Spillover occurs when one environmentally sustainable behaviour leads to another, often initiated by a behaviour change intervention. A number of studies have investigated positive and negative spillover effects, but empirical evidence is mixed, showing evidence for both positive and negative spillover effects, and lack of spillover altogether. Environmental identity has been identified as an influential factor for spillover effects. Building on identity process theory the current framework proposes that positive, negative, and a lack of spillover are determined by perceived threat (...) of initial behaviour and identity process mechanisms evaluating the behaviour. It is proposed, that an environmental behaviour change intervention may threaten one’s existing identities, leading to either (a) integration, (b) compartmentalisation, or (c) conflict between one’s environmental identity and non-environmental identities. Initial evidence for the proposed framework is based on a field intervention which included a meat reduction programme in a canteen of a medium size private sector company. Semi-structured interviews and an explorative visualisation method that aimed at assessing identity change were implemented with thirteen employees (i.e. intervention participants) before and after the intervention. The qualitative data was analysed by using thematic analysis via NVivo12. Results of the visualisation task and interview method provided initial evidence of direct and indirect positive contextual spillover effects, with comparatively less evidence a lack of spillover and a relative absence of reported negative spillover. This paper provides a novel theoretical approach, centred on identity process theory to enhance understanding of positive spillover, negative spillover, and the lack of spillover. (shrink)

Identity Economics provides an important and compelling new way to understand human behavior, revealing how our identities--and not just economic incentives--influence our decisions. In 1995, economist Rachel Kranton wrote future Nobel Prize-winner George Akerlof a letter insisting that his most recent paper was wrong. Identity, she argued, was the missing element that would help to explain why people--facing the same economic circumstances--would make different choices. This was the beginning of a fourteen-year collaboration--and of Identity Economics. The authors explain how (...) our conception of who we are and who we want to be may shape our economic lives more than any other factor, affecting how hard we work, and how we learn, spend, and save. Identity economics is a new way to understand people's decisions--at work, at school, and at home. With it, we can better appreciate why incentives like stock options work or don't; why some schools succeed and others don't; why some cities and towns don't invest in their futures--and much, much more. Identity Economics bridges a critical gap in the social sciences. It brings identity and norms to economics. People's notions of what is proper, and what is forbidden, and for whom, are fundamental to how hard they work, and how they learn, spend, and save. Thus people's identity--their conception of who they are, and of who they choose to be--may be the most important factor affecting their economic lives. And the limits placed by society on people's identity can also be crucial determinants of their economic well-being. (shrink)

Identity Economics provides an important and compelling new way to understand human behavior, revealing how our identities--and not just economic incentives--influence our decisions. In 1995, economist Rachel Kranton wrote future Nobel Prize-winner George Akerlof a letter insisting that his most recent paper was wrong. Identity, she argued, was the missing element that would help to explain why people--facing the same economic circumstances--would make different choices. This was the beginning of a fourteen-year collaboration--and of Identity Economics. The authors explain how (...) our conception of who we are and who we want to be may shape our economic lives more than any other factor, affecting how hard we work, and how we learn, spend, and save. Identity economics is a new way to understand people's decisions--at work, at school, and at home. With it, we can better appreciate why incentives like stock options work or don't; why some schools succeed and others don't; why some cities and towns don't invest in their futures--and much, much more. Identity Economics bridges a critical gap in the social sciences. It brings identity and norms to economics. People's notions of what is proper, and what is forbidden, and for whom, are fundamental to how hard they work, and how they learn, spend, and save. Thus people's identity--their conception of who they are, and of who they choose to be--may be the most important factor affecting their economic lives. And the limits placed by society on people's identity can also be crucial determinants of their economic well-being. (shrink)

What causes genocide? Why do some stand by, doing nothing, while others risk their lives to help the persecuted? Ethics in an Age of Terror and Genocide analyzes riveting interviews with bystanders, Nazi supporters, and rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust to lay bare critical psychological forces operating during genocide. Monroe's insightful examination of these moving--and disturbing--interviews underscores the significance of identity for moral choice. Monroe finds that self-image and identity--especially the sense of self in relation to others--determine and delineate (...) our choice options, not just morally but cognitively. She introduces the concept of moral salience to explain how we establish a critical psychological relationship with others, classifying individuals in need as "people just like us" or reducing them to strangers perceived as different, threatening, or even beyond the boundaries of our concern. Monroe explicates the psychological dehumanization that is a prerequisite for genocide and uses her knowledge of human behavior during the Holocaust to develop a broader theory of moral choice, one applicable to other forms of ethnic, religious, racial, and sectarian prejudice, aggression, and violence. Her book fills a long-standing void in ethics and suggests that identity is more fundamental than reasoning in our treatment of others. (shrink)

Exploring the peculiar nature of future generations and concluding that types of future people is the most promising object on which to project our concern for future generations the article poses two main questions: “Can future people have rights?” and, if so, “Do they in fact have any rights?” The article first explains why the non-existence of future people raises doubts whether future generations can have rights. Within the philosophical literature, the leading approach explaining how future people can, nevertheless, have (...) rights argues that they have rights as tokens of types of people. After presenting this account of the rights of future people and couching it in a jurisprudential context, this Article points out a possible deficiency in the approach’s metaphysical underpinnings. Assuming that future people can have rights the article goes on to explain that there is reason to doubt whether any such rights actually exist, which derive from the doubt whether future people will be harmed by most actions and choices in their prenatal past. According to what has come to be known as the “nonidentity argument,” actions and choices that are necessary parts of the causal chain leading up to the existence of a person cannot harm that person - had the act or choice not occurred that person would have never existed, and one is better off existing than not. Under the two prevalent theories of rights, the Will Theory and the Interest Theory, the nonidentity argument seemingly entails that future people have no rights. After exploring how this is the case, the conception of harm underlying the nonidentity argument is analyzed. Two types of interests future people may have in prenatal identity-determinative events (constitutive interests and threshold interests) are explored as possible sources of certain rights future people may have - the nonidentity argument notwithstanding. The article then elaborates and assesses the merits of these approaches. (shrink)

