duties of medicine. It does not seem as though showing favoritism in this particular situation is very costly to the medical community or general public, but this is because there is recognition that the physician is in the military. Medicine is impartial to non-medical indications partly because of fairness and to promote public trust in medicine. However, Battlefield Triage is unique, as medicine is being practiced in a non-public, wartime setting. In ordinary circumstances, a patient’s identity is irrelevant, and physicians ought not play favorites. Since Battlefield Triage is not an ordinary circumstance, decisions based on patient identity may not undermine public trust in medicine. In addition, it is contestable that fairness in Battlefield Triage requires that no consideration be paid to one’s nationality. Fairness is about giving each person their due, what is owed to them, and the case can be made that soldiers who place themselves in danger for the sake of the common good or a just cause are owed special attention when they suffer harm in the line of duty. In other words, soldiers voluntarily undergo risk to themselves for the greater good, and society owes them for this sacrifice. This plausibly includes preferential treatment in a situation such as Battlefield Triage. So, while the medical community affirms justice demands non-preferential treatment, the military community can affirm the opposite. The demands of fairness are unclear at best or in conflict in this situation: demands of physician justice decry favoritism, while demands of military justice support favoritism. Triage not based on nationality is arguably unfair and triage based on nationality may not undermine public trust, after all. All things considered, there is a clear rationale for favoring nationality-based preferential treatment in Battlefield Triage. Adopting a nationality-based preference in this situation is more defensible than not. This does not make such a decision ethically right or just. Preference based on nationality is the least bad decision, but it is not morally blameless. It involves one in a serious moral wrong, a wrong otherwise avoided and contrary to one’s character. The virtuous military physician is in a situation in which obligations conflict, and we disagree with Gross, who posits that care of fellow soldiers “is important to the near exclusion of all else.”[33] Gross fails to appreciate the collective virtue of solidarity as applied to those in medicine. The military physician has duties to fellow soldiers but also to fellow physicians, to the medical community, and humanity. To favor a soldier on grounds of nationality violates her duties and responsibilities to this latter group. She is involved in a moral tragedy and can only seek the most just action given the circumstances, yet, at least in virtue ethics, the action remains far from blameless. CONCLUSION We argue that Battlefield Triage is a moral tragedy, meaning that it is a situation in which there is no morally blameless decision and that the demands of justice cannot be satisfied. As such, the virtuous military physician incurs a moral cost to acting as she does—there is a moral residue. However, despite being a moral tragedy, there are clear reasons to act in favor of treating one’s own, considering group solidarity. As such, these kinds of tragedies are resolvable: virtuous military physicians should favor treatment of their own, although they would do so with sorrow. - [1] Militaries set forth medical rules of eligibility or guidelines used to determine whether a person qualifies for specific medical interventions or treatments in certain circumstances, and these guidelines are binding for a military physician. For example, despite opposition from medical organizations, militaries have adopted reverse triage guidelines for military physicians to follow. For ethical discussion, see Falzone, Elisabeth, P. Pasquier, C. Hoffmann, O. Barbier, M. Boutonnet, A. Salvadori, A. Jarrassier, J. Renner, B. Malgras, and S. Mérat. "Triage in military settings." Anaesthesia Critical Care & Pain Medicine 36, no. 1 (2017): 43-51. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.accpm.2016.05.004 [2] There are issues that are related to this, including the triage of civilians and allied soldiers. We set related issues aside for purposes of this paper [3] American Medical Association, Code of Medical Ethics: Current Opinions with Annotations, 2004–2005 ed. (Chicago, IL: AMA, 2004), 300. [4] American Medical Association, Code of Medical Ethics: Current Opinions with Annotations, 2004–2005 ed. (Chicago, IL: AMA, 2004), 300. [5] This is termed the “dual loyalty” dilemma in military medicine and has been described at length elsewhere: Institute of Medicine (US) Board on Health Sciences Policy. Military Medical Ethics: Issues regarding Dual Loyalties: Workshop Summary. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2008. Toward a Framework for Resolving Dual Loyalties. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK214853/ [6] See Kenneth G. Swan and K.G. Swan, Jr., “Triage: The Past Revisited,” Military Medicine 161:8 (1996): 448–452. https://doi.org/10.1093/milmed/161.8.448; Jerome A. Singh, “American Physicians and dual loyalty obligations in the ‘war on terror,’” BMC Medical Ethics 4.4 (2003): 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6939-4-4; Beam, Thomas E. "Medical Ethics on the Battlefield." Military Medical Ethics: Sect. IV. Medical ethics in the military. Medical ethics on the battlefield: the crucible of military medical ethics 2 (2003): 369-402; Hereth, Blake. "Health justice for unjust combatants." Journal of Military Ethics 20, no. 1 (2021): 67-81. https://doi.org/10.1080/15027570.2021.1949782. [7] See Adams, Marcus P. "Triage priorities and military physicians." In Physicians at war: The dual-loyalties challenge, pp. 215-236. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 2008. Gross, Michael L. "Comradery, community, and care in military medical ethics." Theoretical medicine and bioethics 32 (2011): 337-350. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11017-011-9189-6. Gross, Michael L. "The limits of impartial medical treatment during armed conflict." In Military medical ethics for the 21st century, pp. 71-84. Routledge, 2016. [8] World Medical Association, WMA Declaration of Lisbon on the Rights of the Patient. 5 December 2022, https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-lisbon-on-the-rights-of-the-patient/ [9] Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick in Armed Forces in the Field. 12 August 1949. https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.30_GC-I-EN.pdf. [10] List, Justin M. "Medical neutrality and political activism: physicians' roles in conflict situations." In Physicians at war: The dual-loyalties challenge, pp. 237-253. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 2008. 240 [11] Beauchamp, T., and J. Childress. 2013. Principles of Biomedical Ethics, 7th ed. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. [12] Adams, Marcus P. "Triage priorities and military physicians." In Physicians at war: The dual-loyalties challenge, pp. 215-236. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 2008. [13] Gross, "Comradery, community, and care in military medical ethics," 347. [14] Gross, “Comradery, community, and care in military medical ethics,” 349. [15] Gross, Michael L. "When medical ethics and military ethics collide." Narrative inquiry in bioethics 13, no. 3 (2023): 199-204. 202 https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/nib.2023.a924191 [16] Our argument draws on virtue ethics, from which care ethics derives, and it is worth clarifying how our argument relates to Gross’s. We do not think that the virtue of friendship grounds triage decisions, for we think it is unlikely that the physician and wounded soldier are friends. Instead, as explained below, we think the collective virtue of group solidarity better captures the moral significance of group loyalty and that Gross would agree with us. But since military physicians are part of distinct groups, with competing obligations, the military physician will be forced to sacrifice a value in battlefield triage cases. In other words, we think Gross downplays the dual group membership of a military physician. [17] List,”Medical neutrality and political activism,” 250. [18] Adams,”Triage priorities and military physicians,” 235. [19] London, Leslie, Leonard S. Rubenstein, Laurel Baldwin-Ragaven, and Adriaan Van Es. "Dual loyalty among military health professionals: human rights and ethics in times of armed conflict." Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 15, no. 4 (2006): 381-391. 383. [20] Hursthouse, R. On Virtue Ethics. OUP 1999. 74 [21] Nussbaum, Martha C. "The costs of tragedy: Some moral limits of cost-benefit analysis." The Journal of Legal Studies 29, no. S2 (2000): 1005-1036, 1007. [22] De Wijze, S. (2005). Tragic-remorse–the anguish of dirty hands. Ethical theory and moral practice, 7(5), 453-471, 457. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-005-6836-x [23] Hursthouse, 73 [24] Hursthouse, 81 [25] Hursthouse, 72 [26] Aristotle, Politics 1253a8. Reeve, C. D. C., Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 2017 [27] Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. III.6.114a, 34-35. 2002, Nicomachean Ethics, Christopher Rowe (trans.), Oxford: Oxford University Press [28] Byerly, T. Ryan, and Meghan Byerly. "Collective virtue." The Journal of Value Inquiry 50, no. 1 (2016): 33-50. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-015-9484-y; Federico, Veronica. "Conclusion: solidarity as a public virtue." Solidarity as a Public Virtue (2018): 495-542. https://doi.org/10.5771/9783845290058. Rehg, William. "Solidarity and the common good: An analytic framework." Journal of Social Philosophy 38, no. 1 (2007): 7-21. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9833.2007.00363.x [29] Byerly and Byerly. "Collective virtue." 43 [30] Battaly, Heather. "Solidarity: Virtue or vice?." In Social virtue epistemology, pp. 303-324. Routledge, 2022. 304 [31] Ibid., 2011: 341 [32] It might be thought that displaying altruism by helping an enemy combatant at the expense of one’s fellow soldier may be psychologically satisfiying. For evidence that military physicians find it difficult to treat enemy combatants, see Lundberg, Kristina, Sofia Kjellström, Anders Jonsson, and Lars Sandman. "Experiences of Swedish military medical personnel in combat zones: adapting to competing loyalties." Military medicine 179, no. 8 (2014): 821-826. https://doi.org/10.7205/MILMED-D-14-00038. Lamblin, Antoine, Clément Derkenne, Marion Trousselard, and Marie-Ange Einaudi. "Ethical challenges faced by French military doctors deployed in the Sahel (Operation Barkhane): a qualitative study." BMC Medical Ethics 22 (2021): 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-021-00723-2 [33] Ibid., 2011: 344. (shrink)

