The Limits of Personal Identities
Should we be able to identify however we like? Would that be problematic and is there an ethical dimension? Should identities be challenged?
For example I could identify as a Police Officer. Is that problematic? Does it entail I should have to do some police work? Am I undermining the police force?
Is it problematic if identify as the worlds greatest painter and just think I am an attractive genius?
Obviously we probably cannot stop someone from mentally identifying as anything in the privacy of the mind but do personal identities (which could include religious identities) have a special status and should they be challenged?
For example I could identify as a Police Officer. Is that problematic? Does it entail I should have to do some police work? Am I undermining the police force?
Is it problematic if identify as the worlds greatest painter and just think I am an attractive genius?
Obviously we probably cannot stop someone from mentally identifying as anything in the privacy of the mind but do personal identities (which could include religious identities) have a special status and should they be challenged?
Comments (88)
No, it is knowingly, deliberately and demonstrably false. If you're pretending to be a police officer (no caps required for occupations) as a practical joke, in a theatrical performance or at a costume party, no problem. If you're doing it in the commission of a crime, serious problem.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Many people have many delusions and self-delusions. They are not considered crimes or misdemeanours, and only sometimes considered mental illness.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
By whom and in what context? If you identify as a police officer and try to arrest someone, they have a right to as for your ID; if you brought a suspect into the police station, the real officers on duty would certainly demand on what authority you did that. But I've never been required to prove parish membership when entering a church, and most people wouldn't be rude enough to question anyone's claim to be Muslim or Catholic. Of course if a minority religion is persecuted, its members would be challenged to prove they didn't belong to that religion, but I wouldn't blame them for lying.
To practice a profession or trade people should be required to present valid credentials; otherwise, let's just assume they are who- and whatever they say they are, until their true abilities and attributes are revealed. If it does no harm, I don't see why we should make it our business to identify other people.
Please don't put explosives under the police station building. If that's what you meant.
I think religious identities, special status and such are all socially imbued on a person. So there is a meaning to them beyond the silliness of being different due to a title. The public, the pnyotos, as the old Greeks called it, fears a person, or trusts a person or follows a person... these are not illusionary, but socially established.
So yes, you can challenge leaders, trusted people, loved people and feared people, but do be wary of the potential consequences.
There is no subjective test for being a police officer, I guess it is a common thing, but it is voluntary.
You can challenge their credentials, their qualifications, their decisions and their motives - but if you don't believe their self-professed identities, how did they ever become leaders, trusted people, loved people and feared people?
Youre only taking one side of the social agreements into account. People identify others in particular ways and not always fairly. In fact it is often done deliberately in order to subjugate or take advantage of others.
Any identity assigned by another person should be challenged asap. In the case a child's assigned identity, it takes years for the child to realize whether it actually fits or not. Sometimes a child designated 'stupid' or 'lazy' or 'ugly' or 'clumsy' grows into the assigned character, and doesn't realize that they ought to challenge it. This is less true of assigned gender, but more true of assigned ethnicity and religious denomination.
Through their actions.
And why do you take it as given that I don't believe their self-professed identities? Did I say or imply that? Please point me to the spot in my text that tells you that.
Or identified a gender that doesnt traditionally match their biology, making it quite clear that we can all make such distinctions, even from an early age.
In accordance with the OP question, that's what is being challenged.
Quoting praxis
Yes, I didn't want to wade into that particular quagmire. Children are usually clear on their own gender identity by age 7 or sooner. But they may be conflicted about declaring that, for fear of ridicule, rejection or punishment. Or be convinced that they must be wrong, because their elders know best. Or try to conform, be what's expected and feel guilty if they fail. For pre-pubescents, the issue is further complicated by the cultural trappings of gender-assignment. Young children imitate their role models. While a an eight-year-old girl who is confident in her role feels fine wearing jeans and playing with trucks, a child who has been designated male may strongly desire to wear dresses and play with dolls, the better to fit the stereotype of the gender with which they identify.
Quoting god must be atheist
Quoting Vera Mont
Vera, above my quote is the entire opening post. I only found references by the Opening Poster to professions, to some character details and to social standing. I think that's what he means by "self-professed identities", because his examples point exactly to those things. I answered him in kind. I can't see how it follows from there that I, like you claimed as given, don't believe in someone's self-professed identity. I am sorry, but it does not follow from that.
In the concluding paragraph, I took personal identities to mean something more fundamental than wearing a badge or saying you're a doctor when you chat up a woman in a bar. I concede it was a somewhat ambiguous question.
BTW - I didn't assume that didn't believe them; I assumed that you thought they could be challenged. As in, "Now, Mr. Wright, if that is your real name, when did you last see the deceased?"
Which could be said for a range of identites.
Quoting Vera Mont
What are the ramifications of this? In your opinion. If you care to comment?
I used the Police officer example to suggest how personal identities can be problematic and that we might want to (pardon the pun) Police them.
I think the painter example is useful to think about for a minute. (By the way, for the record I'm only focusing on this specific example at the moment and my analogy should not be preemptively extended too broadly).
You can think you are the best painter in the world, and that you produce great art. Let's say you make several art pieces, and go stand in a gallery with them proudly displayed. "I'm the best artist in the world," you proudly tell people who walk by, "and here I have produced the greatest art ever made. Look!"
While certainly not modest by any means, you are free to have that opinion about yourself and your artwork, and to make such claims about both.
Now imagine someone walks by, looks at your artwork, and says, "This isn't great art. Why, my 5 year-old can draw better than this. And for the record, [some other artist] is the best artist in the world."
Is this person entitled to their opinion? Of course. Should they be allowed to express that opinion? Yes. Equally as much as you can express yours. [Edit: We might suggest they phrase it in some more sensitive way, admittedly; the above example was pretty blunt!]
This can be generalized as "You should be able to say X, but others are allowed to say ~X." This forms the very basis for civilized discussion, where, ideally, growth and learning can happen.
* * *
But now going back to the example, what happens? If enough people tell you this, you may start to doubt your formerly-sky-high opinion of yourself. "Maybe I should have a little humility and practice a bit more," you may decide.
