Abstract

Appeals to a concept of the person are often made to defend ethical theories. At the same time it is often claimed that ethical theories cannot be supported by appeals to metaphysics. In this dissertation I investigate these potentially conflicting claims by examining the metaphysical problem of personal identity. ;In Chapter One I defend the Complex View of personal identity by showing that the rival Simple View depends upon a model of consciousness which must be rejected. The intuitions which are its ultimate basis support no more than a psychological continuity view. ;In Chapter Two I explain why the Complex View must leave out anticipation of future experiences and so why it fails to justify special concern for one's own future. ;Chapter Three and Four take up the implications for ethical theory of my claims about personal identity. I introduce the distributive justice and integrity objections to utilitarianism. Each locates utilitarianism's weakness in the misguided concept of the person it implies. ;In Chapter Three I disarm the distributive justice objection by claiming that its emphasis on intrapersonal compensation assumes the Simple View of personal identity. A direct argument for distributive equality is shown to be unmotivated without similarly assuming the Simple View. ;In Chapter Four I explain why the problem of paternalism can only be pressed when self-regarding acts are assumed to imply consent to their consequences. I then show that such consent is implied only if the Simple View is correct. On the Complex View paternalism presents no special problem for utilitarianism. ;In Chapter Five I consider three types of objection to the claim that metaphysics can be used to support particular ethical theories and show why my earlier use of conclusions about personal identity is not threatened by any of them. I conclude that appeals to metaphysics can support particular ethical theories, and that such an appeal in the case of personal identity supports a broadly utilitarian theory