Molyneux's Question, that is, “Suppose a man born blind, and now adult, and taught by his touch to distinguish between a cube and a sphere... and the blind man made to see: Quaere, whether by his sight, before he touched them, he could now distinguish, and tell, which is the globe, which the cube”, was discussed by many theorists in the 17th and 18th centuries, and has recently been addressed by contemporary philosophers interested in the nature, and identity (...) conditions, of perceptual concepts. My main concern in this paper is to argue – against Evans, Campbell, and a number of other contemporary philosophers – that a test of the sort Molyneux envisioned, at least if carefully designed and administered, can indeed be a crucial experiment for the claim that we deploy the same perceptual concepts when identifying shapes by sight and by touch. I will explore some implications of this argument for a theory of recognitional concepts. And I’ll try to trace out some unhappy consequences of various alternative views. (shrink)

Everything is Something is a book about Stoic metaphysics. It argues that the Stoics are best understood as forging a bold new path between materialism and idealism, a path best characterized as non-reductive physicalism. To be sure, only individual bodies exist for the Stoics, but not everything there is exists — some things are said to subsist. However, this is no Meinongian move beyond existence, to the philosophy of intentionality (as the language of subsistence might suggest), but a one-world (...) metaphysics that both counts its entities by logical criteria, and grounds them in body by physical principles, yielding a tightly ordered ontology in which everything is Something and nothing is not. -/- This last phrase is not innocent. It invokes the Stoic innovation of Something (ti) as the highest genus of reality, and takes the stand that it is not only principled and coherent, but comprehensive — anything that is not Something is nothing at all (for the initiated: there is no class of Not-Somethings between Something and nothing). Further, everything that is Something is either itself a body, or ontologically dependent on body. Herein lies the Stoics’ non-reductive physicalism, and the beating heart of their response to the Battle of Gods and Giants in Plato’s Sophist: a one-world metaphysics. -/- The foundation of Stoic metaphysics is their ground-breaking corporealism, which introduces an alternative to both atomism and hylomorphism. The Stoics are continuum physicists for whom body as such, i.e. solid, three-dimensional extension, is homogeneous, partless, uniform, and infinitely divisible without reaching minima (atoms). And because body is not conceived along hylomorphic lines, i.e. as a composite of matter and form, the Stoics are free to make body fundamental. Out of two basic bodies, then (the archai), and by the tantalizing mechanism of through and through blending (krasis di’ holou), Stoic physics constructs the cosmos (and every body it contains) in completely corporealist terms, composing one thing out of many. And once those bodies are built, Stoic logic gives an account of their identity conditions, kinds, and qualities according to the vexed schema of the Categories, making now many out of one by the constitution relation, as a statue is constituted by its clay. With these distinct mereological relations of composition and constitution, Stoic corporealism artfully divides the labor of Plato’s Forms between physics and logic. -/- Next in the ontological order, with bodies as their foundation, are the incorporeals (asōmata): space (place, room, and surface), time, void, and the (awkwardly named) sayables, or lekta (roughly, though controversially, the meanings of our words). These entities do not exist; they do, however, subsist, inheriting their physical properties and, hence, their subsistence, from the bodies on which they depend. For example, place depends for its three-dimensional (non-solid) extension on the bodies that occupy or delimit it. The ontological dependence of space, time, and their novel semantic entities (the lekta) on body, is what takes Stoic metaphysics beyond corporealism to non-reductive physicalism, beyond a merely sorted ontology to an ordered, one-world metaphysics. Each incorporeal counts as Something according to the Stoic criterion for subsistence (hence, the theory is non-reductive), and what they have in common as incorporeals (and what makes the account physicalist), is their dependence on underlying body. -/- In addition to the incorporeals, the Stoics also recognize the subsistence of things like creatures of fiction and geometrical limits, which they classify as neither corporeal nor incorporeal. What these entities have in common is that they are products of thought; and since thoughts are themselves bodies according to Stoic corporealism, this remains a physicalist account. As before, the account is not Meinongian; neither all objects of thought, nor all products of thought count as Something. Indeed, the Stoics’ eliminative treatment of universals (and Forms) turns on their denying concepts (ennoēmata) a place on the ontological map altogether — concepts are simply not Somethings (and, again, not some further category of Not-Somethings, intermediate between Something and nothing at all). If all this is right, then the Stoics are not flat-footed materialists or ersatz Platonists, as so often assumed, but our first non-reductive physicalists. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to shed light on the problem of identity of particulars over time within the framework of Quinean analysis. First, it focuses on the relationship between essential and accidental property changes as a criterion for distinguishing cases when objects retain their identity from cases when they loose it. In this part it is shown, that a coherent distinction between essential and accidental properties is problematic. Quinean approach indicates that we do (...) not need to look for any kind of criterion of identity of particulars over time. Hence, the conclusion is that the identity of particulars over time should not be viewed as a problem of how to understand the concept of identity, but rather as a problem of how to understand certain general concepts, i.e. how to individualize certain parts of the world by the use of certain general terms. (shrink)