OR you could stubbornly press on and disagree with everyone else. You against the world! The struggling, misunderstood artist! You will probably be famous after you're dead, like other great artists!
This is an example of how there are (at least) two identities at play in any social interaction. The self-concept of an individual (how he sees himself), and the other-concept of the person interacting with him. Much like my Ship of Theseus discussion, these things will be different.
Furthermore, identity is a two-way street. It's a conversation that we have with others around us. We get our cues about a lot of things related to ourselves from those around us. We exist in community. In a similar way that we rely on others for physical survival (farmers to grow the food we eat every day, ex.), we see ourselves reflected back through them as a mirror. A lot of that is a good thing. Some can be harmful. But even negative feedback about oneself can be taken and turned into something positive.
Like if someone tells you that you suck as an artist. Maybe you feel hurt at first, and they should have expressed it more kindly, true. But upon further reflection you realize you do kinda suck, and it spurs you to become better.
The "identity is a two-way street" thing goes the other way, too. How you project yourself out into the world influences how others think of you. It isn't the only factor, but it's a strong one. This is why conmen and snakeoil salesmen exist.
That is a good point but I was talking about personal identities as opposed to imposed identities, social identities and stereotypes.
While there is a clear problem with imposing false identities on others it is somewhat inevitable arguably.
If we were discussing stereotypes and imposed identities I would say that other peoples evaluations would only be relevant to us if they have a professional capacity ( and even then with caution) Like an exam moderator/scorer, a doctor diagnosing something etc but we can't stop people drawing opinions about us.
It happend to me a lot (Judgements made on me) and now I think we have to develop confidence in our own identity (unless someone is being clearly oppressed) and not be swayed easily by other peoples assessments of us.
I think we now have a situation where people are encouraged not to question peoples identities and affirm them without criticism.
No, conmen exist because they are willing deceive and cheat others, taking advantage of the cooperative aspects of society for their own selfish gain.
The point is that we make many distinctions automatically. If a man looks like a man but behaves exactly like a woman then we tend to think of them as a man in appearance and a woman in gender.
If nothing else, they are projecting about themselves, "Believe me and what I tell you about [whatever they're trying to sell or convince about]; I'm trustworthy."
But really, that line was fairly minor in terms of my larger points. If you have any discussion on those I'd be interested to hear what you think. Going back to the whole, "we can discuss differences in ideas for the greater good," thing ;)
The intent to deceive?
Are you suggesting that being trans is necessarily deceitful?
I personally don't and I don't know who you are referring to exactly. If I mistake someone for the opposite sex it is usually based on physical appearance and usually women with short hair and a less curvy figures.
I don't have a gender identity and apparently that is being called "Agender." I am a tall bald gay male who is not very flamboyant but may give off signals.
My interests include baroque music and this/philosophy/learning but I don't like sports or cars and typical male interests but I also don't like fashion/make up and soap operas. If I did I wouldn't consider that my gender identity. I preferred the company of girls when I was a young boy. Now I prefer my own company.
I also couldn't do a high maintenance identity trying to convince people I was x. But a lot of people seem to find it harder to be themselves than try and conform.
There is the intent to deceive and then the intent to project an image that one prefers for ones self. A civilian dressing as police officer could be an intent to deceive.
But wearing make up, certain clothing, or things to project an identity could be an attempt to project or enhance one's self identity.
Someone might be deceiving one's self however in self presentation. We can deceive ourselves and hence portray a false image of ourselves not reflecting some facts about us.
Youre Agender but dont identify as Agender??? :chin:
I would be labelled agender by someone else. It is a bit like atheism relying on theism.
I can't make sense of the non grammatical form of gender.
I think there is a difference between desiring to be X and the ability to be X. If I desired to appear more of a typical man I probably couldn't and that would probably mean trying to project a (gender?) image through aping someone else.
This is the problem. You might not want to hurt someone by contradicting them but you also might not want to lie. It becomes a problem when you are forced to call someone the worlds greatest painter.
Maybe we have a moral obligation to affirm other peoples identities to spare them suffering but it becomes a farce if you are only falsely confirming their identity whilst holding the opposite view.
Worst case? Truly horrendous. One guy's delusion is that the Jews conspired to thwart his artistic ambition and his nation's aspiration to greatness, so he drags a nation into a disastrous war and genocide... with the resultant creation of a truly problematic new state where all the great global powers are locked in a fifty-year standoff, which eventually explodes in sporadic violence in a number of far-away countries, and a series of small but destructive local wars - all because a nation went went along with, shared in, the delusion.
Another guy's delusion convinced many generations of otherwise decent people that their beloved deity would sentence them to eternal torment for breaking his nonsensical rules.
Most of the time, it's harmless fantasy, with no ramifications.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Claiming to have an occupation or rank you do not have is not a personal identity; it's a simple deception or role-play or joke, depending on the circumstances. Unless you actually believe you are are a cop and try to arrest people, in which case you may be committed or arrested, depending on the consultant's verdict.
We've been over this. Why would anyone's job-description be their personal identity?
Now, if you believe you're a reincarnation of Gandhi or King Arthur, that actually is about personal identity; that's real mental illness.
The question probably is to what extent should one influence the other.
I think it is probably impossible to force someone to think something abut you. Such that we have limited control over other peoples minds without deception and coercion.
So the problem for me is any attempt to enforce someone else's opinion on someone else's identity.
Some identities seem to be for public consumption indeed. Some people make more effort to convey an identity to the public than others but this can lead to greater public rejection.
I am surprised you asked this.
A lot of peoples jobs are part of their identities and a valued part of their life. Finding out someone is a nurse could make you think they were a caring humane person and is part of their life history.
That is why some people convey a fake identity because it is an identity they wanted or it is an identity that is useful to them at some time. Such as evading capture or identity through elaborate disguise
The operative word there is "part". It is what they do - and they can change to another occupation - in fact, many people nowadays have to change several times during their working life. Gone are the days when an old geezer, forced to retire from his bookkeeping job, died six months later, because he had lost his identity. And many people have to take two or more crappy jobs to earn a living at all. I hope nobody in the world will ever have to live with 'stockboy' or 'gofer' as their personal idnetity.
