Bare Personhood? Velleman on selfhood

Abstract

In the Introduction to Self to Self, J. David Velleman claims that ‘the word “self” does not denote any one entity but rather expresses a reflexive guise under which parts or aspects of a person are presented to his own mind’ (Velleman 2006, 1). Velleman distinguishes three different reflexive guises of the self: the self of the person's self-image, or narrative self-conception; the self of self-sameness over time; and the self as autonomous agent. Velleman's account of each of these different guises of the self is complex and repays close philosophical attention. The first aim of this paper is therefore to provide a detailed analysis of Velleman's view. The second aim is more critical. While I am in agreement with Velleman about the importance of distinguishing the different aspects of selfhood, I argue that, even on his own account, they are more interrelated than he acknowledges. I also analyse the role of the concept of ‘bare personhood’ in Velleman's approach to selfhood and question whether this concept can function, as he wants it to, to bridge the gap between a naturalistic analysis of reasons for action and Kantian moral reasons.

Keywords:

• self
• identify
• agency
• Velleman
• reasons for action

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the conference ‘Self to Self: Themes from the Work of J. David Velleman’, April 2006, Australian National University. I would like to thank the conference organisers, Jeanette Kennett and Steve Matthews, for inviting me to present at the conference. Special thanks are due to David Velleman for his generous response to the paper at the conference and for helpful correspondence concerning his reply, also published in this journal. For helpful comments, I would also like to thank two anonymous referees and the editors of this journal.

Notes

1. A recent example is the debate generated by Galen Strawson's critique of narrative conceptions of selfhood (Strawson 2004). Strawson understands the term ‘self’ metaphysically, as referring to an inner mental entity or subject of experience that persists only so long as an uninterrupted stretch of consciousness. This conception of the self is fundamentally different from, and at odds with, the non-metaphysical narrative conception of selfhood as an ongoing activity of self-interpretation. For responses to Strawson's conception of the self, see the essays in Gallagher and Shear (1999). For detailed responses to Strawson's critique of narrativity, see Battersby (2006) and Schechtman (2007).

2. This conception of identity is discussed, for example, in Rorty and Wong (1990). Schechtman (1996) addresses the relationship between metaphysical questions of reidentification and practical and evaluative questions of ‘characterization’.

3. Velleman discusses the relationship between this external or third-personal representation and one's first-personal perspective in Velleman (2006, Chap. 11, ‘The Centered Self’).

4. For a detailed discussion of the social, reflexive and cognitive character of Hume's analysis of the passions, see Baier (1991).

5. Velleman's analysis of identity as self-conception echoes Korsgaard's notion of practical identity as ‘a description under which you value yourself, a description under which you find your life to be worth living and your actions to be worth undertaking’ (Korsgaard 1996, 101).

6. Velleman discusses Dennett's views in Velleman (2006, Chap. 9, ‘The Self as Narrator’).

7. Velleman discusses Korsgaard's views in Velleman (2006, Chap. 12, ‘Willing the Law’).

8. The claim that we have a motive to conform our actions to our self-conceptions is discussed in Velleman (2006, Chap. 10, ‘From Self Psychology to Moral Philosophy’).

9. In his article ‘Narrative Explanation’ (2003), which is not included in Self to Self, Velleman argues for a somewhat different account of the role of narrative, namely that narratives function to enable us to understand and resolve our emotions. For a related account of the function of narratives, see Goldie (2003).

10. The account of perspectival selfhood developed in the essay ‘Self to Self’ is thus consistent with Velleman's claim, discussed earlier, that the drive to self-understanding is a drive to reconcile the first-personal egocentric perspective with third-personal self-knowledge.

11. Velleman discusses this kind of imagining in ‘On the Aim of Belief’ in Velleman (2000).

12. Velleman's claim that in imagination I represent the notional subject as ‘me’ by stipulation recalls Wollheim's claim that in imagining myself as someone else I must consciously adopt that person's repertoire (Wollheim 1984, 76–79). The limitations of our abilities to adopt another's repertoire, in comparison with the ease with which we can draw on our own repertoires in memory and in imagining ourselves doing something in the future, accounts for our ‘unselfconscious’ identification with the notional subject of experiential memory and anticipation.