What is the relationship of “strong evaluation” and self-identity? What exactly is personal identity? Does identity consist of interpretations or facts? Do strong evaluations have a constitutive role in identity-formation? If there is no given individual essence or true self waiting to be found, but identity is dialogically construed in self-interpretation, then can identities be criticized at all, when there is no pre-given true self, which would serve as the basis of criticism? I follow Charles (...) Taylor in defending an interpretational and evaluational conception of self-identity, but I hope to be more precise in distinguishing several meanings of “identity” and correspondingly several different roles that strong evaluation has for identity in different senses. Further, I try to show that identities are criticizable despite the lack of pre-given essences. I will first differentiate between various meanings of identity: idem-identity, ipse-identity, collective identity and species identity (4.1). Then I take a closer look at ipse-identity in four different meanings: practical identity, biographical identity, qualitative identity and “singularity” (4.2). This survey tries to capture the most important meanings of the concept, but the concept of identity is used in philosophy, social psychology and human sciences in so many different ways that a comprehensive survey is probably impossible. However, this survey may help to sort out what sense of identity is relevant for strong evaluation, or for what “identities” strong evaluations are crucial. Having distinguished these several meanings, I turn to the formation of identity in self-interpretations. Charles Taylor has been (wrongly) accused of presupposing a pre-political identity that persons or groups are supposed to have, and for which they want recognition. That would overlook the way in which identities are constituted dialogically, and in interpretations. I will defend the view that personal identity is a matter of self-interpretation, and collective identity is a matter of collective selfinterpretations. While dialogues and recognition by others plays a crucial role in the formation of one’s identity, the views of others are not directly constitutive of a person’s identity, unless the contents are known or accepted by the person herself. Being a person or a self is an active business. Having a self in a fullfledged sense means having a conception of oneself, and having conceptions is an active business. People don’t have beliefs like things have properties. As Sellars (1963) has stressed, the relation of two mental episodes has to be normative if it is to count as knowledge; it cannot be merely causal. And as the “transcendental tradition” from Kant onwards has stressed, being a subject is not merely a matter of having mental contents (which could possibly be caused by the world) but being aware of the reality, taking the mental contents to be about the world.144 In addition to normativity and intentionality, the activity of self-defining is one aspect of the spontaneous activity of the subject. One’s self-identity does not rest simply on having features, but on one’s activity, on identification with some actual or possible features. In this sense, everyone’s identity is self-made. The point in saying this is not to overlook the cultural and social mediations that are intertwined in this self-definition, but to stress the fact that one’s identity is not a matter of natural features. Self-identity is a tentative result of an ongoing process of self-interpretation. Depending on the precise meaning of self-identity, strong evaluation has a more or less central role (4.3). In the last section I ask whether identities can be criticized, or whether (in the absence of pre-given true selves) self-interpretations are the ultimate “court of appeal” not only in the sense of what constitutes identity, but also in questions about their ethical and existential worth, or coherence, or authenticity or epistemic adequacy. I hope to show that self-interpretations stand open for criticism in these respects, even though self-interpretations are directly constitutive of one’s identity (4.4). (shrink)

The paper takes off from the problem of finding a proper content for the relation of identity as it holds or fails to hold among ordinary things or substances. The necessary conditions of identity are familiar, the sufficient conditions less so. The search is for conditions at once better usable than the Leibnizian Identity of Indiscernibles (independently suspect) and strong enough to underwrite all the formal properties of the relation.It is contended that the key to this (...) problem rests at the level of metaphysics and epistemology alike with a sortalist position. Sortalism is the position which insists that, if the question is whether a and b are the same, it has to be asked what are they? Any sufficiently specific answer to that question will bring with it a principle of activity or functioning and a mode of behaviour characteristic of some particular kind of thing by reference to which questions of persistence or non-persistence through change can be adjudicated.These contentions are illustrated by reference to familiar examples such as the human zygote, the Ship of Theseus and Shoemaker's Brown-Brownson. The first example is hostage for a mass of unproblematical cases. The problems presented by the second and third sort of examples arise chiefly (it is claimed) from an incompleteness in our conceptions of the relevant sort—the what the thing in question is. That incompleteness need not prevent us from knowing perfectly well which thing we are referring to. In the concluding section, sortalism is defended against various accusations of anthropocentrism.The paper touches on the interpretation of Heraclitus, Leibniz's theory of clear indistinct ideas, the difficulties of David Lewis's ‘perdurantist’ or stroboscopic view of persistence, four-dimensionalism, and the relation of personal identity both to experiential memory and to the particular bodily physiognomy of a subject. At some points—as in connection with the so-called Only a and b rule—the paper corrects, supplements or extends certain theses or formulations proposed in the author's Sameness and Substance Renewed (2001). (shrink)

Modern analytical metaphysics contains many theories and approaches regarding the problem of personal identity. This diversity inevitably leads to the emergence of various classifications, the authors of which are trying to develop a compact way of typologizing existing views. Most of the classifications involve a significant simplification of the theories and approaches under consideration, and some of them are not taken into account at all. As such global classifications, one can single out an approach based on the identity (...) criterion used in the theory (psychological, biological, narrative views). However, numerous local classifications allow one to point out potential differences in theories, even if formally they use a common criterion of identity. Other possible classifications are the division into endurantism and perdurantism, as well as simple (non-reductionist) and complex (reductionist) theories of identity. Special attention is paid to M. Shechtman‘s approach, which offers a local classification of narrative theories. Its main classification is the presentation of the views of researchers in the form of a possible spectrum. The place of a particular philosopher on this spectrum characterizes his views in relation to other supporters of the narrative approach. The purpose of this article is, based on the classification of narrative theories proposed by Shechtman, to propose a classification option for all theories and approaches to the problem of personal identity, which would be sensitive to conceptual details and differences that are important to them. (shrink)