We considered supererogatory behavior as illustrated by people who rescued Jews in Nazi Europe. When we did so, we encountered a puzzling empirical finding: rescuers insisted they had no choice in their life-or-death actions. Rescuers' perspectives -- how they saw themselves in relation to others -- served as a powerful constraint on choice as traditionally conceived. Traditional moral theories failed to provide satisfactory explanations for this phenomenon, and we turned to virtue ethics to determine whether this approach, with its emphasis (...) on character, would provide a useful philosophical tool for explicating rescue behavior.Our conclusion on virtue ethics is mixed. We find the focus on character found in virtue ethics is superior to the traditional rule-based theories of moral choice, with virtue ethics able to account both for the supererogatory nature of rescue behavior and for rescuers' reports that they had no choice. Yet even as virtue ethics provides insight into the way character forms the preconditions for moral action and affects what people define as moral situations, it fails to capture the critical role of perspective in moral choice. Nor does it provide an answer to the conundrum that troubles us when we consider the implications of rescue behavior: can we assign moral responsibility if character determines actions? The reports of the rescuers present a concrete description of what has been called a perception of a common humanity. It is this perspective that constitutes the particular moral imperative that moved the rescuers to risk their lives for others, and whose full explication eludes us. Supererogatorisches Verhalten zeigt sich bei Menschen, die im Europa der Nazizeit Juden gerettet haben. Dazu sind wir auf einen verwirrenden empirischen Befund gestoßen: Retter bestehen darauf, daß sie mit Bezug auf ihre Handlungen, bei denen es um Leben und Tod ging, gar keine Wahl gehabt haben. Die Retterperspektive - wie sich die Retter selbst in ihrer Beziehung zu anderen sehen - wirkte sich als eine machtvolle Beschränkung der Wahlmöglichkeiten aus, wie sie traditionell angenommen werden. Traditionelle Moraltheorien haben es nicht geschafft, befriedigende Erklärungen für dieses Phänomen zu liefern, und wir haben uns der Tugendethik zugewendet, um herauszufinden, ob sie, die den Charakter betont, ein nützliches philosophisches Hilfsmittel für die Erklärung derartigen Rettungsverhalten bereitstellt.Unsere Schlußfolgerungen bezüglich der Tugendethik sind gemischt. Wir sind der Ansicht, daß die Betonung des Charakters durch die Tugendethik den traditionellen, auf Regeln basierenden Theorien über moralische Wahlmöglichkeiten überlegen ist, wobei die Tugendethik sowohl der supererogatorischen Natur des Rettungsverhaltens als auch den Aussagen der Retter, sie hätten gar keine Wahl gehabt, Rechnung trägt. Obwohl die Tugendethik sogar Einsichten in die Art und Weise liefert, wie der Charakter die entscheidende Vorbedingung für moralisches Handeln bildet und wie Menschen moralische Situationen bestimmen, versagt sie doch dabei, die maßgebliche Rolle zu definieren, die die moralische Perspektive bei der moralischen Wahl spielt. Ebensowenig gibt sie eine Antwort auf das Rätsel, das uns beschäftigt, wenn wir die Implikationen des Rettungsverhaltens bedenken: Können wir moralische Verantwortlichkeit zuschreiben, wenn der Charakter die Handlungen bestimmt? Die Aussagen der Retter geben eine konkrete Beschreibung von etwas, was als Perzeption einer gemeinsamen Menschheit bezeichnet worden ist. Es ist diese Perspektive, die das besondere moralische Gebot in Kraft setzt, das die Retter dazu bewogen hat, ihr Leben für andere zu riskieren. Diese Perspektive läßt sich nicht vollständig erklären. (shrink)

There are arguments for determinism. Admittedly, this is opposed by the fact of everyday experience of autonomy. In the following, it is argued for the compatibility of determinism and autonomy. Taking up considerations of Donald MacKay, a fatalistic attitude can be refuted as false. Repeatedly, attempts have been made to defend the possibility of autonomy with reference to quantum physical indeterminacy. But its statistical randomness clearly misses the meaning of autonomy. What is decisive, on the other hand, is the possibility (...) of knowledge, which opens up opportunities for planning, freedom of choice and ultimately 'self-choice'. Results of neurobiological research, especially Benjamin Libet's and more recently John-Dylan Haynes', seem to refute this: Actions are unconsciously initiated before conscious decision. But, as Libet has also shown, consciousness always has the possibility of a veto – and thus also of knowledge-driven action control. Ultimately, the idea of possible self-choice can thus become the determining condition. Only such a form of rational self-determination establishes a spiritual identity and at the same time represents the maximum of autonomy possible for human beings. (shrink)

RésuméCet article analyse le besoin qu'éprouvent certaines personnes de se «reconnecter», ou renforcer lews liens, à une culture dans laquelle elles n'ont jamais été enchâssées, eu égard aux critères auxquels se mesure généralement un tel enchâssement (langue, valeurs, croyances, modes de vie, coutumes religieuses, etc.). Situant les résultats de son analyse par rapport à la pensée de Kymlicka et autres, il fait valoir que des facteurs tels que les liens de parenté, l'identification à autrui et l'expérience du racisme déterminent largement (...) quel est le groupe culturel que les individus parviennent à considérer comme le leur. (shrink)

Argues that choice, as a form of interpretation, is completely intertwined with the development of both sexual orientation and sexual identity. Sexual orientation is not simply a given, or determined aspect of personality.

