Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Human Persons: Numerical Identity and Essence
- 3 Human Persons: Narrative Identity and Self-Creation
- 4 Identity, What We Are, and the Definition of Death
- 5 Advance Directives, Dementia, and the Someone Else Problem
- 6 Enhancement Technologies and Self-Creation
- 7 Prenatal Identity: Genetic Interventions, Reproductive Choices
- Index
1 - Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Human Persons: Numerical Identity and Essence
- 3 Human Persons: Narrative Identity and Self-Creation
- 4 Identity, What We Are, and the Definition of Death
- 5 Advance Directives, Dementia, and the Someone Else Problem
- 6 Enhancement Technologies and Self-Creation
- 7 Prenatal Identity: Genetic Interventions, Reproductive Choices
- Index
Summary
You and I are persons. More specifically, we are human persons – persons who are members of the species Homo sapiens. But what does it mean to say that someone is a person? And what is the significance of being human?
You and I have existed for years. We will continue to exist in the future. What are the criteria for our continuing to exist over time?
In continuing to exist – that is, in living our lives – we develop stories about ourselves. These stories may go well or badly from our individual perspectives. What is the character of these self-stories? At a general level, how do we want them to go? Does our existence have any value to us if we are incapable of telling such stories to ourselves?
When do we come into being, and when do we die? What is the relationship between our origins and death, on the one hand, and the boundaries of our self-stories, on the other? What are we most fundamentally? Are we essentially self-narrating persons or are we essentially human animals – who happen to treasure the portion of our lives when we can make narratives?
As persons, we not only exist over time and develop self-narratives; we plan for the future in the hope that our stories will go a certain way. But common sense suggests that we can plan for times when we no longer have the ability to plan or make any complex decisions.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Human Identity and Bioethics , pp. 1 - 10Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005