In this article I revisit earlier stages of the discussion of personal identity, before Neo-Lockean psychological continuity views became prevalent. In particular, I am interested in Bernard Williams’ initial proposal of bodily identity as a necessary, although not sufficient, criterion of personal identity. It was at this point that psychological continuity views came to the fore arguing that bodily identity was not necessary because brain transplants were logically possible, even if physically impossible. Further (...) proposals by Shoemaker of causal relations between mental states in our memory and Parfit’s discussion of branching causal chains created additional complications. My contention in this paper is that psychological continuity views deflected our attention from what should have remained in the spotlight all the time: the intersubjective character (or not) of criteria proposed to decide personal identity in our language game, and ultimately our form of life concerning ourselves as persons. B. Williams’ emphasis on the body was not just common sense. It was also recognition of the importance of giving priority to criteria that could be kept under intersubjective control. (shrink)

We show that finitely axiomatized first-order theories that involve some criterion of identity for entities of a category C can be reformulated as conjunctions of a non-triviality statement and a criterion of identity for entities of category C again. From this, we draw two conclusions: First, criteria of identity can be very strong deductively. Second, although the criteria of identity that are constructed in the proof of the theorem are not good (...) ones intuitively, it is difficult to say what exactly is wrong with them once the modern metaphysical view of identity criteria is presupposed. (shrink)

That no member of a natural kind can switch kinds is a consequence of David Wiggins’ view that the identity conditions for such things are given by the natural kind itself. If dog is a natural kind, then dogs must be dogs and one dog cannot ‘turn into’ something else, say, by gradually ‘becoming’ a mass of tissue (as Marjorie Price had held). Were such a transition to involve the persistence of the same thing, then the thing (...) in question would comply with conditions of identity not restricted to dogs. To provide for such transitions James Baillie suggests alternative conditions of identity, based on Andrew Brennan’s notion of ‘survival’ (itself borrowed from Parfit). Survival requires that the earlier thing be ‘structurally similar to’, and ‘play a significant and direct role in the production of’ the later thing (sufficiency is gained if, in addition, they are composed of the same kind of matter). Unlike identity, however, survival is what Wiggins calls a ‘branching’ relation, capable of linking a single thing with two or more equal ‘competitors’ (as apparently happens in cases of brain fission). To provide conditions of identity per se, Baillie follows Parfit, who claimed that our identity is preserved by psychological continuity when there is no branching. Members of natural kinds, such as dogs, are now said to be reidentifiable over time by the relation of non-branching survival. I argue against this on the ground that we can know when this relation obtains only when we are already able to individuate things by a different sort of relation, such as those associated with natural kinds. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Syntax and Semantics of Complex Sortal Terms On the Identity of Sorts.

In this discussion I take it for granted that proper names are words of a language, are not mere interjections or burps. I also take it for granted that for any proper name “N. N.” there is some general term “A” that gives the relevant criterion of identity; repeated use of “N. N.” involves an intention to keep on saying things about one and the same A, or as I shall put it for short “N. (...) N.” is a name for an A. An intention to keep on referring barely to the same thing is, as lawyers say, void for uncertainty. These theses have been denied, but I think not reasonably. Some very silly arguments have been used recently: e.g. an argument from the logical possibility of Protean change is put up to show that a proper name may attach to a thing no matter what sort it comes to belong to. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Convention for Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with Regard to the Application of Biology and Biomedicine: Convention on Human Rights and BiomedicineCouncil of EuropePreambleThe Member States of the Council of Europe, the other States and the European Community signatories hereto,Bearing in mind the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 10 December 1948;Bearing in mind the (...) Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of 4 November 1950;Bearing in mind the European Social Charter of 18 October 1961;Bearing in mind the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 16 December 1966;Bearing in mind the Convention for the Protection of Individuals with Regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data of 28 January 1981;Bearing also in mind the Convention on the Rights of the Child of 20 November 1989;Considering that the aim of the Council of Europe is the achievement of a greater unity between its members and that one of the methods by which that aim is to be pursued is the maintenance and further realisation of human rights and fundamental freedoms;Conscious of the accelerating developments in biology and medicine;Convinced of the need to respect the human being both as an individual and as a member of the human species and recognising the importance of ensuring the dignity of the human being; [End Page 277]Conscious that the misuse of biology and medicine may lead to acts endangering human dignity;Affirming that progress in biology and medicine should be used for the benefit of present and future generations;Stressing the need for international co-operation so that all humanity may enjoy the benefits of biology and medicine;Recognising the importance of promoting a public debate on the questions posed by the application of biology and medicine and the responses to be given thereto;Wishing to remind all members of society of their rights and responsibilities;Taking account of the work of the Parliamentary Assembly in this field, including Recommendation 1160 (1991) on the preparation of a Convention on bioethics;Resolving to take such measures as are necessary to safeguard human dignity and the fundamental rights and freedoms of the individual with regard to the application of biology and medicine;Have agreed as follows:Chapter IGeneral provisionsArticle 1. (Purpose and object)Parties to this Convention shall protect the dignity and identity of all human beings and guarantee everyone, without discrimination, respect for their integrity and other rights and fundamental freedoms with regard to the application of biology and medicine.Each Party shall take in its internal law the necessary measures to give effect to the provisions of this Convention.Article 2. (Primacy of the human being)The interests and welfare of the human being shall prevail over the sole interest of society or science.Article 3. (Equitable access to health care)Parties, taking into account health needs and available resources, shall take appropriate measures with a view to providing, within their jurisdiction, equitable access to health care of appropriate quality. [End Page 278]Article 4. (Professional standards)Any intervention in the health field, including research, must be carried out in accordance with relevant professional obligations and standards.Chapter IIConsentArticle 5. (General rule)An intervention in the health field may only be carried out after the person concerned has given free and informed consent to it.This person shall beforehand be given appropriate information as to the purpose and nature of the intervention as well as on its consequences and risks.The person concerned may freely withdraw consent at any time.Article 6. (Protection of persons not able to consent)1. Subject to Articles 17 and 20 below, an intervention may only be carried out on a person who does not have the capacity to consent, for his or her direct benefit.2. Where, according to law, a minor does not have the capacity to consent to an intervention, the intervention may only be carried out with the authorisation of his or her representative or an authority or a person or... (shrink)

In this paper, I want eventually to get around to proposing a criterion of identity for events which are changes in physical objects, where events are construed as comprising a distinct metaphysical category of thing. The proposal will be preceded by a discussion of what I take to be a mistaken suggestion for such a criterion; I will do that because I think that seeing what it takes to show why that suggestion fails helps (...) to motivate a theory about what it is to be an event; and that theory wi II supply the conceptual foundations for my proposal concerning the criterion of identity for events. Before that suggestion is discussed, however, I want to discuss briefly an aspect of the question, Why do we have to give a criterion of identity for events, or for objects of any sort whatsoever? I want to have a brief look at the connection between identity criteria and the idea of a kind of object. (shrink)