13. Another reason, which is discussed in the final section of ‘Self to Self’ (Velleman 2006, 200–2) in connection with branching identity, is that first-person reference is asymmetrical in fission cases. Before fission, Velleman argues, the person cannot identify unselfconsciously in anticipation with the first-person perspective of either of the products of fission, whereas in experiential memory they both have unselfconscious first-personal access to the pre-fission person.

14. On mental holism over time, see Slors (2004). See also Ricoeur (1992) and Wollheim (1984).

15. Against this claim, it might be argued that the notion of ‘psychological wake’ need not assume that the psychological relations between past and present and present and future are thick and complex in the way I have suggested. Perhaps all that is needed is that the future self has a memory of the past anticipation or future-directed intention. I don't think this thin conception of psychological wake is sufficient, for three reasons. First, although the examples we use in philosophical discussions can suggest that memories and future-directed intentions and anticipations are singular and discrete and that we can make sense of them without reference to other memories, intentions, anticipations, and dispositions, this does not seem to me to capture accurately what goes on in our mental lives. For example, the mental act of anticipating giving a paper at a conference only makes sense with reference to a complex network of related acts of remembering, anticipating and intending, and of actions that enact our intentions. I must keep alive my memory of the commitment I made to give the paper on that date, I must have undertaken a large number of different actions in order to organise my life and other commitments not only to set aside time to write the paper, but also in order to get myself to the conference—booking an airline ticket, making hotel bookings, making domestic arrangements, among others—and these different actions must have been preceded by different anticipations and future-directed intentions. I can only make sense of each of these separate actions, anticipations and intentions with reference to this complex network. Second, precisely because intentions, anticipations and actions are related via these complex networks, I need not actually remember a particular past anticipation or future-direction intention in order for my present action to be in its psychological wake. What creates the wake is the network and resulting dispositions, rather than each individual element of the network, assuming we can isolate individual elements. Third, for these reasons, I think that a thin conception of psychological wake is too thin to account for the kind of unselfconscious psychological engagement with our future perspectives that, on Velleman's analysis, explains why we care about our future selves. Thanks to an anonymous referee for this journal for pressing me to clarify this issue.

16. For a discussion of the distinction between purposeful activity and autonomous agency, see Velleman (2000, Introduction).

17. For a discussion of this distinction, see Velleman (2006, 280–82).

18. Velleman's analysis of actions as motivated by the higher-order aim of making sense of oneself is complex and I cannot do justice here either to this analysis, or to the issues raised in critical responses to Velleman's earlier work. For a detailed discussion of these issues, see the symposium in Philosophical Studies (Vol. 121, 2004). Velleman replies to some of the objections to his analysis of reasons for action in Velleman (2006, Chap. 11, Appendix B).

19. Contrary to Velleman's interpretation of Frankfurt in ‘Identification and Identity’, I do not think Frankfurt is committed to the existence of a deep metaphysical self, although Velleman is not alone in reading Frankfurt's notion of volitional necessity as implying such a commitment. True, Frankfurt does sometimes express his views in ways that invite a literal reading of his talk of a person's essence or essential nature. However, I think Frankfurt means by essence just what Velleman means in talking about motivations, beliefs and values that are essential to a person's self-conception. In his reply to ‘Identification and Identity’, Frankfurt himself takes issue with Velleman's analysis on just these grounds. See Frankfurt's ‘Reply to J. David Velleman’ (2002).

20. Wollheim discusses the way in which the psychic effects of the past resonate within our present perspective in his discussion of experiential memory. See Wollheim (1984, Chap. IV).

21. A further function of emplotment is to effect emotional catharsis, as Aristotle argued. See also Goldie (2003) and Velleman (2003).

22. For reconstructive approaches, see for example, Campbell (2006), Hacking (1995), Neisser and Fivush (1994) and Schachter (1996). For related approaches to memory, see also Schechtman (1994) and Wollheim (1984). The role of autobiographical memory in the construction of a narrative sense of self is discussed in the essays in Fivush and Haden (2003).

23. For discussions of the bootstrapping difficulties faced by Korsgaard in trying to derive Kantian moral norms from naturalistic premises, see Herman (2002) and Gowans (2002).