Narrative Identity and Personal Responsibility
Narrative Identity and Personal Responsibility is about why and how identifying ourselves by means of narrative makes it possible for us to be responsible, morally and otherwise. The book begins as an investigation into how it is that we can hold people responsible for who they are, despite the fact that we have almost no control over our lives in our formative years. It explains the relation between representation, personal identity, and self-knowledge, demonstrating how awareness of the vulnerability of our identity as persons is the origin of our capacity for the cathartic revision of a self-identifying narrative which is the condition of moral awareness.

Innovative in its interdisciplinary juxtaposition of ethics, moral psychology, literary theory and literature, Narrative Identity and Personal Responsibility develops a sophisticated and comprehensive account of human nature. This book offers an intuitively satisfying and humane yet rigorous account of why and how we think of ourselves as simultaneously free and constrained by nature. Its fundamental thesis, the mediation of narrative representation between agent and the world, suggests new answers to old problems in moral psychology, such as the question of free will and responsibility.

With a more literary style than many philosophy texts, it works through a series of interconnected problems of as much interest to a thoughtful layperson as to academic philosophers.
1102008291
Narrative Identity and Personal Responsibility
Narrative Identity and Personal Responsibility is about why and how identifying ourselves by means of narrative makes it possible for us to be responsible, morally and otherwise. The book begins as an investigation into how it is that we can hold people responsible for who they are, despite the fact that we have almost no control over our lives in our formative years. It explains the relation between representation, personal identity, and self-knowledge, demonstrating how awareness of the vulnerability of our identity as persons is the origin of our capacity for the cathartic revision of a self-identifying narrative which is the condition of moral awareness.

Innovative in its interdisciplinary juxtaposition of ethics, moral psychology, literary theory and literature, Narrative Identity and Personal Responsibility develops a sophisticated and comprehensive account of human nature. This book offers an intuitively satisfying and humane yet rigorous account of why and how we think of ourselves as simultaneously free and constrained by nature. Its fundamental thesis, the mediation of narrative representation between agent and the world, suggests new answers to old problems in moral psychology, such as the question of free will and responsibility.

With a more literary style than many philosophy texts, it works through a series of interconnected problems of as much interest to a thoughtful layperson as to academic philosophers.
143.0 In Stock
Narrative Identity and Personal Responsibility

Narrative Identity and Personal Responsibility

by Linda Ethell
Narrative Identity and Personal Responsibility

Narrative Identity and Personal Responsibility

by Linda Ethell

Hardcover

$143.00 
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Overview

Narrative Identity and Personal Responsibility is about why and how identifying ourselves by means of narrative makes it possible for us to be responsible, morally and otherwise. The book begins as an investigation into how it is that we can hold people responsible for who they are, despite the fact that we have almost no control over our lives in our formative years. It explains the relation between representation, personal identity, and self-knowledge, demonstrating how awareness of the vulnerability of our identity as persons is the origin of our capacity for the cathartic revision of a self-identifying narrative which is the condition of moral awareness.

Innovative in its interdisciplinary juxtaposition of ethics, moral psychology, literary theory and literature, Narrative Identity and Personal Responsibility develops a sophisticated and comprehensive account of human nature. This book offers an intuitively satisfying and humane yet rigorous account of why and how we think of ourselves as simultaneously free and constrained by nature. Its fundamental thesis, the mediation of narrative representation between agent and the world, suggests new answers to old problems in moral psychology, such as the question of free will and responsibility.

With a more literary style than many philosophy texts, it works through a series of interconnected problems of as much interest to a thoughtful layperson as to academic philosophers.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780739125939
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date: 06/28/2010
Pages: 288
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Linda Ethell is currently an honorary research fellow at the University of Melbourne.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction xi

Part 1 Frankfurt, Taylor, and Self-Evaluation 1

Chapter 1 Frankfurt and Second-Order Evaluation 7

Chapter 2 The Rational Wanton 29

Chapter 3 Charles Taylor and the Nature of Desire 37

Part 2 Desire and the Formation of Personal Identity 65

Chapter 4 Desire and Personal Identity 67

Chapter 5 The Value of Fantasy 85

Chapter 6 Self-Knowledge and Narrative 91

Chapter 7 Responsibility for Self 99

Part 3 A Defense of Empathy 113

Chapter 8 Plato on Mimesis 119

Chapter 9 Vicarious Emotion and Pleasure 125

Chapter 10 Aristotle on Mimesis: Aesthetic Pleasure 139

Part 4 Narrative Identity 167

Chapter 11 Ways of Being 171

Chapter 12 Description, Interpretation, and Evaluation 187

Chapter 13 Exemption from Responsibility 193

Part 5 Freedom and Resentment 199

Chapter 14 P. F. Strawson 201

Chapter 15 "Responsibility and the Limits of Evil" 207

Chapter 16 The Limits of the Moral Community 219

Chapter 17 Richard Wollheim: Retribution and Reparation 239

Chapter 18 Melanie Klein: Tragedy and Morality 249

Bibliography of Works Cited 257

Index 261

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