Algorithms are used across a wide range of societal sectors such as banking, administration, and healthcare to make predictions that impact on our lives. While the predictions can be incredibly accurate about our present and future behavior, there is an important question about how these algorithms in fact represent human identity. In this paper, we explore this question and argue that machine learning algorithms represent human identity in terms of what we shall call the statistical individual. (...) This statisticalized representation of individuals, we shall argue, differs significantly from our ordinary conception of human identity, which is tightly intertwined with considerations about biological, psychological, and narrative continuity—as witnessed by our most well-established philosophical views on personal identity. Indeed, algorithmic representations of individuals give no special attention to biological, psychological, and narrative continuity and instead rely on predictive properties that significantly exceed and diverge from those that we would ordinarily take to be relevant for questions about how we are. (shrink)

ABSTRACT How do non-experts single out numbers for reference? Linnebo has argued that they do so using a criterion of identity based on the ordinal properties of numerals. Neo-logicists, on the other hand, claim that cardinal properties are the basis of individuation, when they invoke Hume’s Principle. I discuss empirical data from cognitive science and linguistics to answer how non-experts individuate numbers better in practice. I use those findings to develop an alternative account that mixes (...) ordinal and cardinal properties to provide a detailed answer to the question: how do we in fact semantically individuate numbers? (shrink)

The major concern of the problem of personal identity gravitates around the question of whether a person’s identity is located in the mind or in the body. Scholars have developed different theories such as survivalist and physicalist criteria among others in response to this question. In this paper, I engage with the theory of sense-phenomenalism as an aspect of the physicalist criterion of personal identity to show how it might legitimize racism and colour-branding. Sense-phenomenalism is a (...) body-only model of personal identity that holds that an individual’s identity is determined by the physical features sensually perceptible by other humans in the society. I argue that sense-phenomenalism by reposing a person’s identity on his/her bodily traits might foster social discrimination, deepen the dichotomy between the self and the other and enhance the fabrication of justifications for the denial of individual’s rights. (shrink)

A persistent question in discussions of the ethics of advance directives for euthanasia is whether patients who go through deep psychological changes retain their identity. Rather than seek an account of identity that answers this question, I argue that responsible policy should directly address indeterminacy about identity directly. Three sorts of indeterminacy are distinguished. Two of these—epistemic indeterminacy and metaphysical indeterminacy—should be addressed in laws/policies regarding advance directives for euthanasia.

In considering the possibility that the fundamental particles of matter might violate Leibniz's Principle, one is confronted with logical proofs that the Principle is a Theorem of Logic. This paper shows that the proof of that theorem is not universal enough to encompass entities that might not be unique, and also strongly suggests that photons, for example, do violate Leibniz's Principle. It also shows that the existence of non-individuals would imply the breakdown (...) of Quine's criterion of ontological commitment. (shrink)

Lockean views of personal identity maintain that we are essentially persons who persist diachronically by virtue of being psychologically continuous with our former selves. In this article, I present a novel objection to this variant of psychological accounts, which is based on neurophysiological characteristics of the brain. While the mental states that constitute said psychological continuity reside in the cerebral hemispheres, so that for the former to persist only the upper brain must remain intact, being conscious (...) additionally requires that a structure originating in the brainstem—the ascending reticular activating system—be functional. Hence, there can be situations in which even small brainstem lesions render individuals irreversibly comatose and thus forever preclude access to their mental states, while the neural correlates of the states themselves are retained. In these situations, Lockeans are forced to regard as fulfilled their criterion of diachronic persistence since psychological continuity, as they construe it, is not disrupted. Deeming an entity that is never again going to have any mental experiences to be a person, however, is an untenable position for a psychological account to adopt. In their current form, Lockean views of personal identity are therefore incompatible with human neurophysiology. (shrink)

We make how a person acts intelligible by revealing it as rational in the light of what she perceives, thinks, wants and so on. For example, we might explain that she reached out and picked up a glass because she was thirsty and saw that it contained water. In doing this, we are giving a causal explanation of her behaviour in terms of her antecedent beliefs, desires and other attitudes. Her wanting a drink and realizing that the (...) glass contained one caused her reaching out and grasping for it. This tells us how the action came about and makes sense of why it happened. At least, something broadly along these lines strikes me as a fairly crude and partial regimentation of our pretheoretic understanding of everyday action explanation. (shrink)

Standardly, a one-level criterion of identity 1 is given in the form: ∀ x∀ y )where ‘ K’ denotes the kind of thing for which the criterion is being given and ‘ R’ denotes the criterial relation.Thus, we have, for example, the criterion of identity for sets: ∀ x∀ y))and for composites: ∀ x∀ y))and for events: ∀ x∀ y)). is equivalent to the conjunction of: ∀ x and ∀ x )),which just give two necessary (...) 2 conditions for application of the predicate ‘ K’. 3Consider now the reading of ‘ Kx’ as ‘ x is a member of the Theology Department’ and ‘ Rxy’ as ‘ x admires y and y admires x’. On this reading says that every theologian admires himself and admires no other member of the department. In other words it tells us that the theologians are a bunch of narcissists bound together only by mutual contempt or indifference . Suppose that this is 4 true of the theologians. It might also be …. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:55. FURTHER REMARKS ON THE CONSISTENCY OF HUME'S ACCOUNT OF THE SELF Philosophers no longer discuss Hume's account of the self solely in order to attack it. In separate comments prompted by my paper "Is Hume's Self Consistent?" Biro and Beauchamp join the camp of the defenders of Hume's view. As another member of this group, I share their desire to give a sympathetic interpretation of Hume's discussion of (...) the self and personal identity. This general agreement notwithstanding, there are some substantial points concerning the nature of Hume's problems with his account of the self and his method of resolving them about which we do not agree. These disagreements will be the focal point of this paper. I wish to emphasize, however, that they occur within a broader framework of agreement that Hume's account of the self does not suffer from the defects that are so frequently attributed to it. Discussions of personal identity frequently focus on the role played by memory in personal identity. The view that personal identity is based on memory (that is, that memory creates the connections between various sets of experiences that make them the experiences of one person) has been the subject of much criticism. Happily, it is no longer naively assumed that accounts of personal identity based on memory must be circular, but the problems of developing an adequate account of personal identity based en memory are not minor ones. It is for this reason that I am uneasy about Biro's attempt to solve Hume's problems about personal identity by an appeal to the function of memory in personal identity. Biro contends that my reconstruction of the bundle theory of persons, which involves a partial overlap of non-identical bundles, is unnecessary. He argues that the intentionality of memory is sufficient to explain the connections that give a person the imperfect identity that it possesses through time. But I believe that Biro is 56. mistaken, and that considerations of a basic sort about the relationship between memory and personal identity suggest that a non-circular Humean account of personal identity based on memory would not be possible apart from my reconstruction of the bundle theory, or something like it. I will begin by presenting this argument, after which I will clarify some points about my own view. However, I must immediately point out, as Biro does not, that Biro is not in disagreement with me when he argues for the view that Hume's theory of the self can be made consistent without going beyond the view that the self is a bundle of perceptions. We agree that Hume's apparent references to a "non-Newtonian" type of association are not basic, and can be eliminated. We disagree on the question of how this can be done. Biro states, It is memory, or, to be more specific, the presence of memory perceptions among the series of collections of perceptions, that, on Hume's view, i£ the mind or self, which makes it possible for such a series to be a self, a single entity which can be individuated and of which I can be aware. and, The intentionality of memories (as well as that of anticipations) is, I have argued, just the bond required for cementing perceptions without the aid of an additional agency such as a mind whose perceptions, on the alternative model, they would be said to be. On Biro's account, therefore, memory, in virtue of its intentionality, creates a self out of distinct perceptions. Memories point to, (or represent, or refer to) impressions of past events, creating a bond between the bundle in which the memory occurs and the bundle in which the original impression occurred. No further link is necessary, and my "overlap theory" (as Biro calls it) is at best redundant. What problems would arise for Hume, if this were his view? Accounts of personal identity based on memory face 57. the following difficulty. If we restrict the term 'memory' to a person's representations of his past experiences, then memory presupposes personal identity and an account of personal identity based on memory would be circular. It might... (shrink)