No, you said it yourself. You clearly wrote: I don't have a gender identity and apparently that is being called Agender.
My identity is very important -- to me. Important enough that I spend quite a bit of time dithering about it -- privately. No, I have no doubts whatsoever about my past, present, or future sex, gender, or sexual orientation. I know where I come from, though my background is not necessarily consistent with where I find myself today (retired old gay man). I presented myself frankly: what you saw was what you got.
I have a strong preference for other people presenting themselves in their true colors. I do not like discovering that you (any 'you') is not who you seemed to be.
An example: When I went into a gay bar to pick up a trick (haven't done that in years) I wanted some certainty that the trick was, in fact, like what he seemed to be like. Once in a while, a trick turned out to be other than what he seemed to be -- not dangerous, just not as advertised. Annoying.
Same goes for work relationships, casual friendships, and the like. BE your identity. If you are actually a ruthlessly competitive SOB, be up-front about it. I can deal with ruthlessness; I can't deal with ruthlessness masquerading as gentle and loving good works. If you are pretty much a crook, own it. If you are practicing for sainthood, that's your problem. Just don't act like a bureaucrat to cover it up.
As a general existential principle, I don't believe we can be just anything we want to be. Nature and nurture stacked our decks before we could hold the cards. People are best advised to honestly be who they are, for better or worse.
Well, alll right!
I don't know what existence precedes essence has to do with all this, but it just popped into my mind as I was making this post. Perhaps, "you can be anything you want, baby."
I think you may be confusing different things here.
Identity is who you feel yourself to be. It may be necessary to conceal or disguise it, or you may be confused about some aspects of of it, and it may be difficult to express, but that's your actual self.
Self-presentation is something else again. That's not about who you are, but how you want others to see you. It is self-presentation that drives the cosmetic surgery, fashion, makeup and hairdressing industries, as well as a good deal of PR and advertising.
You may, for whatever reason, wish to present yourself as something entirely different from who you really are, but that doesn't change your identity; it's just pretend. It's also quite normal for people to present themselves slightly enhanced, a little better than their natural best, in order to attract mates, opportunities and friends. That doesn't change their identity, either.
People choose careers and invest a huge amount of time and effort becoming lawyers or doctors or senators, and that desire, that investment becomes part of their identity. Not all of it, because the same people also identify as husbands, mothers, golfers, siblings, Masons or whatever.
A person's identity is made up of whatever ingredients that person feels is essential to being themselves. Identities are complex; they can be stunted or crippled by early experience; they can be expanded and liberated by success in work or love or friendship or therapy. They grow and change.
A person reveals as much or little of their identity as they think is appropriate to - or safe in - a situation, and environment, a relationship or a social setting.
@Andrew4Handel I want to respond to something you said earlier, and clarify something:
Quoting Andrew4Handel
What I had in mind, in the bit you quoted from me, was the natural human psychological behavior of getting social cues about ourselves (our role in the group, how our actions affect others, etc.) from others outside ourselves. Part of our self-concept is informed by this. No one is an island. We are shaped and influenced by others, for better or worse, both subtly and powerfully. (Calls to mind the old advice about choosing your friends wisely)
Yet we can also exercise agency over this influence. It can be very helpful to learn about and understand the ways our environment (including, but of course not limited to, other humans) affects us. But that's a whole other thread.
With that in mind, I wanted to also touch on your question about "to what extent should one influence the other." It's a really good question. There's a certain freedom that comes from not worrying what others think about you - and that can free a person from imaginary chains that hold them back unnecessarily. So, "don't listen to other people, only yourself" is sometimes good advice in that regard because it can help people do more good, self-actualize, etc.
But there's another side, too. None of us are perfect, we make mistakes, have erroneous views of the world, and lack skills (such as the painter from the example before). We need others to point out areas in which we are deficient, and tell us how to do better. So in that sense, "DO listen to other people," is sometimes the way to go.
Like most things in life, it's a balance. Finding that balance is a big part of the Art of Living Well. Eudaimonia.
The reason Sub-Saharan Africans were enslaved and Arabs, Indians, etc were not, is the shameless nakedness of the latter 'proved' that they were less than human. we should not pretend that we are beyond such things, when the whole organisation of society right down to toilet facilities rests on such primitive notions.
There is a natural disgust for human waste - cattle also avoid eating around their own droppings. this is extended to menstrual fluids, and becomes gendered such that self-disgust and its projection onto the world is a particular female proclivity. See also for example, trypophobia.
The interweaving of instinct, social conditioning, and individual variability all contribute to the establishment of personal identity. We are coyly pretending that we are talking generally about all kinds of identity, but we all know somewhere, that what matters in any encounter with otherness, is to accurately identify the range of appropriate responses. Here you come, and shall I run from you, fight you, fuck you or eat you? Or some combination of these? Knowing the difference between a legitimate MD and a quack, or between a policeman and a postman is also potentially useful, but a minor, secondary question.
There are primal fears, and fundamental taboos in play in this discussion. The careful exposure of these to the insight of all participants is the prerequisite for anything approaching a rational or philosophical analysis.
Failing that, we are, alas, reduced to mere politics.
Quoting unenlightened
I'm glad you immediately went there, so to speak @unenlightened. Let me try to make a "babies first" account of personal identity so that it can be ripped apart.
The first account, I'll call it the "felt account":
(Felt account): The felt account goes like this, people are who or what they identify with. What suffices for a person to have the identity X is:
( 1 ) The person can truthfully say "I identify as X".
( 2 ) The person expresses a behavioural commitment to behave like an X.
( 3 ) The person feels like they are an X.
I think that's what @bert1 was calling the "subjective account". It seems to work, at face value, for some things. It might work for X="A star wars fan". If they say they are a star wars fan, express their like for Baby Yoda plushies and has a positive disposition (feels like) towards Star Wars... Then they're a fan.