RésuméCet article analyse le besoin qu'éprouvent certaines personnes de se «reconnecter», ou renforcer lews liens, à une culture dans laquelle elles n'ont jamais été enchâssées, eu égard aux critères auxquels se mesure généralement un tel enchâssement (langue, valeurs, croyances, modes de vie, coutumes religieuses, etc.). Situant les résultats de son analyse par rapport à la pensée de Kymlicka et autres, il fait valoir que des facteurs tels que les liens de parenté, l'identification à autrui et l'expérience du racisme déterminent largement (...) quel est le groupe culturel que les individus parviennent à considérer comme le leur. (shrink)

Is it ethical for doctors or courts to prevent patients from making choices that will cause significant harm to themselves in the future? According to an important liberal principle the only justification for infringing the liberty of an individual is to prevent harm to others; harm to the self does not suffice.In this paper, I explore Derek Parfit’s arguments that blur the sharp line between harm to self and others. I analyse cases of treatment refusal by capacitous patients and (...) describe different forms of paternalism arising from a reductionist view of personal identity. I outline an Identity Relative Paternalistic Intervention Principle for determining when we should disallow refusal of treatment where the harm will be accrued by a future self, and consider objections including vagueness and non-identity.Identity relative paternalism does not always justify intervention to prevent harm to future selves. However, there is a stronger ethical case for doing so than is often recognised. (shrink)

Defining quality of life is a difficult task as it is a subjective and personal experience. However, for the elderly, this definition is necessary for making complicated healthcare-related decisions. Commonly these decisions compare independence against safety or longevity against comfort. These choices are often not made in isolation, but with the help of a healthcare team. When the patient’s concept of quality of life is miscommunicated, there is a risk of harm to the patient whose best interests are not (...) well understood. In order to bridge this gap in understanding and unite seniors with their caretakers as a cohesive team, we need to establish a definition of quality of life. In this paper, my personal experiences with the elderly will be analysed along with five essays on the topic of ageing. These sources provide clear evidence that quality of life for seniors is majorly determined by the ability to preserve one’s lifelong identity. When making difficult decisions in geriatric healthcare, this greater understanding of the determinants of life quality will allow treatments to best serve the elderly. Defining quality of life allows healthcare providers to shift the focus from minimising disability toward maximising ability. I believe this shift would provide seniors with better health outcomes and properly enhance the quality of their years. (shrink)

When we deal with complex things, like human subjects or organizations, we deal with identity – that which makes a person or an organization what it is and distinguishes him/her/it from other persons or organizations, a kind of “self”. Our identity determines how we think about and interact with others. It will be argued in this chapter that the self is constituted relationally. Moreover, when we are in the realm of the self, we are always already in the realm of (...) engaging with and mediating differences – the realm of ethics. The position which will be developed argues that approaching identity as a complex system allows us to resist thinking of identity as an easily identifiable and static entity. Identity is always being constituted within a complex and contingent world, where we have to make choices based on contingent values rather than on universal knowledge or the outcome of rational calculations. As a result, we have to keep in mind that our daily practices always already have an ethical component, and our decisions need to be continually evaluated and re-evaluated in the light of our (and others’) varying identities. (shrink)

This study experimentally evaluates the effects of group identity primed by property rights on pro-environmental behaviors and social norms in an urban Chinese environment. The research in this paper expands the research perspective and method of domestic waste management and provides a theoretical basis for the establishment of a long-term mechanism of environmental treatment. We used two simple binary choice tasks that test the PEB and environmental types of individuals. This is one of the earliest tests for group identity and (...) social norms in pro-environmental examinations in Chinese people. Our results reveal that publicity and education have a significant positive effect on the development of individual and group pro-environmental behavioral norms; housing ownership has no differentiating effect on individual environmental behavior; and the development of social norms of pro-environmental behavior varies according to group conditions, which, in turn, determines individual environmental behavioral choices and types of environmental behavior. The results also suggest that PEB may be shaped and norms may be built by group conditions rather than group identity. (shrink)

There is agency in all we do: thinking, doing, or making. We invent a tune, play, or use it to celebrate an occasion. Or we make a conceptual leap and ask more abstract questions about the conditions for agency. They include autonomy and self-appraisal, each contested by arguments immersing us in circumstances we don’t control. But can it be true we that have no personal responsibility for all we think and do? Agency: Moral Identity and Free Will proposes that deliberation, (...) choice, and free will emerged within the evolutionary history of animals with a physical advantage: organisms having cell walls or exoskeletons had an internal space within which to protect themselves from external threats or encounters. This defense was both structural and active: such organisms could ignore intrusions or inhibit risky behavior. Their capacities evolved with time: inhibition became the power to deliberate and choose the manner of one’s responses. Hence the ability of humans and some other animals to determine their reactions to problematic situations or to information that alters values and choices. This is free will as a material power, not as the conclusion to a conceptual argument. Having it makes us morally responsible for much we do. It prefigures moral identity. Closely argued but plainly written, Agency: Moral Identity and Free Will speaks for autonomy and responsibility when both are eclipsed by ideas that embed us in history or tradition. Our sense of moral choice and freedom is accurate. We are not altogether the creatures of our circumstances. (shrink)