In chapter IX of the Principles, Anne Conway claims that her metaphysics is diametrically opposed to those of Descartes and Spinoza. Scholars have analyzed her rejection of Cartesianism, but not her critique of Spinoza. This paper proposes that two central points of Conway’s metaphysics can be understood as direct responses to Spinoza: (1) the relation between God, Christ, and the creatures in the tripartite division of being, and (2) the individuation of beings in the lowest species. I will (...) argue that Conway, in criticizing Spinoza’s identification between God and nature, defends a paradoxical monism, and that her concept of individuation is a reductio ad absurdum of Spinoza’s criterion of identity in the individuation of finite modes. (shrink)

Sortal predicates have been associated with a counting process, which acts as a criterion of identity for the individuals they correctly apply to. We discuss in what sense certain types of predicates suggested by quantum physics deserve the title of 'sortal' as well, although they do not characterize either a process of counting or a criterion of identity for the entities that fall under them. We call such predicates 'quantum-sortal predicates' and, instead of a (...) process of counting, to them is associated a 'criterion of cardinality'. After their general characterization, it is discussed how these predicates can be formally described. (shrink)

In general, the eleven, previously unpublished papers are not as strong as those in the first series. Bromberger attempts to detail the necessary and sufficient conditions for something's being an explanation; Anscombe offers some provocative but inconclusive remarks on the intentionality of sensation; Malpas examines some criteriological puzzles which arise in considering the location of sound as a bit of unlearned perceptual behavior. The rest of the papers are second order assessments and attacks upon positions maintained by other analytical philosophers. (...) Of these Putnam's attack on Malcolm's brand of behaviorism and Butler's attempted dissolution of Goodman's "grue" paradox make their points most effectively. Moravcsik contends, against Strawson, that events are at least as primitive in our conceptual scheme as physical bodies. Wiggins questions some Fregean analyses of the logic of identity-statements; taking off from Strawson, Woods distinguishes a principle of individuation from a criterion of identity and attempts to clarify their separate but related roles by an analysis of the sorts of questions that require their use in giving answers. Rundle is concerned to modify certain Quinean answers to paradoxes of tense requirements that arise in the quantification of modal statements; Savan questions Vlastos' ascription of fallacies to the Socratic argument on the unity of Wisdom and Temperance in the Protagoras. Finally, Shorter points out the general inconclusiveness of "transformational analysis" by exhibiting specific shortcomings of Vendler's analysis of causality in the first volume of this series.—E. A. R. (shrink)

This paper offers a critical assessment of the current state of the debate about the identity and individuality of material objects. Its main aim, in particular, is to show that, in a sense to be carefully specified, the opposition between the Leibnizian ‘reductionist’ tradition, based on discernibility, and the sort of ‘primitivism’ that denies that facts of identity and individuality must be analysable has become outdated. In particular, it is argued that—contrary to a (...) widespread consensus—‘naturalised’ metaphysics supports both the acceptability of non-qualitatively grounded (both ‘contextual’ and intrinsic) identity and a pluralistic approach to individuality and individuation. A case study is offered that focuses on non-relativistic quantum mechanics, in the context of which primitivism about identity and individuality, rather than being regarded as unscientific, is on the contrary suggested to be preferable to the complicated forms of reductionism that have recently been proposed. More generally, by assuming a plausible form of anti-reductionism about scientific theories and domains, it is claimed that science can be regarded as compatible with, or even as suggesting, the existence of a series of equally plausible grades of individuality. The kind of individuality that prevails in a certain context and at a given level can be ascertained only on the basis of the specific scientific theory at hand. (shrink)

This article responds to two ethical conundrums associated with the practice of disability passing. One of these problems is the question of whether or not passing as abled is morally wrong in that it constitutes deception. The other, related difficulty arises from the tendency of the able-bodied in contemporary society to reinforce the activity of passing despite its frequent condemnation as a form of pretense or fraud. We draw upon recent scholarship on transgender and disability passing to criticize and (...) explore some alternatives to the problematic theory of personal identity that is presupposed by the claim that passing as abled always amounts to deceit. We additionally demonstrate the moral indefensibility of society’s reinforcement of disability passing by showing that it may derive, at least in part, from ablest assumptions concerning distributive justice as it relates to disabled individuals. (shrink)

Sortal predicates have been associated with a counting process, which acts as a criterion of identity for the individuals they correctly apply to. We discuss in what sense certain types of predicates suggested by quantum physics deserve the title of ‘sortal’ as well, although they do not characterize either a process of counting or a criterion of identity for the entities that fall under them. We call such predicates ‘quantum-sortal predicates’ and, instead of a (...) process of counting, to them is associated a ‘criterion of cardinality’. After their general characterization, it is discussed how these predicates can be formally described. (shrink)

