Drawing The Boundaries Of The Ethical Self

Drawing The Boundaries Of The Ethical Self

This paper evaluates some philosophical views regarding the self who is an ethical deliberator and agent-specifically the traditional atomistic individualist self and the expanded biocentric self of deep ecology. The paper then presents an alternative manner of thinking about the ethical self which avoids some of the philosophical difficulties of the foregoing views. This alternative draws on the recent work by Val Plumwood and Donna Haraway. Haraway's cyborg identity is a kind of self-in-relation (Plumwood's term) which allows for ethical deliberations that take relations with others seriously without losing individuality in problematic holism (as deep ecology does). Self-in-relation is defined by the relation of intentional inclusion. This relation is given a functionalist, non-mentalistic interpretation. The notions of ontological foresight and moral foresight are introduced to enable determinations of moral responsibility without falling back into the problematic universalism which otherwise results from the functionalist view of cyborg self-in-relation.

Ethical deliberation does not typically begin with an explicit articulation of the concept of self which underlies such deliberation. But a self is assumed, and usually in Western ethical thought it is an atomistic egocentric individual self. Ethical deliberation, whether deontological, utilitarian, or otherwise, assumed a self/other boundary of some kind, and such an assumption imports bias into our ethical conclusion. Ethical deliberations frequently focus on the interests or rights of individuals, without justifying the assumption of an egocentric individual self.

If the traditionally-assumed egocentric individual self ci...

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... the self which avoids the difficulties which result from the universalization of the deep ecology modes as well as those which result from individual egocentrism. Cyborg selves are neither isolated egos nor world-souls which merge individuals. Cyborg selves are contingent, multiple, adaptive, connected. The mutable character of cyborg selves points out the necessity for acknowledging, rather than assuming, the boundaries of the self as a part of ethical deliberation.

References

Haraway, Donna J. 1991. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge.

Plumwood, Val. 1995. "Nature, Self and Gender: Feminism, Environmental Philosophy, and the Critique of Rationalism." in People, Penguins, and Plastic Trees: Basic Issues in Environmental Ethics, 2d ed., eds. Christine Pierce and Donald VanDeVeer. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co.