Academic dishonesty is a persistent problem in the American educational system. The present investigation examined how reports of academic cheating related to students' emphasis on their moral identities and their sensitivity to social evaluation. Seventy college students at a large southeastern university completed a battery of surveys. Symptoms of social anxiety were positively correlated with recall of academic cheating. Additionally, relative to students who placed less importance on their moral identities, students who placed more importance on their moral (...) identities recalled significantly fewer instances of cheating. In summary, these findings suggest that students are less likely to cheat on their school work when they place greater emphasis on their moral identity and are less sensitive to social evaluation. Practical interventions to rampant cheating in American schools are discussed. (shrink)

Hermeneutical injustice is being unjustly prevented from making sense of one’s experiences, identity, or circumstances and/or communicating about them. The literature focusses almost exclusively on whether people have access to adequate conceptual resources. In this paper, we discuss a different kind of hermeneutical struggle caused by stigma. We argue that in some cases of hermeneutic injustice people have access to hermeneutical resources apt to understand their identity but reject employing these due to the stigma attached to the identity. We begin (...) with a reinterpretation of one of the cases discussed in the literature, Edmund White’s novel A Boy’s Own Story. We argue that in this case hermeneutic resources are available but are rejected due to the stigma attached to homosexuality. We then present two analogous kinds of cases: alcohol addiction and being the victim of intimate partner violence. Here, too, hermeneutic injustice occurs because of stigma attached to an identity rather than unavailability of resources. We close by suggesting that these cases may, additionally, involve the wrong of Tightlacing: by meddling with their self-conception, stigma can manipulate individuals into a view of themselves that licenses inappropriate demands on them and makes them complicit in an erasure of their identities. (shrink)

This introduction to this collection of essays presents diverse perspectives on social identities, inviting readers to reconsider established notions and explore new approaches to understanding these complex social phenomena. The contributions challenge traditional philosophical boundaries, intersecting ontological, epistemological, ethical, and political considerations. // The authors situate different views on the ontology of social identities within some extant options. Thus, they contrast their "social identity affordance view" with two alternative approaches: the Cambridge Social Ontology group's positioning theory and Weichold (...) & Thonhauser's broad conception of social identities. Their view understands social identities as realities that structure social life and shape individuals' self-conceptions, emphasizing the importance of historical contingency and social context. // The introduction then proceeds to review the contributions to the volume. The volume comprises three sections: "Experiences of Social Identities," exploring how specific identities are understood and experienced; "Horizons of Social Identities," examining how identities develop and change over time; and "Some Frameworks of Social Identities," presenting alternative frameworks for conceptualizing social identities. (shrink)

Following insights from the New Theory of Reference, it has become widely accepted that theoretical identities like ‘water = H2O' are necessary. However, some have challenged this claim. I propose yet another challenge in the form of a sceptical argument. The argument is based on the contention that the necessity of theoretical identities is dependent upon criteria of identity. Thus, a theoretical identity is necessary given one criterion of identity but contingent given another. Since we do not know (...) which criteria of identity in fact obtain, it follows that, for all we know, theoretical identities may not be necessary. (shrink)

Some feminists have criticized Judith Butler's theory of performativity for providing an insufficient account of agency. In this article I first defend her against such charges by appealing to two themes central to Hans-Georg Gadamer's hermeneutics. I compare her emphasis on the sociohistorical nature of agency with Gadamer's insistence on the historical nature of knowledge, and I examine the significance Butler assigns to repetition and note its affinities with Gadamer's conception of play. In the final part of the article I (...) argue that in spite of providing an adequate account of agency, Butler's theory of performativity provides no way to allow us to evaluate performances. I show how Gadamer's account of festival, which builds on his concept of play, is useful in helping us make sense of how we might delineate true from false performances, and thus identities. (shrink)

This essay explores how the social location of white traitorous identities might be understood. I begin by examining some of the problematic implications of Sandra Harding's standpoint framework description of race traitors as 'becoming marginal.' I argue that the location of white traitors might be better understood in terms of their 'decentering the center.' I distinguish between 'privilege-cognizant' and 'privilege-evasive' white scripts. Drawing on the work of Marilyn Frye and Anne Braden, I offer an account of the contrasting perceptions (...) and behaviors of white who animate one type of script and those who struggle to forge the other type. I use Maria Lugones account of identity and notions of 'world travel' and 'loving perception' and Aristotle's virtue theory to explicate the ways whites, and white feminists in particular, might cultivate a traitorous character conducive to an antiracist politics. (shrink)

As a consequence of recent changes, health research policies in the United States mandate the inclusion of women and members of racial and ethnic minority groups as experimental subjects in biomedical research. This article analyzes debates that underlie these policies and that concern the medical management of bodies, groups, identities and differences. Much of the uncertainty surrounding these new policies reflects the fact that researchers, physicians, policy makers and health advocates have adopted competing, and often murky, understandings of the (...) nature of sex, gender, racial and ethnic differences, and of the relation of the biological to the social in the manifestation of bodily illness. (shrink)