This paper presents a solution to the problem of personal identity over time in Thomas’s metaphysics. I argue that Professor Gracia’s solution to the problem of personal identity, existence, and Professor Stump’s solution, form or the human soul, are not only compatible but also necessarily interdependent on one another. This argument rests on (1) the special nature of the human soul, and (2) the metaphysical claim that for Thomas the human soul and existence are inseparable. First, (...) I refine the problem of personal identity and briefly clarify some important distinctions. Second, I present Gracia’s arguments for the principle of existence (esse) being the criterion of personal identity over time in Thomas’s metaphysics. Third, I explain Stump’s arguments for form being the principle of personal identity over time in Thomas’s metaphysics, and show how Stump’s solution can answer some of the objections that Gracia presents. Finally, I argue that, according to Thomas, the soul of an individual human person and that person’s existence embrace one another with the strength of self-identity, and that it is correct and not inconsistent to say that both the human soul and existence are the cause and principle of personal identity over time in the metaphysics of Thomas. (shrink)

Quine has persuasively shown that the empiricist "dogma of reductionism", which is the belief that each meaningfiil statement of science can be reduced to statements about immediate sense experience, must be abandoned. However, Quine's methodology of ontology seems to incorporate an analogous physicalistic dogma according to which the identity conditions of each scientifically respectable sort of abstract objects can be reduced to the identity conditions of physical objects. This paper aims to show that the (...) latter dogma must be abandoned, too. In section 1, the reductionist methodology underlying Quine's prescript "No Entity without Identity" is reconstructed in detail. In section 2 and 3, this methodology is criticized on the ground that Quine's individuation of sets offendsagainst the reductive Criteria of adequacy for individuations that are presupposed by his criticism of the ontological recognition of intensional objects. Finally, in section 4 an alternative holistic conception of individuation is outlined. (shrink)

Critics of John Rawls' conception of a reasonable pluralism have raised the question of whether it is justified to demand that religious individuals should 'bracket' their essential, identity-constituting convictions when they enter a political discourse. I will argue that the criterion for religious beliefs of being justified as grounds for political decisions should be their ability of being 'translatable' in secular reasons for the very same decisions. This translation would demand 'epistemic abstinence' from religious believers (...) only on the basis of a rigid distinction between the spheres of private opinions and public reasons. To give a more adequate account of the relation between religious beliefs and political reasons in a pluralistic society it seems to be helpful to make use of Niklas Luhmann's functionalistic theory of religion. Key Words: democracy and religious beliefs • philosophy of religion • pluralism • political liberalism • political theory. (shrink)

The sources of religious tolerance but also of religious nationalism in post-soviet Russia can be found basically in the group identification of nationality and religion. In crisis situations, the historical religion of the Russian society - Orthodoxy - becomes the criterion for identifying the national identity. However, despite the fact that the majority of Russians in our times consider themselves Orthodox, many of them are not believers. The observable effect of the “external belief” results in the fact (...) that the religion tends to become a matter of personal choice and an individual value. It assumes a nationalistic function and to become an ideology. As a result, the political elite considers religion as a means of achieving different non- religious purposes. The Russian Orthodox Church, the official church, is compelled to take this fact into consider- ation and even support it. This is why religious intolerance and religious nationalism in modern Russia are often directed towards religion. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THIS MESSAGE IS FOR YOU. MAYBE. by Joseph Agassi There is a mood often enough conjured in science fiction literature to be familiar to every fan, the mood of seemingly intentional yet probably remdom contact between two individuals across immense space-time expanses. The hero of a complicated chase story has lost contact with the mother planet, has long ago leuided on a strange pleuiet, emd there, right now, (...) just walking across the plaza he sees a huge poster, with a piece of commercial advertisement or some similar message of purely local import printed on it. The poster is decorated with an arabesque which puzzles him, quickens his pulse, intrigues him, fascinates him — until it hits him insteinteuneously in full force: the arabesque is a message, written in his own native language, telling him how to reestablish contact. The story, as I say, has many veurietnts. And it has, it seems, a very widespread appeal. It is couched in terms of adventure stories, but its mood is not diat of adventure. The mood is more of die one associated with the idea of the eterned return, die idea of timelessness or of time standing still (and space vanishing), the idea the western philosophies usually associate with the ideas of Nicholas, the Renaissance mystic bishop ofCusa, though it is a recurrent idea in many cultures, of the identity of the vanishingly smedl and the infinitely large. Indeed, the meeting of the message and the recipient is symbolized by the meeting of the infinite line and the point of vanishing length. Whence this universality? I suppose it is a fact of biological nature. Think of the scent a living thing, be it a fish or em emtelope, leaves behind to contact a possible mate. It is a few complex molecules in a sea of molecules of astronomical numbers: just this room contains more molecules than you can imagine. And the animal follows a long tortuous path to find its mate. According to Willietm Craig and Konrad Lorenz, an animal does not have the slightest clue what it is after. Even while building a nest it has no complete 95 96Philosophy and Literature picture of its task. In each of its stages it goes after diverse kinds of things, yet it knows not which things, let alone their inborn rigidly fixed sequence. Yet the animal in charge of a tetsk, whether of finding a mate or of finding a twig for a nest, will be resdess — say Craig and Lorenz — and move about, and try to read the message in any piece of arabesque, until one day one piece of arabesque will med«: sense and enable its finder to complete die next step in the mysterious complex task and open up die search for the next message, the next step further along die unfolding series of preordained ordeals that life is strewn widi. Consider writing proper, like my writing this message for you right now. We do not know the background to literacy, much less its actual origins, except that these were far from unique: though many cultures eire illiterate or have acquired literacy from more evolved neighbors, mere eire many places on earth where literacy evolved independently. Yet even here we see a sequence: many independent ideographic scripts, some ofthem evolving into syllabic scripts and one or two of these evolving into an alphabet proper. How and why, we do not know. There is room for speculation, though. It is hard to imagine how the very first writer conceived of the very first message he wrote without consulting his recipient first. There are a few possible explemations here. First, that writer and recipient are one: writing was a form ofmemorizing, or ofconsigning matters to memory more stable than that of the human brain — the granite rock, for instance. The ancient Egyptian god of literacy was the god of memory. Primitive shepherds use knots in their rope and cuts on their sticks as aides memoire, as bookkeeping of sorts, and scholars consider these the origins of writings. This is evidenced by the runic writings of the Norse, whose letters are images of sticks with cuts on them. Yet runic writing is alphabetic and... (shrink)

