Philosophical Analysis of Personal Identity and Liberal Political Theory.

Abstract

Conceptions of political identity are closely related to the conception of personal identity. Rawls's metaphysical conception of the person, known as abstract individualism, faced several objections or criticisms on two bases as claimed by critics – its metaphysical nature and inconsistency with the features most salient in persons. Liberalism’s commitment to individualism is also taken to be normative. Besides some perfectionists, the criticism of liberals’ abstract individualism comes from communitarians like Michael Sandel, Charles Taylor, and Alasdair MacIntyre. Their common criticism is against the liberal view that an individual or person exists independently of any social context or circumstance. The communitarians oppose the liberals’ view – ‘priority of rights over the good’ based on the social constitution thesis. In contrast, the perfectionists claim the role of government in fostering a fully autonomous moral person. Catherine G. Campbell defends Rawlsian political identity from objections that it relies on either personhood individualism or identity individualism. Rawls’s conception of the person has been considered vulnerable to communitarian criticism. Communitarians have objected to Rawls’s conception of the person due to his use of the original position and the political conception of the person. Critics have taken the original position to be objectionable on metaphysical grounds for various reasons. Norman Daniels, Amy Gutmann, Steven Lukes, Terry Hall, and Richard Rorty have their own criticisms against Rawls’s metaphysical conception of a person or abstract individualism. Critics' argument against Rawls’s original position can be summarised as follows: The original position is metaphysical, devoid of social circumstances or conditions. Campbell aims to show that one can accept a Rawlsian conception of political identity without committing oneself to any objectionable metaphysical views. Campbell presents a metaphysical view of persons that clarifies what it means for personhood or personal identity to be constituted by social circumstances. Critics have argued that Rawls’s political conception of the person commits him to a particular view of persons due to his commitment to the priority of the right. In Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, Sandel argues that Rawls is committed to a view of persons as metaphysically independent of their ends. Rawls’s commitment to unencumbered selves, according to Sandel, is rooted in Rawls’s commitment to the priority of the right. According to Campbell, the charge that Rawls’s original position or the political conception of the person relies on personhood individualism and identity individualism is common. As per Campbell, Sandel’s arguments fail to provide a clear account of the metaphysical view to which Rawls is supposed to be committed or what the alternative, more plausible view, is supposed to be. Similarly, the normative objections consist primarily in the charge that Rawls’s political conception of the person is normatively deficient without explaining why that is the case. Campbell has claimed that there is a difference between persons and selves, or what is constitutive of being a person as opposed to an agent, or what constitutes personhood versus citizenship, and so on.