Even in that case though, there are some things which are unsaid. Some holes. You can say you're a Star Wars fan, you can feel like one, you can express a behavioural commitment to be a Star Wars fan... But if you don't watch the movies, don't know any of the lore, haven't read any of the books, played any of the games... You can say you're like that, you can express a commitment to Star Wars, but you don't act on it at all. That doesn't seem like a Star Wars fan at all. Why? Because the person behaves indistinguishably from someone who is not a Star Wars fan. And allegedly the statements of the "felt account" sufficed. This is a wedge between having an opinion+feeling it and behaving as if you have that opinion and feel like it.
The bullet could be bitten, and we could assert that what someone identifies with like in the "felt account" really is the person being that identity. In that respect committing to an identity doesn't make anyone need to behave in any characteristic way associated with that identity, just express a commitment too. The "hole" is between planning and execution, and it could be seen as a natural one.
There do seem to be stronger violations of the felt account though, falling in line with these characteristic properties. Someone can satisfy all of ( 1 ) through ( 3 ) but isn't, as was previously stated, a police officer. Why? Because they don't act like one. If insist on the felt account, it would mean someone can sit in their home, have no police training, never go to work as a police officer, but still be a police officer.
[hide=*](I have been italicising words so that "commitments", "characteristics" and "identification" are all emphasised together)[/hide]
That bullet, too, could be bitten. An identity in the "felt account" could be entirely severed from any social role. Someone could identify as a police officer without working as one. And in that regard an the identification is severed from social commitments entirely. I think that is odd though, at least contrary to common sense understandings of identity. Why?
You could say something like: "I identify as a police officer but I am not one" or "I identify as a Star Wars fan but I am not one"... Those make very little sense. They seem to be akin to Moore's paradox, in which a commitment to a state of affairs is expressed, but the state of affairs is negated. "It is raining but I believe it is not raining"; the act of assertion itself is a claim to truth on the part of the speaker. Similarly, the act of asserting identity seems to be a claim to being one. That goes against the felt account.
The first species of holes is between who I feel I am and who I am. It seems that feelings alone don't cut the mustard. The nature of those holes is brought into relief by inverting the account, which brings us to the second account. Focussing entirely on behaviour.
Any comments before I word vomit more?
If the SS say you're a Jew, it really doesn't make much difference what you feel, say, or do. Just get in the cattle truck. Psychiatrists, social workers, doctors immigration officials and judges are all empowered to decide your identity for you. Or indeed against you.
The trick is discerning which others give useful constructive criticism, and which are harmful to our self-esteem. It's not always easy, because well-meaning relations who do have helpful insight are sometimes tactless in their communication; lovers or friends may be too kind and hold back the truth, while some well-spoken rival may use guile to undermine our self-image and adversaries may exaggerate our faults and shortcomings to erode our confidence.
Quoting unenlightened
I like that summary - or the dog's classification of encounters. We don't get much from sniffing bums, so we look, listen and exchange some kind of greeting. That's what makes apparel so important. Not just the concealment of genitalia, but the display of sex, class, rank, marital status, occupation, material wealth, maturity, temperament, inclination. Voice, too, timber, tone, accent, enunciation, vocabulary and syntax all reveal not only how we are situated in society, but a good deal about our antecedents, self-image, attitudes and aspirations.
I've never liked physical contact with strangers, from the time I was patted on the head or had my cheeks pinched as a small child... right up until some time in hospital, when I perforce let go of that reserve. In between, I learned to accept handshakes; never did get used to the instant hugging that's standard in some circles. The greeting is like showing a badge: if you know the special handshake or use the correct salute, bow or curtsy, extend one hand or two, kiss one cheek or both - these greetings tell the other person whether you belong to their "us" or not, and if not, some indication of which 'them' you're a part of. Makes all the difference in the next step of aquaintance.
My teeth hurt from biting bullets - wish you'd brought toast instead. My problem with felt account is: where would such a feeling and commitment originate, if not from previous positive experience? Why would anyone imagine himself a Star Wars fan without having seen and admired the films?
The other one, identifying as a police officer, could be a fantasy role in the same way as fandom - from watching fictional police at work and believing that those imaginary guardians or peace and good order are better than you are as a real person. (Why this putative 'you' had such low self-esteem is moot, for the moment.) You don't have to 'work as' your role model; only to imagine. But it can evolve from fantasy to impersonation - where you actually dress up in a uniform and buy the weapons (the weapons seem to be crucial) and on to delusion: some impressionable people who identify with police do act out; they go into the street and shoot 'bad guys'.
Absolutely! I think this is something which the felt account, and an account based on behaviour also miss.
Will detail an "only behavioural" account for it now. I'll call it the "only behavioural account".
(Only Behavioural Account): The following suffice for someone to have an identity X:
( 1 ) The person acts characteristically of how people with identity X act.
So someone will count as being a Star Wars fan if they act as one. That now includes going to see the films, owning Baby Yoda models and all that. The things which would be expected of a Star Wars fan. For this account, if someone said "I'm not a Star Wars fan" while behaving characteristically as one, it wouldn't matter... They would still be a Star Wars fan. Their feelings and intentions toward Star Wars don't matter, only whether they've eg. bought stuff and gone to movies.
Looking at this in terms of Moore's Paradox statements reveals an asymmetry between the Only Behavioural Account and the Felt Account. The assertion "I identify as X but I am not an X" is very Moore-ish, because both statements with the but between both act as identity claims, the first identifying with X and the second expressly not identifying with X. But trying to asset having behaved characteristically of an identity category doesn't ring as wrongly. Why it doesn't ring as wrongly I believe says something about how we understand identity.
Eg: "I've been to all the Star Wars movies, have read all the books, but I've never been a Star Wars fan", it would be improbable behaviour, but doesn't strike as a contradiction in terms as the felt account's assertion did. When someone asserts an identity of themselves, "I am an X", they are not thereby committing themselves to a list of concrete events immediately, just the general understanding of what an X is. Star Wars fans may argue about whether someone can even count as a Star Wars fan if they've not read the 1990s Bounty Hunter trilogy. Thus no definitive list of characteristic behaviours of a Star Wars fan is both necessary and sufficient for being a Star Wars fan as the predicate "is Star Wars fan" is commonly ascribed. This characterises "is a Star Wars fan" as more like a property cluster than as an extensional definition of sub-predicates which every Star Wars fan satisfies.