The progress of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, and queer rights entails the erosion of prejudice, and erosion is a slow process. Much press accrues to the dramatic advancement of gay marriage, but that progress reflects decades of committed activism that antedate the sea change. Social science, physical science, politics, philosophy, religion, and innumerable other fields have bearing on the emergence of healthy LGBTQ identities. The field of bioethics is implicated both in revolutionizing attitudes and in determining how best to utilize (...) such ameliorated positions. For decades, the debate around homosexuality has centered on whether it is a choice or an inherent quality. A growing segment of the population believes that gay people are “made that way” and therefore do not deserve to be treated with the prejudice they might warrant if they had simply elected what others resisted. In effect, they are like disabled people, who can't help the challenges they face, and unlike murderers, who could choose not to kill.Anti‐gay arguments tend to hinge on a view of gayness as a behavior; the liberatory ones, on gayness as an identity. A behavior can be avoided; an identity is integral and therefore warrants acceptance—or even celebration. People have a right to their identities, even if they have the capacity to act out other, different identities. Bioethics is the field in which this distinction between gay acts and a gay self may be argued most directly. (shrink)

_ Purpose. _ The article highlights, on the one hand, the impact of the potential of a developed reflective identity on the processes of civilizational transformations, and on the other hand, the role of the transformational processes of a civilizational scale in the formation of a new type of reflective identity. Acute crisis processes in social development, which humanity has faced so far, in particular after 24.02.2022, indicate the beginning of a radical civilizational transformation. Therefore, in the article, it is (...) necessary to find out with the help of which mental, organizational and personal resources humanity can move to a more developed level of civilization without much loss. It is also necessary to show the importance of the philosophical understanding of reality in the formation of reflective identity because reflection has been the basic method of philosophy since its appearance. _Theoretical basis._ There is an understanding of the inextricable connection between the level of development of civilization and the level of reflective development of the individual fixed in a certain type of identity: a more historically developed stage of civilization corresponds to a more complex type of identity with multi-level reflection. At the same time, achieving a higher level of civilizational development is possible only under the condition of constructing a more complex and multi-level reflexive identity. _Originality._ It consists in establishing that the mental-cognitive mechanisms of reflection during the development of civilization passed through the stages of 1) reflexive forms of "the Axial Age", fixed in the corresponding forms of moral, logical, theological, political, etc. culture since the era of Ancient society; 2) reflexive forms of the Modern era with an emphasis on the inner world of man, the emergence of the reflective division into subject and object of knowledge as an essential feature of epistemology, as well as the formation of a modern type of identity; 3) the dual reflection of the post-industrial society and the Second Modern era, the mechanisms of which contribute to the formation of an active and self-sufficient network society and network crowdfunding economy. In this regard, at various stages of the development of civilization, in accordance with certain reflexive mechanisms, the corresponding types of identity are formed: 1) the basic identity of a person determined by his primary socialization; 2) reflective identity which is associated with the acquired cultural potential of a person and the opportunity to consciously choose special features of one’s own identity, and 3) identity which is associated with the existence in a given social culture of a mechanism of double reflection, which allows not only to make a valuable choice of the trajectory of development own identity but also to construct it. _Conclusions._ The aggravation of the identity problem in the modern world is the result of a civilizational crisis associated with the transformation of modern civilization, the technological basis of which is the introduction of renewable energy and artificial intelligence, as well as the development of network relationships in society. The hierarchical structure of modern identity is conditioned by the gradual historical and civilizational layering of the process of evolution of the reflexive component of identity. In each specific modern society, progressive civilizational transformations take place when an innovative type of identity coexisting with basic and modern types is activated and takes a leadership position. The growing role of network relations in society overcomes the identity crisis due to the reduction of social opposition and the harmonization of different aspects of the identity itself. Perceptible climatic changes and the destruction of the established security system in the world after 24.02.2022 made it obvious to the global thinking public that the world community is at the bifurcation point of a radical civilizational transformation. (shrink)

My students tend to rank Parfit’s Energy Policy and the Further Future1 among their favourite pieces. It is a marvellously argued, eye-opening paper. One of the most interesting passages comes right at the end, when Parfit suggests that we should act as if we had never realised that the non-identity problem exists: “When we are discussing social policies, should we ignore the point about personal identity? Should we allow ourselves to say that a choice like that of the Risky Policy (...) or of Depletion might be against the interests of people in the further future? This is not true. Should we pretend that it is? […] I would not want people to conclude that we can be less concerned about the more remote effects of our social policies. So I would be tempted to suppress the argument for this conclusion.” (2010 [1983], 119) In the paper, Parfit continuously stresses the implications of our views on personal identity. He differentiates between what he later, in his Reasons and Persons, calls a “narrow” and a “wide” person-affecting view (1984, ch. 18).2 On a narrow person-affecting view, we take seriously each person’s identity and assume that it is determined by its genome which is a product of a certain ovum and a certain sperm cell (112-113). On this view, we may then evaluate an action by considering its impact on each individual that is affected. An action is, thus, better or worse because it is better or worse for someone. Consequently, there may be alternative actions available to perform that seem better or worse, but aren’t really, as they are not better or worse for someone. One example that illustrates this point is the case of a 14 year-old who decides to have a child and, due to her age, gives the boy she conceives a bad start in life (113). In response, one may want to argue that she should have had a child later and that that child would have had a better start in life. This, however, overlooks that the boy that has been born to the young mother could not have been born later: the child she actually had could only come into existence because she decided to become a mother when she was 14. Hence, Parfit argues, we can “not claim that, in having this child, what she did was worse for him” (113, italics in the original). (shrink)

This essay examines the contradictions often found in third wave feminist texts that function as strategic choices that may shape, foster, and enhance an individual's sense of agency. Many third wave feminists utilize contradiction as a way to understand emergent identities, to develop new ways of thinking, and to imagine new forms of social action. Agency, then, stems from the use of contradiction as a means of self-determination and identity, of transcendence of seemingly forced or dichotomous choices, and (...) counter-imaginations of a better future. (shrink)

