Separating Persons

2021 ◽  
pp. 39-54
Author(s):  
James Goodrich
Keyword(s):  
Derek Parfit ◽  
Ethical Thinking ◽  
Separateness Of Persons

In Reasons and Persons, Derek Parfit argues for a reductionist view of persons and that our ethical thinking should become more impersonal. While doing so, he argues that we may need to give up some widely shared intuitions about the Separateness of Persons and all of those views which crucially hinge upon it. However, this chapter argues that Parfit was mistaken. His reductionist views of persons and his more general claim that our ethical thinking should become more impersonal are in fact compatible with several plausible interpretations of the Separateness of Persons. Parfit’s project in Reasons and Persons should thus be understood not as undermining the Separateness of Persons, but as transforming our understanding of it. The chapter closes by considering the degree to which Parfit had reason by his own lights to accept some version of the Separateness of Persons.

Why It Does Not Matter What Matters: Relation R, Personal Identity, and Moral Theory

2019 ◽  
Vol 70 (278) ◽  
pp. 178-198
Author(s):  
Bastian Steuwer
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Derek Parfit ◽  
The Future ◽  
Separateness Of Persons ◽  
What Matters

Abstract Derek Parfit famously argued that personal identity is not what matters for prudential concern about the future. Instead, he argues what matters is Relation R, a combination of psychological connectedness and continuity with any cause. This revisionary conclusion, Parfit argued, has profound implications for moral theory. It should lead us, among other things, to deny the importance of the separateness of persons as an important fact of morality. Instead, we should adopt impersonal consequentialism. In this paper, I argue that Parfit is mistaken about this last step. His revisionary arguments about personal identity and rationality have no implications for moral theory. We need not decide whether Relation R or personal identity contain what matters if we want to retain the importance of the separateness of persons.

scholarly journals Feminist Scholarship and Its Relevance for Political Engagement: The Test Case of Abortion in the US

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-43
Author(s):  
Margaret D. Kamitsuka
Keyword(s):  
Identity Politics ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Test Case ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Ethical Thinking ◽  
Societal Dynamics

This essay explores how gender studies in academe, including in religious studies, might remain relevant to ongoing feminist political engagement. I explore some specific dynamics of this challenge, using as my test case the issue of abortion in the US. After discussing how three formative feminist principles (women’s experience as feminism’s starting point, the personal is political, and identity politics) have shaped approaches to the abortion issue for feminist scholars in religion, I argue that ongoing critique, new theoretical perspectives, and attentiveness to subaltern voices are necessary for these foundational feminist principles to keep pace with fast-changing and complex societal dynamics relevant to women’s struggles for reproductive health and justice. The essay concludes by proposing natality as a helpful concept for future feminist theological and ethical thinking on the subject.

Transforming Ethical Thinking With Healthcare Reform: A Nursing Theoretical Perspective

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-123
Author(s):  
Constance L. Milton
Keyword(s):  
Healthcare Reform ◽  
Healthcare Professionals ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Community Change ◽  
Change Model ◽  
Global Media ◽  
Ethical Thinking

Healthcare reform discussions dominate the global media and legislative priorities. Many ethical straight-thinking questions arise over what the role of healthcare professionals, including nurses, should be in this debate. This article begins a discussion of potential ethical questions surrounding healthcare reform in light of a nursing theoretical humanbecoming community change model perspective.

Rhetoric and Human Separateness

2013 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 210-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryan Garsten
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Relationship ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Separateness Of Persons ◽  
Deliberative Rhetoric

In his account of how each of us deliberates about what to do, Aristotle remarks that we do not always trust ourselves on important matters and so sometimes take counsel from others. Taking counsel from others is, in some ways, merely an expansion of the internal activity of deliberation; the suggestions come from other people rather than from our ownminds, but the judgment about them remains our own. In other ways, however, taking counsel is quite different from deliberating with oneself. These differences are the subject matter of the art of rhetoric, as Aristotle understands it. The paper compares the political relationship at work in deliberative rhetoric with slavery, which collapses the separateness of persons, and with friendship, which preserves it. And suggests that the importance of anger in Aristotle’s treatment of rhetoric can be understood as a reflection on the implications of human separateness.

Ethics in Community in the Gospel and Letters of John

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan van der Watt
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
First Century ◽  
Ethical Thinking ◽  
The Law ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Significant Data

At the beginning of the twenty-first century the question of ethics in John came under renewed consideration. As scholars applied more comprehensive analytical categories to the Gospel and Letters of John significant data became available related to the ethical dynamics of the Gospel. Reading the Gospel as narrative and reflecting on certain socio-historical and theological realities, scholars discovered that the interrelatedness between identity and behaviour is basic to the ethical thinking of John. This identity is expressed in metaphorical terms derived from familial, juridical, friendship, and royal language. The importance of ancient ethically related features, common to ordinary popular moral philosophy, like mimesis or reciprocity, are also highlighted as being part of the ethical dynamics in John. Obviously, the two major foci remain the Law and the love commandment.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document