Some proper subsets of the cluster may be necessary, some may be sufficient, but pulling it apart goes against the normal use of the phrase. If you've behaved characteristically of an asshole, that hasn't made you an asshole.
I can see two major holes with the Only Behavioural Account. Firstly, it doesn't seem to work with all identities, secondly property clusters might provide a list of features to take into account for an assessment of whether a person has identity X - but it doesn't provide a social mechanism for them having identity X.
Examples;
For the first issue: a vigilante may behave characteristically of a police officer. Patrolling a beat, stopping crimes, checking in on families, removing people selling illegal goods from bars... Satisfying a large chunk of a property cluster... But they are not a police officer. Similarly, someone who is a police officer in Poland is not a police officer in the UK and vice versa, even though their behaviours would overlap in the property cluster of the identity "police officer" a lot.
For the second issue: let's say I presented you with the question:
This person does the following things: patrols a beat, stops crimes, checks in on families, removes people selling illegal goods in bars, stops fights, arrests people, provides largely untrained counselling to the mentally ill... What's their job?
You'd rightly be able to answer "police officer". But if you applied that to police officer in Poland, it would not suffice to demonstrate that they are a "police officer" in the UK. Even though they:
( A ) Exhibit the same property cluster and
( B ) Locational properties are not part of the property cluster. You can tell someone's a bobby from the list, you don't need to know where they are.
In that regard, if a police officer in the UK asserted "I am a police officer", truthfully they must count as a police officer in the UK under the law, not just as a police officer by the property cluster.
In both examples, external norms seem to render identifications as determinative. This, secretly, is also part of the Behaviour Only account, as what counts as a characteristic property for an identity is also - at least partially - determined by an agent's relationship with binding norms. Eg, the general understanding of what it means to be a Star Wars fan, and what institutional rites need to apply to the agent to make them a police officer over and above the constituents of the property cluster.
Just as @unenlightened said, when you look at personal identity closely, not even the bits which are "in you", or that "you feel" come even close to establishing your identity. In that regard, personal identity is deeply impersonal. Thus something like an institutional account of personal identity needs to be explored.
Quoting Vera Mont
Absolutely. In normal circumstances someone would not assert they like something truthfully unless they behave as if they like it. This logical gap between personal expression and behavioural commitment is what I wanted to highlight with the account; folk understanding of identity I believe bundles behavioural commitments and expressions of sentiment together - as a correlation. And perhaps as a larger property cluster.
Edit: I forgot to bite the bullets for the only behaviour account, I shall try to do so soon.
A being who cannot see his own ears has less of an ability to determine his own identity, Im afraid, than someone else. His vantage point and periphery is minuscule in comparison. Another person could do a lap around him, address what stands before his eyes, and give a more accurate description of what he feels, smells, sees etc. than one could have done of himself.
A personal identity ought to be challenged on these grounds, not to disrespect someones account of themselves, but to better inform him of how he appears from beyond his limited periphery.
:up: It's consistent to believe I'm not a man while it's in fact the case that I am a man or in more general terms it is consistent to believe x while it's not x and vice versa. Doesn't bode well for the LGBTQ community I'm afraid. It boils down to the difference betwixt facts and beliefs - not the same thing and the problem is more widespread, it's almost everywhere, this.
"I had to, it's my job as a film critic." The well known 'jobsworth' defence.
Quoting NOS4A2
Have you heard of a device called a mirror? It's like a 'someone else', but without the agenda.
Identity is relational. I am exactly like you in my uniqueness. You are one of us, unless you are one of them. There is always a mutuality of connection or disconnection. Your behaviour and feeling are identified in relation to my behaviour and feeling. Identity is irrevocably social, except to the extent that it is ineffable. Even Crusoe only becomes significant in relation to firstly his origins, and secondly his relation to the deprivation of the social, and thirdly to his 'other' as Friday. The desert island trope is the exemplar of the social nature of identity - the limit of individuality. Crusoe is the absolute monarch of nowhere.
Just as in language, identities are conventions based upon personal choice. As such, a society may or may not accept the identity chosen by an individual. Therefore, one can identify oneself however one likes to the extent that society permits.
Fundamentally, that is why identities are so controversial.
Because identities are conventions, they should be challenged as society sees fit. That does not, however, limit the freedom of a particular social circle to gather and have, say, a clown or a wolf party, because they identify as such.
This very freedom differs entirely from the possibility of challenging an identity. In other words, just because society considers best not to convene in recognizing a particular identity, doesn't mean they will be sanctioned in any way from doing so.
Everyone can do whatever they want, the limit being disorder, disrespect, offense, and so on. And society also has the right not to recognize their identity choice as a public element.
I could glean more of your identity from your ID card than I could by having any relations with you. Personal identity is not relational; its actual. Whatever connections we imagine exist between each other hold as much information about our identity as they do mass, which is to say none. His proximity to others, his social interactions, the number of friends he has, do not tell us what he is. To use them as grounds to an identity is to misidentify.
Yes. Its roots are in DNA and cultural heritage and grows on the individual like the rings of a tree, through life experience, interactions and memory. It doesn't change by external designation or an observer's description of physical traits. You may attain the rank of colonel and acquire the nickname Colonel Nosehair, but, unless you deeply identify with the rank and the facial flora, that is not who you are; it is a role you play.
Identity is personal. Because of the attitude of a group you happen to be in at the moment, or the society at large, you may choose to disclose much or little of your actual self. Among fans, you may identify as a fan, even though Star Wars, which you like well enough to understand the references, occupies only a tiny fraction of your attention; among armed racists, you probably wouldn't advertise your Black grandmother.
What we do in public is play assigned roles. Among friends, we let our guard down in some degree, but don't disrobe entirely. Even in intimate relationships, we continue to reserve a core of separateness.
Lets clarify "identity". Do you mean an identity within a group of other people, or a self-identity?