The article examines the problem of individual identity formation in modern conditions of neoliberalism. It is noted that the research of subjectivity, «I» (self), which is the source and condition for the formation of individual identity, actualizes the study of this problem in many social and humanitarian sciences. In the context of socio-philosophical analysis, identity represents itself as a complicated dynamic phenomenon that constantly needs new definitions, clarifications and additions. The effectiveness of using E.Erikson’s theory (...) of individual identity in modern conditions, its significance for the formation of «I» and P.Ricker’s concept of personalistic identity are analyzed. It has been clarified that a new request for the conceptualization of identity has been formed now, which is conditioned of the collapse of political ideologies, in particular, the communist one, the significant crisis of modern neoliberal ideology and the persistent search for new forms of collective involvement or solidarity of people in the current era of globalization. However, various forms of collective identity are imposed by society, its numerous communities, ideology, state institutions, mass media, social networks with their computer capabilities, dominance of advertisements, etc. Therefore, it is not surprising that now individuals are trying to find their own identity, going out from under the pressure of the collective, mainly discursive forms of identity, and already these efforts do not depend on them to a certain extent. The construct «collective identity» in many cases does not reflect the social I (social me) of the individual, as it was conceived in the last century, because society and its communities, which involve active, mobile and changing structures, cannot be thought in terms of subjectivity. Analogies and comparisons do not work here either on a conscious or unconscious level. In the studying identity, there is a significant problem of the transition from the individual to the collective level and vice versa. A collective or group does not have the qualities of individuality with its diversity of characteristics. Taking into account the conducted consideration, it can be stated that approaches to the formation of identity are now acquiring a profound semantic transformation. An assumption was made, which needs to be carefully investigated in the future, according to which the process of partial or complete absorption of individual identity by its collective forms is currently taking place. That’s why, there is an urgent need for the formation of a new interdisciplinary approach to the research of personal identity in the modern digital society. (shrink)

Are there objects that are “thin” in the sense that their existence does not make a substantial demand on the world? Frege famously thought so. He claimed that the equinumerosity of the knives and the forks suffices for there to be objects such as the number of knives and the number of forks, and for these objects to be identical. The idea of thin objects holds great philosophical promise but has proved hard to explicate. This book attempts (...) to develop the needed explanations by drawing on some Fregean ideas. First, to be an object is to be a possible referent of a singular term. Second, singular reference can be achieved by providing a criterion of identity for the would-be referent. The second idea enables a form of easy reference and thus, via the first idea, also a form of easy being. Paradox is avoided by imposing a predicativity restriction on the criteria of identity. But the abstraction based on a criterion of identity may result in an expanded domain. By iterating such expansions, a powerful account of dynamic abstraction is developed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Recovering Aquinas's Common-Good-Oriented Right of RebellionNathaniel A. MoatsIntroductionAs recent events have woefully displayed, armed rebellion is not a topic of merely theoretical interest.1 While theory seemingly has very little impact on the citizens participating in armed rebellions, theory still remains of paramount importance, providing crucial criteria to evaluate, restrain, apply, and respond to such force. Criteria such as legitimate authority, just cause, right intention, necessity, proportionality, and likelihood of (...) success have been offered by thinkers advocating "just war" theory from across diverse political, philosophical, and religious backgrounds, garnering widespread agreement over the centuries. Contemporary scholars who identify as "historically oriented" just war thinkers have continued to defend that historical tradition as a sufficient and substantial guide for contemporary practice.2 Yet some have questioned whether the it can provide useful aid for dealing with contexts of political tyranny. In a 2013 article, Valeria Morkevičius describes [End Page 175] Western culture as divided over the moral permissibility of armed rebellion, with advocates basing their views on the Enlightenment ideas found in John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whereas traditional just war theorists have generally denied a right to armed rebellion.3 In Morkevičius's perspective, she argues that there can be justified use of armed force against tyranny and calls upon other scholars to help create a "just rebellion theory" that would "radically reimagine" traditional just war thinking.4 She claims that there is a "lack of a systematic and rigorous ethical framework for evaluating the justness of rebellions"5 and that "a new theory of just rebellion—a systematic way of evaluating the justness of real world rebellions, of determining appropriate state responses to domestic rebellions, and of weighing the pros and cons of intervention" is needed.6In line with Morkevičius' sentiments, the last ten years has seen the increasing rise of self-proclaimed just war revisionists.7 Jeff McMahan, the figurehead for this movement, claims that the classical just war criteria "can no longer stand."8 McMahan argues that traditional just war theory has [End Page 176] depicted war as a morally sui generis category of violence in which unique moral principles apply.9 The moral asymmetry of war is also reinforced by a "statist" and "collectivist" orientation that overrides the importance of individuals and their rights of life, liberty, property, and other fundamental goods. Instead of seeing war as a distinct category of violence, McMahan argues that war and self-defense are morally symmetrical. Further, he argues that combatants should be depicted as individuals distinct from their political or collective identity.10 In other words, McMahan offers a theory of war oriented around individuals and their rights based in the concept of justified self-defense.11 Extending McMahan's theory, Cécile Fabre has particularly targeted the criterion of legitimate authority as morally problematic.12 Rejecting the exclusive authorization of armed force by political authorities, she argues in favor of an individual's right to war, and by extension the right to rebellion.13 Therefore, given the historical just war tradition's emphasis on the criterion of legitimate authority (i.e., the restriction of armed force [End Page 177] to established authorities) and resistance to support armed rebellions due to the lack of recognized political leaders, revisionists conclude that traditional just war thinking is inadequate for providing contemporary guidance in the context of rebellion.14To challenge revisionist claims, I analyze Thomas Aquinas's ingenuity and relevance for future "just rebellion" thinking. First, I argue that classical just war thinking is not as antithetical to armed rebellion as suggested.15 One just rebellion theory has coexisted alongside the classical formation of just war theory, albeit often neglected or ignored by contemporary thinkers.16 It is well known that Aquinas formalized the Augustinian classical just war theory revolving around the criteria of legitimate authority, just cause, and right intention. Much less known, however, is the fact that Aquinas also crafted criteria for justified armed rebellions. While Aquinas's just war thinking rearticulates Augustine's perspective, Aquinas appropriated his mentor's views to allow for justified armed rebellions. Aquinas's originality was displayed not only in allowing justified armed... (shrink)

The Non-Identity Problem is the problem of explaining the apparent wrongness of a decision that does not harm people, especially since some of the people affected by the decision would not exist at all were it not for the decision. One approach to this problem, in the context of reproductive decisions, is to focus on wronging, rather than harming, one's offspring. But a Non-Person Problem emerges for any view that claims (1) that only persons can be (...) wronged and (2) that the person-making properties allow for there to be human non-persons. Consider an individual human organism that is prevented from ever possessing the person-making properties. On person-only accounts of the victims of wronging, this organism cannot be wronged by anyone. Hence even individuals whose decisions prevent it from ever possessing the person-making properties cannot wrong it. But this is counter-intuitive. We can think of examples where a human organism is wronged by precisely those decisions that prevent it from possessing the person-making properties. The best solution to this problem, in the case where the person-making property is rational self-governance in pursuit of a meaningful life, is to adjust the concept of a person so that it refers, not merely to those with the immediate capacity for rational self-governance in pursuit of a meaningful life, but also to those with a higher-order capacity for such self-governance. Any solution to the Non-Identity Problem that focuses on wronging rather than harming should incorporate this sort of solution to the Non-Person Problem. (shrink)