This anthology provides the definitive theoretical sources of contemporary thinking about identity, including explorations of race, class, gender, and nationality. Explores the long and rich tradition of philosophical analysis and debate over the genesis, contours, and political effects of identity categories. Provides the definitive theoretical sources and contemporary debates by leading theorists such as selections from Hegel, Marx, Freud, DuBois, Beauvoir, Lukács, Fanon, Hall, Guha, Hobsbawm, Wittig, Butler, Halperin, R. Robertson, Said, and LaClau. Combines general and specific analyses of particular (...) identity categories: race/ethnicity, gender/sexuality, class, nationality. Allows for a comparative study of identities through multiple theoretical frameworks. (shrink)

In an age when "we are all multiculturalists now," as Nathan Glazer has said, the politics of identity has come to pose new challenges to our liberal polity and the presuppositions on which it is founded. Just what identity means, and what its role in the public sphere is, are questions that are being hotly debated. In this book Susan Hekman aims to bring greater theoretical clarity to the debate by exposing some basic misconceptions—about the constitution of the self that (...) defines personal identity, about the way liberalism conceals the importance of identity under the veil of the "abstract citizen," and about the difference and interrelationship between personal and public identity. Hekman’s use of object relations theory allows her to argue, against the postmodernist resort to a "fictive" subject, for a core self that is socially constructed in the early years of childhood but nevertheless provides a secure base for the adult subject. Such a self is social, particular, embedded, and connected—a stark contrast to the neutral and disembodied subject posited in liberal theory. This way of construing the self also opens up the possibility for distinguishing how personal identity functions in relation to public identity. Against those advocates of identity politics who seek reform through the institutionalization of group participation, Hekman espouses a vision of the politics of difference that eschews assigning individuals to fixed groups and emphasizes instead the fluidity of choice arising from the complex interaction between the individual’s private identity and the multiple opportunities for associating with different groups and the public identities they define. Inspired by Foucault’s argument that "power is everywhere," Hekman maps out a dual strategy of both political and social/cultural resistance for this new politics of identity, which recognizes that with significant advances already won in the political/legal arena, attitudinal change in civil society presents the greatest challenge for achieving more progress today in the struggle against racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression. (shrink)

P-compatible identities are built up from terms with a special structure. We investigate a variety defined by a set ofP-compatible hybrid identities and answer the question whether a variety defined by a set ofP-compatible hyperidentities can be solid.

This paper explores concepts of multiple and nested identities and how these relate to citizenship and rights, and the implications of identities and rights for active citizenship education. Various theoretical conceptions of identity are analysed, and in particular ideas concerning multiple identities that are used contingently, and about identities that do not necessarily include feeling a strong affinity with others in the group. The argument then moves to the relationship between identity and citizenship, and particularly citizenship (...) and rights. Citizenship is treated non-legalistically, as one of the locations of belonging. The paper draws on three successive categorisations of citizenship rights: by T.H. Marshall in the 1950s, Karel Vasak in the late 1970s and John Urry in the 1990s, and is illustrated in part by the development of European citizenship in parallel to national identity. This is then linked to how contemporary citizenship education might use the exploration of contested rights as a way of developing practical enactive skills of citizenship. (shrink)

As part of an article symposium on Partha Dasgupta and Sanjeev Goyal’s “Narrow Identities”, Jean-Paul Carvalho reflects on the concept of narrow identity and the ways of modelling its emergence.

The article’s aim is to explore human hand allograft recipients’ postoperative experience of disownership and their gradual experience of their new hand as theirs, with the aid of the work of the French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Many have used a Merleau-Pontinian perspective in the analysis of embodiment. Far fewer have used it in medico-ethical analysis. Drew Leder’s phenomenologically based ethics of organ donation and organ sale is an exception to this tendency. The article’s second aim is to examine Leder’s phenomenologically (...) based ethics of organ donation and organ sale. Though I find parts of Leder’s approach promising, I also elaborate a line of reasoning that draws on Merleau-Ponty, that does allow us to argue for certain kinds of organ donation and against organ sale—and that avoids some of the problems with Leder’s approach. This alternative route builds on the concept of the integrity of the body-subject. (shrink)

This essay outlines one way to conceptualise the relation between cultural identity, collective memory, and artifacts. It starts by characterising the notion of cultural identity as our membership to cultural groups and briefly explores the relation between cultural and narrative identity (section 2). Next, it presents how human memory is conceptualised on an individual and collective level (section 3) and then distinguishes between small-scale and large-scale collective memory (section 4). Having described cultural identity and collective memory, it argues that cultural (...) identity is materialised in the environment when we retrieve and construct collective memories by integrating information from our biological memory with information in artifacts or in other people’s embodied brains (section 5). This essay ends with analysing how materialised cultural identities are constructed by using a niche construction approach from evolutionary biology (section 6). (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2016 Heft: 209 Seiten: 149-165.