In the case of self-identity, identify yourself however you want. As long as it doesn't get you killed or harm yourself, no foul. In the case of a social identity, you can attempt to identify yourself however you want, but people do not have to accept this.
In the case of a "Police Officer", you're indicating an identity that contains a status behind it that indicates training, accountability, and social authority. If you identify as a police officer without these, then you are a problem to society.
In the case of identifying yourself as a genius, other people are going to have to agree with you. Surround yourself with some people, and they may agree with you, or at least let you hold this belief among that group.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
I would argue they can be challenged if someone sees that harm is coming to the individual or those around them. Other then that, unless someone brings those identities into the public purview, it really isn't anyone else's business. Many times our self-identities are how we get through our day. If its working for us, then let it slide.
Relations are actual. For example, my relation to my identity card is that I do not have one. Your relation to my identity card is blithe assumption that there is such a thing. Knowing is itself relational between knower and known.
Tell us about this actual personal identity that does not relate to the world. Of course it is impossible, because to speak at all is to relate to the public world. A private identity is nothing other than the way a fragmented consciousness relates to itself - a mere beetle in a box.
I identify as the greatest metaphysician of all time. It is problematic for me, because I need to keep this fact undercover so that I do not end up like Socrates. So I intentionally hide my true identity from others, and present myself as an idiot.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Considering what I wrote above, where does my deception lie? Am I deceiving others in not portraying my true self? Am I deceiving myself by portraying a false image which others can see through, seeing the true me? Or am I deceiving myself by thinking that I am something other than what others see me as?
Yes. They are transactions between two or more separate personal identities.
Quoting unenlightened
Who said a person doesn't relate to the world? But something actual has to exist as a discreet entity before it can relate to anything else that exists.
Relations are actual. I get my 3 ducks in a row; their relation is being "in a row". That's an actual row of existing ducks, but not 'three ducks and a row' 4 existing things.
Quoting Vera Mont
I am saying that you cannot say anything about your personal identity as unique inner being, but only describe your relations to the world, and this is because language has to be public, not private.
If they are actual ducks, we know nothing more about their identities. Are they live ducks, drakes, wild ducks, white Pekins, dead ducks, wooden decoys, squeaky rubber ducks, fuzzy toy ducks?
We know nothing about their relation to one another except their current spatial arrangement. Are they siblings? Rivals? Three amigos? Consecutive items off an assembly line with no relatives at all?
All we know about their relationship to you [an unidentified 'I'] is that they are your property and that you placed them in some arbitrary row.
We do know that actual ducks with actual individual identities had to exist and that an owner, 'I', with an individual personality had to exist before the 'I' could form a row of them.
Quoting unenlightened
Why? Language may be shared, though not all languages are accessible to all publics, and not all the speakers of any particular language actually speak or understand the same language, but that doesn't mean it must always be shared, or that the vocabulary is unavailable for private use.
Also, human and other baby animals who have not yet acquired language do exhibit a personality, and have a sense of identity, before they can communicate in words, and people at the other end of life, who have lost the power of speech but not memory still retain their inner identity.
The fact a man can relate to the public world says something about his identity, sure, but not much. Man can do many things, like digest food, but it ought not imply that his identity is gastrointestinal. The actions one performs, his beliefs, his proximity to the rest of the world are secondary to, and indeed contingent upon, the thing that performs them.
It is similar with other senses of relation which we seem to be equivocating between here. The fact you do not have an identity card doesnt tell us much about who or what does not have an identity card.
A dictator is identified by their sole dictation of the status quo. A charitable person is identified by their servitude of the impoverished and "greater good" according to them.
A master/genius painter is identified by collective opinion, popularity or notierty of their work and its impact on the sphere of art, creativity, authenticity, muse and inspiration - whether one becomes an entrepreneur of a new art movement or is lost in the static white noise of mediocrity.
Celebrities are identified by their association to how "seen" they are - how influential their opinions, views, talents and contributions are recognised by the general population.
We are free in one sense to identify however we wish. That is our privacy of mind. But if our behaviour (the outcome from our perceived self identity) doesn't match the common definition - few are likely to believe us.
But the acceptance/tolerance or credence of an identity is judged by law, reasoning, culture and ethics.
If I want to identify as a criminal, many will be opposed to it. It doesn't mean I can't. It just means the identity will be met with majority opinion and whatever backlash and sanction that comes with that. If I want to identify as suicidal, again many will exert opposing effort to prevent me from enshrining the definition or convincing others of embracing it for themselves.
People can be proponents for or against any identity based on their personal assumptions of the definition. But usually it is based on whether it sits right or wrong within their personal moral compass.
The law in a strong and educated democracy reflects the collective moral conscience. That's why dictators must erode democracy and the legal system with convincing but untrue propaganda if they are to last any length in power.
Science on the other hand deals with how we all identify. What binds us as products of physics, chemistry and biology. It focuses on commonality and objective consistency that applies across the board.
The opposite is the case. things are secondary and intuited from their relations. Look and you can see it is the case How do you come to know the nature of man? Or the nature of a duck? By relating as observer to observed. The relation of observation gives rise to the object and the subject.
But this is way to theoretical for this thread.
If you ask someone who they are, or what they are, they will typically give you some of a name, nationality, some ancestry maybe, occupation, hobbies, address, age, medical history, significant others, bibliography, favourite music, ice cream flavour, etc, religious affiliation, political ditto, and so on and on for as long as you like.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Now here, I think Andrew is trying to convey to us something of his own feelings about himself as a gendered/sexual being. Which is that he finds he cannot really relate to it, at all. he fails to have any feelings about it. He is like the famous Buddhist in Northern Ireland, being asked if he is a Catholic Buddhist or a Protestant Buddhist. And when you have to answer questions of identity that make no sense to you, you are liable to get into trouble.
Facilities in the US used to be racialised, now they are only gendered. And woe betide you if you went into the wrong place. Even the most intimate and private features of the person - nay, especially the most intimate and private features of the person, are the most rigidly defined and enforced socially, both by law and by custom, by police and vigilante.