. The article examines the specifics of the formation of the religious identity of schoolchildren in Lutsk and identifies the main factors influencing this process. The main approaches in defining the concept of religious identity are analyzed. The focus is on ontological, psychological, revealing the individual level of religious identity and sociological approaches, which are represented by confessional and institutional religious identity. Emphasis is placed on the use of a constructivist approach to understanding religious identity through the prism of the (...) process of formation and its transformation. Based on this, the structure of religious identity and its features are described, in particular, it is determined that it is formed individually for each individual and is able to change during life. The peculiarities of the formation of religious identity at a young age and the psychological preconditions of this process are highlighted. The classification of religious identity, its division on individual and collective level is given and analyzed. The role of each of them in the formation of worldview and life principles of the individual, their influence on decision-making and the choice of a particular way of life is described in detail. The process of formation of religious identity, which consists of three levels of self-determination of the individual, is described. Based on the analysis of narrative interviews, the indicators of each of the levels of formation of religious identity of school youth in Lutsk are clarified, the most important factors that determine the process of formation of religious identity at a young age are clarified. These include the influence of the family and the immediate environment, the phenomenon of secularization, the rapid development of science and unimpeded access to the media. The main youth tendencies regarding faith and religion are described, and how they can be replaced. The prevalence of atheistic and agnostic views among schoolchildren, the clear popularity of the nominal Orthodox identity and the real inclusion and awareness of Greek Catholics and Protestants have been established and substantiated. The tendencies of transformation of traditional religion in accordance with modern challenges into the form of private faith of non-institutional character are determined. (shrink)

Economist-philosopher Amartya Sen's writings on social and political issues have attracted wide audiences. Section 2 introduces his contributions on: how people reason as agents within society; social determinants of people's (lack of) access to goods and of the effective freedoms and agency they enjoy or lack; and associated advocacy of self-specification of identity and high expectations for ‘voice’ and reasoning democracy. Section 3 considers his relation to social theory, his tools for theorizing action in society, and his limited degree of (...) attention to work by sociologists and to capitalism and power structures. Section 4 characterizes a style marked by conceptual refinement, emphases on complexity and individuality, including personal individuality, and reformist optimism. Section 5 shows the features from Sections 3 and 4 at work in his conception of personhood that advocates freedom to make a reasoned composition of personal identity. Similarly, Section 6 addresses his conception of public reasoning and neglect of the sociology of democracy. It contrasts the ideal of a reasoning polity with features in many countries. Sen's programmes for critical autonomy in personhood and for reasoned politics play, nevertheless, a normic role, while his analytical formats help investigation of obstacles to more widespread agency, voice, and democratic participation. (shrink)

The debate over the ethical repercussions of Artificial Intelligence (AI) cannot disregard the “sum total of ideas that bring into evidence a system of ethical reference that justifies that profound dimension of technology as a central element in the attainment of a ‘finalized’ perfection of man”(Galvan 2001). This implies an analysis of the ancient processes that might help to understand the complexities of contemporary society and the new challenges posed to human development. Being at the core of the dichotomy between (...) the human and the machine, biometrics will be central to the analysis carried out in this paper. Its measurement of physiological characteristics and behavioural patterns has politico-philosophical and legal consequences in terms of recognition and personal identity, as the use of artificial intelligence has shown. In information society, customs and traditions, cultural and communication processes, language and the self-determination of the individual have gradually acquired a stretched dimension that has led to a re-definition of the social structures within which the exchange of knowledge and data takes place, with AI-based technological devices playing a key role in such a scenario. The issue of biometric identity becomes highly complex when combined with the potential of digital services, as it is at this level that it shows the large number of interconnections deriving from social and political choices. The benefits of increased interconnection are limited by the risk of intrusion into the (social, personal or private) human sphere, which might pose a threat to both the physical, biological body, with its related freedoms (habeas corpus), and the digital body, in its multiple forms and media representations (habeas data). (shrink)

ABSTRACTNew Zealanders were presented with the opportunity to change the national flag and opted to retain the current New Zealand flag, despite arguments that it was unable to reflect national identity adequately. This article unpacks the particular version of national identity constructed in discourse in the infographic, Our Nation. Your Choice. which was released prior to the final referendum that determined the outcome of the Flag Consideration Project. We used Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis to examine the discursive construction of national (...) identity by the Flag Consideration Panel that oversaw the process. The authoritative assertion of national identity on behalf of New Zealanders emphasised inclusiveness and unity by acknowledging cultural diversity. Biculturalism was confined to an old understanding of New Zealand identity while the ideology of multiculturalism, not yet officially implemented, was positioned as common-sense. There was a focus on situating New Zealand in a global context to distance New Zealand from colonisation and connection to Britain. The positive, cohesive conceptualisation of New Zealand suggested that the Flag Consideration Project was, in fact, an exercise in re-positioning New Zealand in the global context, in which the national flag would represent the national brand rather than contribute to national identity. (shrink)

A human who open their eyes to life finds themselves within a religious tradition and culture. They encounter religious objects and places, meets religious people and live in communication with them. They learn about religion from their family and their surroundings; they see people who perform their religious worship, and from time to time, they themselves participate in these worships. They ask questions, do research, and turn to the use of religious words and concepts. Childhood period has a significant impact (...) on the formation of religious belief, attitudes and behaviours in adulthood, in other words, on the construction of religious identity. The study examined the origins of individual and collective religious identity, religious experiences from childhood to adulthood and cultural contexts. Thus, it was investigated that how participants constructed their religious identities by making sense of the reference frameworks that they acquired from religious narratives and traditions. In this context, the factors that shape and define the construction of religious identity have been analysed in two dimensions, theoretical and field research. 60 participants aged 25 to 75 living in Kahramanmaraş were interviewed in between 2021 and 2022. The study analysed findings about how adult religious individuals build their religious identities using phenomenological patterns from qualitative data collection methods. In the study, the participants were selected with the purposeful sampling method identified with the phenomenological pattern and the study conducted 40-160 minutes of face-to-face in-depth interviews with semi- structured questions prepared separately for 5 main and 13 sub-categories. The data obtained was analysed and categorised using the MAXQDA 12 package program. At this point in our research, the question of what are the factors that influence the formation and maintenance of a person’s religious identity is sought in the framework of the research findings. According to the findings obtained as a result of the study which is based on the basic approaches of role theory it has been observed that the family factor is prominent in building an individual’s religious identity. In addition to the influence of parents on family members in shaping religious identity, it has been observed that some participants are influenced by extended family members such as grandparents. On the other hand, it has been found that schools and courses attended under the referral of the family or the society, the religious officials and religious groups met, and media programmes followed are factors that influence the building of the individual’s religious identity after the family. It has been determined that religious texts and folkloric elements provide stereotyped roles in making choices such as the style of clothing eating and drinking, which are symbolically reflected in the individual’s life, in the implementation of religious orders and moral principles, in short, the construction of religious identity. (shrink)

