Discrete Events and Narrative Lives (Part 4)
In part
three of this series, I promised to return to the problem of personal identity
“next week.” That was three weeks
ago. The accidents of life get in the
way of our plans; instead of writing about narrative the last two weeks, I
added essays to The Last Walk. Only now do I return to my topic: narrative,
personal identity, and morality.
Notice how
this episode illustrates, in a minor way, the complexity of the questions we
are considering. “I” announced my
“intention” of accomplishing some “action” (publishing a blog post, in this
case). Today I offer an explanation as
to why I didn’t do what I announced.
Philosophers ponder mysteries in
that sequence: What constitutes a person?
What are intentional states (of anything, but especially of
persons)? What distinguishes an action
of a person from other events in the world?
For which actions or failures to act should persons supply explanations
or apologies?
There’s no
way I’m going to sort out all these questions in a single essay. Philosophy of Mind is a jungle of
interrelated questions. I just want to
tame a little corner of the jungle.
The skeptical worry, remember, is the
thought that we should regard our personal narratives as fictions. A number of undeniable facts motivate the
skeptical worry. First, we know that
discrete events (such as the outcome of particular at-bats) are largely
unaffected by the stories we tell about them (e.g. Allen Average is having a
good day batting). Second, we know that
our memories of past events, including events in our personal lives, are often
objectively inaccurate. Third, at best
our memories of our lives comprise a tiny minority of the events that make up
our past. Fourth, we know that events
can greatly change persons’ character; we say with some measure of truth that
so-and-so is not the same person she was at some prior time. Therefore, the skeptical worry says, we
should not put much stock in our personal narratives; perhaps we should think
of ourselves as “strong poets” (Richard Rorty’s suggestion) who regularly
invent or reinvent ourselves by recasting our stories.
In spite of
all this I will argue for a narrative understanding of personhood. I think the following claims are all
true. First: a person’s life gains
identity by means of narrative. It is by
story that one event connects meaningfully with another; without narrative the
events in our lives are just one damn thing after another. Second: only a narrative personal identity
can ground and explain significant moral duties. Third: human beings are capable of deceiving
themselves about almost everything, including their narrative based identity,
so it is possible for persons to achieve better or worse understandings of
themselves. Fourth: the true story of
any person’s life can only be discerned against the backdrop of a true story of
the world in which that person lives. Against
those philosophers who proclaim the death of meta-narrative, I think we need
meta-narrative. (Notice: the so-called
death of meta-narrative is usually presented as a story.) If the great story
of Christ is true, I can only rightly understand my story as part of his story.
As I said,
there is no way I can defend all these assertions in one essay. I will offer a few remarks in support of the
second claim, that only a narrative personal identity can ground and explain
significant moral duties.
Consider
two episodes from my life. In 1977 in a
marriage ceremony, I promised Karen that I would be a loving and faithful
husband for the rest of our lives together.
In 1989, a judge explained to a little boy, Jamie Bolles, that because
of the paper she was signing he would be James Keith Smith, and he would be a
“forever” part of our family. At the
time of the judge’s decree, Karen and I promised to James that we would love
him and care for him no matter what. Considered dispassionately, these are not
unusual events. Thousands of adoptions
are finalized every year in this country, and marriages are even more frequent.
Promises are central to marriages and
adoptions. Like me, in many cases the
people who make such promises live for many years after making the
promise. Life happens. People change. Surely there is some sense of the phrase in
which it is true to say: I am not that person anymore. Yet I think—and I think most people would
agree—that the promise made then has moral import now. There is a sense in which the promise
commands me; it lays obligation on
me. The promise limits my life, because I made it. I, a person living decades after the promise,
am morally constrained by that promise because
I am the person who made it.
I am not
saying that marriage promises or adoption promises create iron laws with no
exceptions. I know people who divorced. I know of disrupted adoptions. I have no interest in condemning such people
or adding to their pain. There are
situations of tragic moral choice. But I
point out that one reason such tragedies are tragic is that persons think they
must break promises. They feel they
must, morally must, do one thing, and yet they feel they must not do that
thing. Promises do not simply lose their
moral force simply because time has passed and I am a new person.
My argument
is simple. We have a pretty clear moral
intuition that marriage promises and adoption promises create obligations for
those who make them. The only way this
intuition can be right is if there is such a thing as personal identity over
time. That is: it is right to do this
thing now, because I promised I would—even if the promise was made decades ago
by a very different “me.” The best way
to describe personal identity is through narrative. I make sense of my life by the story I live.
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