You have to be one or the other, Protestant or Catholic, Male or Female, Republican or Democrat; and if you are not - that is to say, you do not feel yourself to be - one thing or the other as socially defined, the feelings you are left with are loneliness, confusion, and fear. Because you have to use the facilities regardless, you have to live on one side of the wall (or the tracks) or the other, regardless.
The most highly policed aspect of personal identity of all, is of course the most personal of all, one's thoughts. A couple of psychiatrists can lock you up forever without a trial. So think happy thoughts, children.
Good advise. So you'll always find me where they want me to be. But the happy thoughts...?
Intuited by what? Who are they that have relations? The cart is pulling the horse.
1. Who are you?
2. What do you want?
Quoting Vera Mont
I think any problems associated with personal identity or the identifications exclaimed by others, comes from the fact that we don't know where we came from or why we are here.
Even the true history of the situation that Vera refers to above remains unconfirmed.
After reading books like Caesars Messiah by Joseph Atwill and Creating Christ by James S. Valliant, Warren Fahy and looking at some of the stuff offered by Dr Richard Carrier and mythicist groups such as Derek Lamberts Mythvision podcasts. I find much of their evidence quite compelling, that there was no historical Jesus and the vast majority of all religious characters, are based on satire and parodies of real humans, who lived and fought against such rising empires as the Romans.
The trouble has always been that 'the victors write the history.' They also destroy any evidence they come across, that contradicts their story.
So for now, our quests for truths continue, and we will continue to be forced to be suspicious about each other. This will NEVER change, until we find many more truths that we can PROVE, are as close to an objective truth as we are ever going to get. Praying for such truths is pointless, so we only have Science and the musings of philosophy to progress us.
Indeed it is, and the horse equally, (or a little bit more, hopefully,) is pulling the cart, and the tension of pulling is the relation that makes something of them. I'm waiting for someone who disagrees to tell me something about something that does not relate it to another thing. But I'm not holding my breath.
Everything relates to everything else in some way. Therefore, nothing and nobody has any identity at all; it's just one big jiggly-wobbly mass of vibrating strings.
I wasted the first two.
For example if you are black you are black and you won't become white by identifying as white and vice versa (Rachel Dolezal). The act of identification seems to be an appraisal of the truth of a claim. Am I a man? Yes AM I pianist? Yes
Personal identity probably consists in facts about yourself in one sense or just Personal facts about you such as height, job description, intelligence, preferences.
Self appraisal and the appraisal of others could consist of numerous things but without necessarily carrying truth.
I don't think you can create a true personal identity by wishful thinking or artifice. People might misidentify you if you are a non police officer dressed as a serving officer etc.
Because we consists of a huge range of things including biology, memories, life decisions, life events etc there probably isn't a word or a few words to encapsulate a personal identity. An autobiography might be more accurate.
We are biological organisms (animalism: Snowdon 1990, 2014, van Inwagen 1990, Olson 1997, 2003a).
We are material things constituted by organisms: a person made of the same matter as a certain animal, but they are different things because what it takes for them to persist is different (Baker 2000, Johnston 2007, Shoemaker 2011).
We are temporal parts of animals: each of us stands to an organism as your childhood stands to your life as a whole (Lewis 1976).
We are spatial parts of animals: brains perhaps (Campbell and McMahan 2010, Parfit 2012), or temporal parts of brains (Hudson 2001, 2007).
We are partless immaterial substancessoulsas Plato, Descartes, and Leibniz thought (see also Unger 2006: ch. 7), or compound things made up of an immaterial soul and a material body (Swinburne 1984: 21).
We are collections of mental states or events: bundles of perceptions, as Hume said (1739 [1978: 252]; see also Quinton 1962, Campbell 2006).
There is nothing that we are: we dont really exist at all (Russell 1985: 50, Wittgenstein 1922: 5.631, Unger 1979, Sider 2013).
This seems true for me.
But could it be illusory?
Are we same person through time or have we changed in many ways without realising it?
I believe I am the same sex and sexual orientation and the same person that went to a particular school decades ago. But I know some of my beliefs and values have changed.
I still have a love of classical music and playing musical instruments and I have always been philosophical. I discovered a love of music of black origin and lost an interest in cookery.
Something persists in me that allows me to know I am the same person over time. It may be a soul or spirit or just a persistence of core memories.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
To start from the position that our personal identity is largely consistent over our life time makes practical sense because we cannot monitor ourselves as objective external observers. We do have some capacity to compare who we seem to be now with who we now think we were 30, 30, 40 years ago. I don't feel disassociated with the past 76 years, so... I suppose I am a lot like the 'me' that I was in 1965 or 1975.
I gain confidence in life-long continuity because we can observe others more objectively as external observers. Other people seem to remain "who they are" -- until they don't. Dementia means a diminution of mind -- a terrible thing to witness first or second hand. People with dementia are NOT the same people they used to be.
Could our sense of continuity be 'illusory'? Just for discussion purposes... it could be. In fact, to some limited extent "personal continuity over time" probably IS an illusion--to some extent. But of our personal continuity is an illusion, how is it that we can see continuity and discontinuity in other people?
I prefer to keep spirits out of this.
None of your business! He tells you who he is; you have no reason to doubt his veracity, respect him and accept it.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
You are the same person, undergoing constant change, like everything else in the universe. Your memories run through your life like the string in a bead necklace - if you lose a memory you lose part of your identity. People with Alzheimer's rely increasingly on other to hold their identity for them, to keep sticking detached pieces back on.
Quoting fdrake
Neither what is only in you nor what is externally institutional get at how we understand language. The two need to be intimately interwoven such that the meaning of an identity is always only partially shared.
As Joseph Rouse argues,
We find ourselves already thrown into some abilities-to-be and not others, in a meaningful situation whose salient significance is responsive to how we press ahead into those possibilities. Both whether to continue in those roles, and what those roles would demand of us, is not already determined, however, but is at issue in whether and how we take them up. If I am a parent or a teacher, what it is to be a parent or teacher is not already determined but is continually worked out in how I take up those roles and respond to what they make salient in my situation. What I and others have been doing all along is at issue in those ongoing responses, along with what the practice and its roles and disclosures would thereby become. The disclosedness of my role or vocation is the space of intelligible possibility opened by our mutual involvement with one another in ongoing patterns of practice whose continuation and significance are not already determined but are instead determinative of who and how we are.