A central tenet of cognitive linguistics is that adults’ knowledge of language consists of a structured inventory of constructions, including various two-argument constructions such as the active, the passive and “fronting” constructions. But how do speakers choose which construction to use for a particular utterance, given constraints such as discourse/information structure and the semantic fit between verb and construction? The goal of the present study was to build a computational model of this phenomenon for two-argument constructions in Mandarin. First, we (...) conducted a grammaticality judgment study with 60 native speakers which demonstrated that, across 57 verbs, semantic affectedness – as determined by further 16 native speakers – predicted each verb’s relative acceptability in the bei-passive and ba-active constructions, but not the Notional Passive and SVO Active constructions. Second, in order to simulate acquisition of these competing constraints, we built a computational model that learns to map from corpus-derived input to an output representation corresponding to these four constructions. The model was able to predict judgments of the relative acceptability of the test verbs in the ba-active and bei-passive constructions obtained in Study 1, with model-human correlations in the region of r = 0.5 and r = 0.3, respectively. Surprisingly, these correlations increased when lexical verb identity was removed; perhaps because this information leads to over-fitting of the training set. These findings suggest the intriguing possibility that acquiring constructions involves forgetting as a mechanism for abstracting across certain fine-grained lexical details and idiosyncrasies. (shrink)

In this work, I investigate the nature of the alleged binding force of decisions and commitments on future conduct. Contrary to pretheoretical intuitions, decisions and commitments are not means for the control of future conduct. Future-directed commitments do not constrain future action by either imposing causal restraints, or modifying the future situation of choice, or providing a reason to act as originally decided. According to my theory commitments determine the agent's conduct only if renewed at the time of action. The (...) agent must take the original decision ex nihilo at the time of action. I argue that this renewal does not threaten either intrapersonal transtemporal coordination of conduct or engagement in temporally extended activities. If the agent can assume the stability of her rationality over time, she can anticipate her future decision and action without settling in advance what she will do. This anticipation is sufficient for coordination. When uncertainty about the future makes the anticipation of future decision impossible, the agent can make preparatory arrangements in advance that create conditions for the rationality of the future conduct. The effects of preparatory arrangements are compatible with genuine commitments provided that they are understood as directed to a temporally extended activity that begins with the arrangements, rather than to a distal momentary action. ;I then show how the Sartrean account can be applied to limited agents like us, who do not have sufficient resources to engage in the constant renewal of their past resolutions. The solution rests in the division of deliberative labor. At the time of action the agent might endorse a past assessment about her present conduct and make it executive, thereby avoiding the full rehearsal of the deliberation. ;I argue that the Sartrean account satisfies all pretheoretical desiderata about the nature of commitments and that it also dissolves the puzzled about the transmission of the force of reasons over time. Finally, I discuss the role of the assumption of the temporal stability of rationality and suggest that it is related to the question of the persistence of the agent over time. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Many Mansions? Multiple Religious Belonging and Christian IdentityJames L. FredericksMany Mansions? Multiple Religious Belonging and Christian Identity. Edited by Catherine Cornille. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2002. 152 pp."A heightened and widespread awareness of religious pluralism," according to Catherine Cornille, "has presently left the religious person with the choice not only of which religion, but also how many religions she or he might belong to" (p. 1). What Cornille (...) calls "multiple religious belonging," therefore, merits our theological attention. I agree, even though I am not convinced that the phenomenon is very widespread and certainly not a trend. In any event, Cornille does us a great service in raising the issue of multiple religious belonging. The book should be widely read and discussed.Lest there be any confusion, Cornille is skeptical of bourgeois Westerners making facile claims about being Buddhists or Taoists and does not consider this "belonging." She argues (following Raymundo Panikkar) that religious belonging entails a twofold movement: first, a conscious (not "anonymous") identification with a religious community, and second, being recognized by that community as a member. Promoters of New Age spirituality therefore do not practice multiple religious belonging as defined by Cornille. In fact, New Age religiosity is not a form of belonging at all to the extent that it rejects the normativity of any religious claim. Furthermore, belonging is more than admiration for another religion and acceptance of selected beliefs from that religion. In this case, Christians such as myself, who have dedicated themselves to the study of Buddhism, cultivated Buddhist friends, studied with Buddhist teachers and who practice forms of Buddhist meditation within a Christian liturgical context, but do not self-identify as Buddhists, should not be considered examples of multiple religious belonging. All this seems very sensible to me. Oddly, none of the contributors actually endorse multiple religious belonging as defined by Cornille. There is, however, much discussion regarding possible theological foundations for it.At the beginning of his essay, Jacques Dupuis recognizes that multiple religious belonging poses serious theological problems for Christian believers. Clearly this is [End Page 167] the case. A Christian professing to be a Buddhist is theologically unintelligible. Dupuis, however, goes on to caution theologians such as myself to go slow in coming to any conclusions about the propriety of multiple religious belonging. In this, I also am in agreement. The church should be patient with multiple religious belongers in the hope of learning from them. If this means putting theological concerns on hold for the time being, so be it. This would not be the first time that theology would be playing catch-up ball with new forms of Christian spiritual practice. Multiple religious belonging may prove to be a genuine possibility for Christian spiritual practice. Theology will have a legitimate voice in making such a determination. Dupuis is right to counsel caution.Not all of the contributors take the theological problems posed by multiple religious belonging as seriously as Dupuis does. Raymundo Panikkar, for example, deals with the problem by dismissing the importance of doctrine to religious identity. Apparently, one is free to believe anything one wants and still call oneself a Christian, a Sikh, or a Muslim, provided that one is accepted by these communities as a member. In minimizing the importance of doctrine, Panikkar takes pains to separate faith from mere belief, as if making this strict distinction between the two were the only alternative to fundamentalism. Once faith transcends the institutional boundaries that distinguish religions, the test for religious belonging is sociological, not theological. Conflicting doctrinal claims distinguishing religious communities from one another are not a problem for multiple religious belonging because doctrinal consistency has little to do with one's multiple religious identities.Even more than Panikkar, Francis X. Clooney is untroubled by the theological problems attending multiple religious belonging. Starting with Hindu texts (primarily the Mutal Tiruvantati), Clooney builds bridges to a Christian text (Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola) and concludes that God will be with us in whatever way suits us. "However someone takes refuge in me," Vishnu assures us in the Gita, "in that way I do favor them." The devotee supplies the imagination. God never fails... (shrink)

