Exploring issues ranging from the metaphysical to the moral and legal, a team of esteemed contributors bring together some of the most important and cutting-edge findings in experimental philosophy of the self to address longstanding philosophical questions about personal identity, such as: What makes us today the same person as our childhood and future selves? Can certain changes transform us into a different person? Do our everyday moral practices presuppose a false account of who we are?
Chapters offer a survey of recent empirical work and foster dialogue between experimental and traditional philosophical approaches to identity, covering the moral self, dual character concepts, true self, transformative experience and the identity conditions collective entities. With novel experiments and thought-provoking applications to practical concerns including law, immigration, bioethics and politics, this collection highlights the value and implications of empirical work on personal identity.
Introduction, Kevin Tobia (Georgetown University, USA) 1. For Who Do Moral Changes Matter? The Influence of Change Type, Direction, and Target on Judgments of Identity Persistence, Jim Everett (University of Kent, UK), Joshua Skorburg (Duke University, USA), Jordan Livingstone (University of Toronto, Canada), Vlad Chituc (Yale University, USA), and Molly Crockett (Yale University, USA) 2. Identity Crisis, Christina Starmans (University of Toronto, Canada) 3. Personal Identity and Dual Character Concepts, Josh Knobe (Yale University, USA) 4. What’s Left of Me? The Role of Self-Continuity in Decision Making and Judgments about Identity Persistence, Stephanie Chen (London Business School, UK) and Oleg Urminsky (University of Chicago, USA) 5. Personal Identity and Morality, Harold Noonan (University of Nottingham, UK) 6. The Whole Story: Identity and Narrative, Marya Schechtman (University of Illinois at Chicago, USA) 7. What Matters in Psychological Continuity? Using Meditative Traditions to Identify Biases in Intuitions about Personal Persistence, Megan Sullivan (University of Notre Dame, USA) and Preston Greene (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore) 8. Memory as Evidence of Personal Identity. A Study on Reincarnation Beliefs, Vilius Dranseika (Jagiellonian University, Poland) 9. The Importance of Morality for One’s Self-Concept Predicts Perceptions of Personal Change after Remembering Wrongdoings, Matthew Stanley (Duke University, USA) and Felipe de Brigard (Duke University, USA) 10. Uncomfortable Decisions, Paul Bloom (Yale University, USA) and Laurie Paul (Yale University, USA) 11. Experimental Philosophical Bioethics of Personal Identity, Brian Earp (University of Oxford, UK), Ivar Hannikainen (University of Granada, Spain), Joshua Skorburg (Duke University, USA), and Jim Everett (University of Kent, UK) 12. Authenticity as a Pathway to Coherence, Purpose, and Significance, Rebecca Schlegel (Texas A&M University, USA), Joshua Hicks (Texas A&M University, USA), Patricia N. Holte (Texas A&M University, USA), Joe Maffly-Kipp (Texas A&M University, USA), Devin Guthrie (Texas A&M University, USA) 13. Corporate Identity, Mihailis Diamantis (University of Iowa, USA) 14. The Essence of an Immigrant Identity: Children’s Pro-social Responses to Others Based on Perceived Ability and Desire to Change, James Dunlea (Columbia University, USA), Redeate Wolle (Columbia University, USA). and Larisa Heiphetz (Columbia University, USA) 15.“Human” Is an Essentially Political Category, David Livingstone Smith (University of New England, USA) Index
Kevin Tobia is Assistant Professor of Law at Georgetown University, USA.
Reviews for Experimental Philosophy of Identity and the Self
Theories of personal identity are unavoidably based, in part, on intuitions about what changes we could and could not survive. But discovering what our intuitions really are and understanding what they show are difficult. The essays in this brilliant collection constitute the best work to date on these important issues. * Jeff McMahan, Sekyra and White's Professor of Moral Philosophy, University of Oxford, UK * The last decade has seen an explosion of work on how people think about the self. Tobia's outstanding collection provides an ideal introduction to the state-of-the-art and an impressive set of articles by leaders in the field. It will be essential reading for anyone working on the nature of self and personal identity. * Shaun Nichols, Professor of Philosophy, Cornell University, USA *