Notions about worthy womanhood are shaped to a large extent by the cultural contexts in which they are constructed. In the global village though, shaped as it is mainly by Eurocentric cultures, it would be presumptuous to assume that one can with certainty pinpoint what may be termed ‘purely traditional African notions of womanhood’. Also, it will be an exaggeration to argue that Africa does not have its own notions on ideal womanhood. Particularly in Christian African contexts, notions about womanhood (...) are still shaped to a large extent by both the traditional African worldviews and the received biblical interpretations about womanhood. In the preceding scenario, one wonders if women’s identities reveal their real selves or whether they are tamed, and thus artificial. In one’s attempt to unravel notions of womanhood from both the corpus, Proverbs 10:1–22:16 and in the South African context, this article has sought to answer the following main question: if images of women in selected African proverbs and in the book of Proverbs are brought together, what kind of picture may emerge from such a comparison? (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 10.2 (2003) 185-187 [Access article in PDF] Measuring Moral Identities:Psychopaths and Responsibility Gwen Adshead Doctor Ciocchetti examines the responsibility of psychopaths as a function of psychological capacities operating within relationships. He then argues against the punishment of psychopaths. I have some sympathy with both views, but perhaps argued in different ways, and from different standpoints, based on my clinical experience.Doctor Ciocchetti's offers an unusual (...) account of responsibility as a concept that involves at least two people, and perhaps many more than two; and this I would entirely support. In this sense, responsibility is a transitive and dynamic process that involves not only the personal sense of ownership of an action or thought, but also the attribution of responsibility by others. Moral, when applied to intentions, seems to me to suggest that they are intentions that involve another person and that they are held by an active agent who can make choices about those intentions. Responsibility implies not only causal responsibility, but also that the actor owns his own intentions about his behaviors toward others.Responsibility, either as experienced by the actor or attributed by others, is a type of moral judgment; an exercise in moral reasoning. Following Gilligan (1987), I am persuaded that moral reasoning, or the discourse of ought-and-should is relational in nature and must be seen in the context of relationships. I think much of the early work on moral reasoning in offenders is flawed because it assumes that moral reasoning was a capacity like serum bilirubin: normally distributed out there in the population, and able to be measured by an objective observer, in a process independent of the findings. Unsurprisingly, these studies found either that offenders had immature moral reasoning capacities (which we might have guessed already), or they had normal moral reasoning capacity, which was disturbing and puzzling.What we want to understand is how people come to let themselves do horrible things to others. Cioccchetti argues that psychopaths can do these things because they lack the affective capacities needed to respond to others' distress. Ordinary people care about harm to others (including the physical self/body and sentient animals) and demand explanations for the deliberate infliction of suffering on others. It is not only the lack of participant attitudes in the psychopath that bother us; it is our own responses, expressive of our participant attitudes, that tell us something about what this person is, and what is wrong. In my view, this is what punishment is all about for us, the larger social group [End Page 185] forced to respond to the distressing and disturbing actions of others.As Ciocchetti suggests, it is the perceived guilt of the offender that justifies the punishment; it is also the experienced distress of those affected that drives the need for punishment. The distress is part of the relationship between the victim and the offender; the victim is often just as active as the offender.The issue becomes most clear in relation to capital punishment and its supporters, especially those who wish not only to view executions, but also to broadcast them. In considering this, there are two useful sources of information: first, studies of the reactions of those who witness executions, and second, studies of the impact of murder on those related to the murder victim, so-called secondary victims. In those states that have capital punishment in the United States, it is often the secondary victims who witness the execution. They often have testified to the appalling impact of the offender's crime on them; most states give them a right to be present at the execution, even if they do not exercise it. It is hard not to think that it is the enormity of the feelings caused by the offender's wrongdoing that the death sentence is designed to address; the death of the offender changes the relationship between victim and offender, as much as the death of the original victim changes the relationship with their relatives. One might then wonder about the impact of his or her execution on the relatives... (shrink)

While it is well known that SME owner–managers’ sustainability values and attitudes impact their company’s sustainability activities, they often face profit-driven institutional orders. In a qualitative study, we investigate which identities are critical for their engagement in sustainability and how these identities interrelate with their institutional environment. We applied a qualitative design with narratives from 29 owner–managers of hospitality businesses who belong to a New Zealand-based sustainability network. Our study revealed no single overarching sustainability identity; instead, six (...) class='Hi'>identities could be identified as sustainability-related and be linked to different institutional orders. By analyzing the interplay between the identities and the institutional environment, we also found mechanisms on how SME owner–managers impact on their business’ sustainability. We revealed that an adequate institutional environment can foster the development of sustainability-related identities, which in turn can lead to cultural evolution towards more sustainability. By integrating identity theory with organizational institutionalism, we contribute to theoretical development and to further sustainability research at individual and institutional level. (shrink)

In this volume, thirteen philosophers contribute new essays analyzing the criteria for personal identity and their import on ethics and the theory of action: it presents contemporary treatments of the issues discussed in Personal Identity, edited by John Perry (University of California Press, 1975).