Norms applying to food interact with conceptions of nationhood, identity and law. This occurs through gastronomies and ethico-religious standards, recognition and conviviality, and the voice of communities in the sourcing and labelling of their food. Law, nation and identity intersect in the notion of citizenship. The chapter moves from the tight relationships by which persons are constrained within overdetermined categories of state law and national citizenship, to explore the possibilities unleashed by a loosening of the bonds between law, nation and (...) identity. Sections deal in turn with each of these “loosenings”, as we prize apart the knots that bind identity and nation, nation and law, and law and identity, each in relation to the cultural and legal context of food. With these loosenings, the unified jurisdiction of the nation-state gives way to plural and informal law; a single national identity expands into multiple ethical and ethnic associations; identity is no longer determined by state-centred legal interpellation but allows persons to “inhabit” a range of norms. By expanding the scope for participation and interaction in each of these areas, citizenship finds new networks for expansion, enrichment and reflexivity. The full spectrum of social justice can only be addressed by regimes and networks that ensure fair and adequate distribution of food, that respect the cultural demands as well as the biological needs of communities, and that ensure participation, through choices informed by personally relevant criteria and social and political structures. (shrink)

When talking about personal identity in the context of medical ethics, ethicists tend to borrow haphazardly from different philosophical notions of personal identity, or to abjure these abstract metaphysical concerns as having nothing to do with practical questions in medical ethics. In fact, however, part of the moral authority for respecting a patient’s self-regarding decisions can only be made sense of if we make certain assumptions that are central to a particular, psychological picture of personal identity, namely, that patients will (...) remain psychologically connected to a certain degree with their future selves. I draw this out, show problems with approaches in medical ethics based on alternate theories of personal identity that do not recognise this, and explore some important implications. Namely, I show how this recognition can better explain the circumstances under which we should respect advance directives and why, and how it can better make sense of patient fears that they will not "survive" personality-altering deep brain stimulation procedures, and provide guidance on approaching patient decisions concerning this type of procedure in a manner that captures and addresses such concerns. (shrink)

In a previous paper, I argued that neuroscience and psychology could in principle undermine libertarian free will by providing support for a subset of what I called “statements of local determination.” I also argued that Libet-style experiments have not so far supported statements of that sort. In a commentary to the paper, Adina Roskies and Eddy Nahmias accept the claim about Libet-style experiments, but reject the claim about the possibilities of neuroscience. Here, I explain why I still disagree with their (...) conclusion, despite being sympathetic to a lot of what they say in support of it. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Problems for a Theory of Intergenerational Justice Libertarianism and Intergenerational Justice A Liberal Theory of Intergenerational Justice Intergenerational Justice and Saving Just Saving behind the Veil of Ignorance Sustainability: Alternative Conceptions Intergenerational Justice and Sustainability Conclusion.

A number of philosophers argue that the moral value of national identity is sufficient to justify at least a prima facie right of a national community to create its own independent, sovereign state. In the literature, this argument is commonly referred to as the identity argument. In this paper, I consider whether the identity argument successfully proves that a national group is entitled to a state of its own. To do so, I first explain three important steps in the argument (...) and then consider whether they lead to the desired conclusion. My examination reveals that the identity argument relies on the Optimal Protection Principle; however, this principle does not apply to the case of a national community. As a result, the identity argument fails to justify even a prima facie right of a national community to establish its own state. (shrink)

This book develops an evolutionary account of animal choice and human freedom, thus supplementing the conceptual account of freedom with an explanation how it developed.

Social identity poses one of the most important challenges to rational choice theory, but rational choice theorists do not hold a common position regarding identity. On one hand, externalist rational choice ignores the concept of identity or reduces it to revealed preferences. On the other hand, internalist rational choice considers identity as a key concept in explaining social action because it permits expressive motivations to be included in the models. However, internalist theorists tend to reduce identity to desire—the desire of (...) a person to express his or her social being. From an internalist point of view, that is, from a viewpoint in which not only desires but also beliefs play a key role in social explanations as mental entities, this article rejects externalist reductionism and proposes a redefinition of social identity as a net of beliefs about oneself, beliefs that are indexical, robust, and socially shaped. (shrink)

Drawing on Indian discussions of public and practical reason, the book argues that individual, moral, and political identity is a formation of reason.

