tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7345275.post45023728107121813..comments2023-10-30T11:13:44.310-04:00Comments on The Ethical Werewolf ‡ by Neil Sinhababu : Korsgaard, Yawgmoth, and personal identityUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7345275.post-14146778489346694222010-02-28T15:16:22.026-05:002010-02-28T15:16:22.026-05:00Neil,
I think you are right about intentional act...Neil,<br /><br />I think you are right about intentional actions being just one sort of psychological connection among others. That being said, I believe that in PIUA Korsgaard does allow for this (specifically where she makes reference to Parfit's distinction between the "boring events" which constitute our identity (e.g. the beliefs, intentions, etc. which we have and which we haven't necessarily reflected upon) and those aspects of our identity which we have reflected upon and "authorially endorsed". In particular, she argues that those which we have endorsed we stand in a different relationship to (that of authorship) and that such events play a larger part in our identity that so-called "boring events". <br /><br />That being said, this might not answer the question of whether Yawgmoth is the same person...Taking a Parfitian line one would have to argue that he is not (too much of a break of continuity). The answer from a Korsgaardian perspective is less clear...although I have a sneaking suspicion that it would relate to her kantian view of how responsible we are for the consequences of actions which we endorse and which we cannot know the outcome of. <br /><br />Stentor: I think you are gesturing toward an important distinction which ought to be made in discussions of personal identity. Namely, that sometimes we are asking question of re-identification (metaphysical in nature) and other times we are asking questions of characterization (moral responsibility, compensation, etc) and that these two are often conflated. David Shoemaker has actually done some interesting work on this issue.Benjamin Yellehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09169808770119919477noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7345275.post-71287343902018011272010-02-09T07:18:41.266-05:002010-02-09T07:18:41.266-05:00Hmm, that's a good point, Stentor. I'll s...Hmm, that's a good point, Stentor. I'll see if I can come up with a clearer case.Neil Sinhababuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03249327186653397250noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7345275.post-4934722585345350632010-02-08T16:58:23.206-05:002010-02-08T16:58:23.206-05:00I'm not sure how intuitive I find it to say th...I'm not sure how intuitive I find it to say that Yawgmoth became a different person (after all, we still call him "Yawgmoth"). I guess where I get hung up is the question of <i>why it matters</i> whether he's a different person. It seems to me that the purpose of identity-assignment is going to drive judgments of when you're dealing with different people or the same person, and different purposes may have different results. So "Is Yawgmoth the same person after he drinks the potion" is sort of a meaningless question. But it would be meaningful to ask, say, if the potion was stolen and Yawgmoth was captured by the Hell Police before he committed suicide, would it make sense to punish good-Yawgmoth for the actions of bad-Yawgmoth. And that answer may be different than the answer to, say, whether we should count good-Yawgmoth as still being married to bad-Yawgmoth's demon husband.Stentorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13629599671442149938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7345275.post-6873359943675032772010-02-07T18:32:54.647-05:002010-02-07T18:32:54.647-05:00I like the Yawgmoth story, and it seems to me to r...I like the Yawgmoth story, and it seems to me to relate to a broader, real-world problem for the Korsgaardian account of identity: we do not have cognitive access to the daemons in our subconscious that truly move our "self" to initiate personal change. (Then again, since Korsgaardians don't share such skepticism about the causal efficacy of the conscious self, they won't likely find such devilish details worrisome.)Michael Drakehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06141593700908475896noreply@blogger.com