We contribute to the literature on ethics in the professions by theorizing how global mobility precipitates professional insecurity and constrained moral agency. We present our findings of a study of accountants migrating to Canada. Using postcolonial theory and relational/poststructuralist theories of identity and ethics, we contrast the experiences of marginalized and privileged migrant accountants to show how those with “diverse” social identities are not recognized by professionals in Canada and must seek recognition from Canadian colleagues, employers, and clients to (...) reconstitute their professional identities and moral agency. We discuss the implications of the exclusion and marginalization of professionals for migrants, the profession, and society more generally. (shrink)

Physicalists about the mind are committed to claims about property identities. Following Kripke's well-known discussion, modal arguments have emerged as major threats to such claims. This paper argues that modal arguments can be resisted by adopting a counterpart theoretic account of modal claims, and in particular modal claims involving properties. Thus physicalists have a powerful motive to adopt non-Kripkean accounts of the metaphysics of modality and the semantics of modal expressions.

The essays in Part III of the book, on liberal constraints and traditionalist education, argue for a more regulatory conception of liberal education and emphasize the need for some controls over cultural and religious educational authority. In the last chapter, on liberalism and group rights, according to Stephen Macedo, while the commitment of liberalism to individual freedom and equality is far more easily reconciled with group-based remedies for group-based inequalities than the critics of liberalism allow, the liberal commitment to freedom (...) of association imposes limits on group recognition by insisting on intragroup openness and diversity. The chapter has two main parts. Section 15.1, Liberalism, Education, and Group Identities, rebuts the charge that a liberal public philosophy embraces a narrow individualism that is incompatible with tackling group-based forms of inequality, and surveys some of the myriad liberal reforms of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s that promoted more equal respect for differing group identities, especially in schools. Section 15.2, Special Exemptions and the Rights of Traditional Communities, focuses on the difficulties raised by “traditionalistic” groups that seek special accommodations in part because they reject liberal values of equal freedom for all, and makes the point that a liberal regime should not seek to be equally hospitable or accommodating to groups that accept and those that reject educational policies designed to promote the equal freedom of all persons; various examples are presented and discussed. (shrink)

The present study explores the influence of challenge stressors on identity orientation directly and via thriving at work and employee investment. Drawing on the broaden–and–build theory of positive emotions, this study proposes challenge stressors as a critical predictor of identity orientation. The purpose of this article is to explore if a particular identity is salient in different contextual factors, and this study suggests that challenge stressors stimulate personal, relational, and collective identities to respond to a situation. The relationships hypothesized (...) in this study were tested using a sample of 225 employees from the banking sector of Pakistan. A time-lagged research design consisting of two waves of data collection was employed. A structural equation modeling technique was used to test the hypotheses regarding the relationship between challenge stressors and identity orientation, including the role of thriving at work and employee investment as intervening mechanisms of this relationship. Results showed that challenge stressors had a significant positive relationship with identity orientation. The results also confirmed the sequential mediation of thriving at work and employee investment in the relationship between challenge stressors and identity orientation. The findings suggest that the positive side of stress as a strength motivates employees for continued self-development. Importantly, challenge stressors enhance employees’ ability to thrive at work and, in turn, they invest in the work more and identify themselves strongly with their organization and work. (shrink)

Marketing scholars have extensively examined the role of altruistic and ecological personal values and pro-environmental identity in ethical consumption decisions. Conversely, the role of egoistic personal values and other identities has received scant attention from researchers. This research examines the role of altruistic, egoistic, and ecological personal values in triggering two types of identities: pro-environmental and car-authority. The effects of values and identities on personal norms and attitudes toward electric cars were also examined. A sample of Egyptian (...) consumers responded to an electronic survey, and collected data were analyzed using SEM. The findings generally support the VIP framework, where biospheric values significantly affect pro-environmental identity, and pro-environmental identity affects personal norms. Furthermore, personal norms affected attitudes positively. A different path was obtained which starts with biospheric and altruistic values affecting car authority positively and negatively, respectively. Car authority identity was found to affect attitudes directly, although this is accepted at lower confidence levels. A discussion of research findings, implications, and research limitations were also presented. (shrink)