The Bounds of Agency: An Essay in Revisionary Metaphysics

Carol Rovane

Published by Princeton University Press 1998

The Bounds of Agency

An Essay in Revisionary Metaphysics

Carol Rovane

Volume 5567 in the series Princeton Legacy Library

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400822423

Overview
Contents

About this book

The subject of personal identity is one of the most central and most contested and exciting in philosophy. Ever since Locke, psychological and bodily criteria have vied with one another in conflicting accounts of personal identity. Carol Rovane argues that, as things stand, the debate is unresolvable since both sides hold coherent positions that our common sense will embrace. Our very common sense, she maintains, is conflicted; so any resolution to the debate is bound to be revisionary. She boldly offers such a revisionary theory of personal identity by first inquiring into the nature of persons.

Rovane begins with a premise about the distinctive ethical nature of persons to which all substantive ethical doctrines, ranging from Kantian to egoist, can subscribe. From this starting point, she derives two startling metaphysical possibilities: there could be group persons composed of many human beings and multiple persons within a single human being. Her conclusion supports Locke's distinction between persons and human beings, but on altogether new grounds. These grounds lie in her radically normative analysis of the condition of personal identity, as the condition in which a certain normative commitment arises, namely, the commitment to achieve overall rational unity within a rational point of view. It is by virtue of this normative commitment that individual agents can engage one another specifically as persons, and possess the distinctive ethical status of persons.

Author / Editor information

Carol Rovane is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Yale University.

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One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 1998

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Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
PART I: LESSONS FROMLOCKE Introduction to Part I
Introduction to Part I Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	3
CHAPTER ONE. Preview of the Normative Analysis of Personal Identity Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	13
CHAPTER TWO. On the Need for Revision Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	35
CHAPTER THREE. A Revisionary Proposal Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	65
PART II: PERSONAL IDENTITY: THE BODY PRACTIC
Introduction to Part II Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	127
CHAPTER FOUR. A Sufficient Condition for Personal Identity Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	136
CHAPTER FIVE. The Sufficient Condition Is Also Necessary Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	167
CHAPTER SIX. The First Person Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	209
POSTSCRIPT Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	245
BIBLIOGRAPHY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	251
INDEX Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	255

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