Genetic and molecular studies of development in Caenorhabiditis elegans have identified regulators that appear to control pattern formation in the cellularized nematode embryo. Two genes, skn‐1 and pie‐1, are required for specifying the different identities of two sister blastomeres in a 4‐cell embryo, called P2 and EMS. The skn‐1 gene encodes a DNA binding protein that may control blastomere development by regulating transcription in EMS and its descendants. ABa and ABp, the other two sisters in a 4‐cell embryo, are influenced (...) to develop differently by cell signaling events that require the two genes apx‐1 and glp‐1. In this review, I summarize evidence that some or all of these genes may encode embryonic determinants of blastomere identity. (shrink)

In criticizing communitarian views of justice, Amartya Sen argues that identity is not merely a matter of discovery but an object of reasoned choice subject to constraints. Distinguishing three notions of identity – self-perception, perceived identity and social affiliation – I claim that the relevant constraints implied by this argument are minimal. Some of Sen's arguments about perceived identity and social context do not establish any further constraints. Sen also argues that a model of multiculturalism and some forms of education (...) can restrict, or fail to promote, reasoned and informed identity choice. This argument is better understood in the light of Sen's work on capability and justice, notably his concern with ways in which underdogs can adapt and his emphasis on public reasoning. It highlights limitations on information and opportunities for reasoning. I suggest that these lead to genuine constraints on (reasoned and informed) identity choice. The paper focuses on Sen's work, though its claims are also relevant to George Akerlof and Rachel Kranton's analysis of identity. (shrink)

In this study, the determinants of contraceptive use and method choice are examined based on various variables, classified as individual, cultural, fertility and contextual. The data used came from the 1993 Turkish Demographic and Health Survey. The main finding is that there exists a positive association between the educational level of both spouses and the use of contraceptive methods in Turkey. After all individual, cultural, fertility and contextual variables are controlled, a woman's education is a stronger predictor of method use (...) and method choice than that of her husband. Increasing the educational level of women may be the most effective means of advancing family planning acceptance and increasing the demand for contraceptive services in Turkey. The study also shows that, to a great extent, contraceptive use and choice of modern method depend on the sex of a couple’s living children, implying some preference for sons, although generally women prefer to have children of both sexes. (shrink)

Takeuti introduced an infinitary proof system for determinate logic and showed that for transitive models of Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory with the Axiom of Dependent Choice that contain all reals, the cut-elimination theorem is equivalent to the Axiom of Determinacy, and in particular contradicts the Axiom of Choice. We consider variants of Takeuti's theorem without assuming the failure of the Axiom of Choice. For instance, we show that if one removes atomic formulae of infinite arity from the language of Takeuti's proof (...) system, then cut elimination is equivalent to a determinacy hypothesis provable, e.g., in ZFC + “there are infinitely many Woodin cardinals.” A slight extension of the proof system admits cut elimination for countable sequents under the same assumptions. A simple modification of the proof system yields analogs of the results above for the Axiom of Real Determinacy and uncountably many Woodin cardinals. (shrink)

With the collapse of the bipolar system of global rivalry that dominated world politics after the Second World War, and in an age that is seeing the return of "ethnic cleansing" and "identity politics," the question of violence, in all of its multiple ramifications, imposes itself with renewed urgency. Rather than concentrating on the socioeconomic or political backgrounds of these historical changes, the contributors to this volume rethink the _concept_ of violence, both in itself and in relation to the formation (...) and transformation of identities, whether individual or collective, political or cultural, religious or secular. In particular, they subject the notion of self-determination to stringent scrutiny: is it to be understood as a value that excludes violence, in principle if not always in practice? Or is its relation to violence more complex and, perhaps, more sinister? Reconsideration of the concepts, the practice, and even the critique of violence requires an exploration of the implications and limitations of the more familiar interpretations of the terms that have dominated in the history of Western thought. To this end, the nineteen contributors address the concept of violence from a variety of perspectives in relation to different forms of cultural representation, and not in Western culture alone; in literature and the arts, as well as in society and politics; in philosophical discourse, psychoanalytic theory, and so-called juridical ideology, as well as in colonial and post-colonial practices and power relations. The contributors are Giorgio Agamben, Ali Behdad, Cathy Caruth, Jacques Derrida, Michael Dillon, Peter Fenves, Stathis Gourgouris, Werner Hamacher, Beatrice Hanssen, Anselm Haverkamp, Marian Hobson, Peggy Kamuf, M. B. Pranger, Susan M. Shell, Peter van der Veer, Hent de Vries, Cornelia Vismann, and Samuel Weber. (shrink)

We use Marya Schechtman’s Narrative Self-Constitution View to support the widespread idea that food can contribute to the construction and expression of our identities and be used to understand others. What foods we consume can be one such way to construct our identities as food itself can have different values: ethically sourced, healthy, culturally significant, etc. However, the ability to constitute one’s own identity in this way depends on the ability to autonomously choose what we consume. We argue that most (...) consumers have much less control over their own consumption habits than is typically assumed (indeed, much of the literature on food and identity relies on the assumption) and thus consumers have diminished autonomy with respect to identity-constitution. We focus on the effects of three such autonomy compromising practices: food impositions, which are social pressures on food choice; manipulative marketing; and impediments to access. Together these practices diminish second-order endorsement of food-related values, generate false beliefs about what one is eating, and create social, economic, or physical barriers which limit access to desired foods. There are, however, spaces where consumers are fighting back against cultural norms and agribusiness and changing their own relationship(s) with consumption, thereby exercising increased autonomy over their food and their identity. (shrink)