Can you pass the hooch please? The inference that this is how statements of trans identity work is yours. It could be that someone asserts they're not a man when they are a man, that doesn't mean this characterises trans women. It characterises people who say they're not a man when they're a man. Your view on gender alone characterises what would be false or true in it...
Anyway, the assumption that trans identities work by "the felt account" is wrong anyway IMO. As @Vera Mont pointed out, people almost never makes the assertions in "the felt account" without having the behavioural commitment. Whether the behavioural commitment being real + the felt account suffices for an identity to be appropriately ascribed isn't something we've discussed yet.
I'd tend to "no" because institutions also decide identities. People definitely can be murderers without feeling like one (behaviour and accurate identity ascription without felt or stated identity), people can consistently behave like a thing without being it or identifying as it- the police officer example, a reluctant owner and attendee of Star Wars objects vs a fan - and people can definitely be socially identified as Jews (as far as the Nazis are concerned) just by being branded as such. Feelings or behaviour be damned.
So it seems to me what you've done is
1) Assume the "felt account" accurately describes assertions of gender identity.
2) Assume a specific theory of how gender identity works ("facts vs beliefs")
3) Read 2 into 1.
C'mon man.
On the face of it, you're flip-flopping between two definitions of man/woman. It's an interesting fallacy you commit, there should be a name for it (it's that awesome).
When I grow up I'm going to have a face.
Quoting Joshs
If you can translate this out of Heideggerese for the purposes of this thread, I'd really appreciate it. I do think there's good things to pursue in that approach, but I don't think it's right to turn the discussion into more Heidegger quibbles.
Quoting universeness
Have you been watching Battlestar Galactica?
Ok. It's just that after the worldwide trans phenomenon, the ability of straight peeps to tell man from women has been brought into question. The onus then naturally falls on trans folk to edify and enlighten us (if it isn't just a "felt account"). I've watched a few video interviews of trans people and they seem as confused as everybody else.
Aye. This is one of the hurdles. The widespread acceptance of the identity potentially perturbs a lot of norms and ways of thinking. One might be, as you're saying, that people don't understand who they are to the degree that they can give necessary or sufficient conditions for constituents of their identity. The hard part of wrestling with this for me is that whenever something seems remarkable about how widespread acceptance of trans identities impact discourse, it's largely in recognising something which was true already but either neglected or uncomfortable to admit.
Like people not being able to understand who they are or why they are the way they are. Being able to do that means telling a story more complicated than the one in this thread. Fortunately that also applies to any identity. Why are you you? Why are you a man or a woman? Do you know? On what basis? Is that basis adequate?
All of it permits many a devastating tu quoque. As soon as something seems remarkable, it turns out to be a mirror of unarticulated aspects of our own lives. Meaning what we took for granted we can't any more. Genie will not go back in bottle, even if rubbed the right way.
No, Babylon 5, since it first came out!
The Vorlon main question 'Who are you?'
The Shadows main question 'What do you want?'
I get those two series confused all the time.
:scream: You have no idea how painful that was for me to read!
You are a little bit sadistic sir!
You know that arc where the cylons entrap the Centauri and make a base on their home world?
Ouch again! You continue your onslaught like a mad shadow all wacked out on scooby snacks!
I will task the technomages to come out of their hiding places and deal with you if you don't stop!
I did like some of them replicant cylons in nylons that appeared in the remake of BSG however.
This quote from Joseph Rouse belongs to a paper in which he critiques Steven Crowells Heideggerian account of identifying with a vocation. Even though he is channeling Heidegger to an extent here , his overall project owes more to recent ideas in ecological biology (niche construction) and the later Wittgenstein than to Heidegger, and his main interlocutors come from the Analytic tradition( Sellars, Davidson, Putnam, Brandom, Haugeland, McDowell).
His central interest concerns how conceptual understanding, as a form of biological niche construction, forms and is reciprocally shaped by both discursive and material interactions with an environment. The point he is trying to make is that as individuals we are not simply locked into particular conceptual norms , even if only temporarily. Every moment of interchange allows for the contestation and re-defining of those norms in partially shared contexts of discourse. Identities are placed over us from the culture, they are redetermined in each context, for each participant of a language game.
The symbol that has served us the greatest as an identity is the personal name. It has a referent that is found in nature, and is the object upon which all other identities are pinned. Any other identity is without a referent, and therefor only serves to describe rather than identify.
I think it's the personal pronoun. Names only identify from the outside. Pronouns identify from inside as well as in relationships.
A pronoun is a word that is used in place of another noun. They serve grammatical functions, mainly, something like pointing to an object in the environment or conversation, or to avoid repetition. So I dont think they can serve well as identities whenever we want to identify the antecedent.
'What's in a name?' Is always an interesting question. I would suggest a 'name' is just a label but it's a label based on human intellect. You make clothes so I name you Tailor. You work with steel (or your ancestor did) so you family label is 'steel' or maybe even stalin(Russian 'steel' also associated with 'man of steel'/superman). A native tribesman might label you 'dances with wolves,' or 'make much wind,' etc.
So, I don't think
Quoting NOS4A2 is valid.
I think we need to consider any aspect of a human being that is present from the moment we come into cognitive existence, that could be applied to questions such as 'who am I?' and 'what do I want.'
How a person reacts to any given sensory input, instinctively/intuitively/logically/emotionally is part of their 'identity.'
The next aspect which directly affects personal identity in my opinion is 'experiential.'
Every experience you have has some impact on the pliable aspects of personal identity.
A person might identify as a 'pessimist', but their 'experiences,' can totally change this.
A child can be moulded into an adult emotionless killing machine, but it's still possible to counter such 'intense lifelong training.'
Ask yourself, 'what would/could change 'who I am or what I want?' If you can come up with a scenario that could change who you are or what you want, at a fundamental level. Then your 'personal identity' is mainly pliable.
But there may be 'aspects' of personal identity that may be immutable from birth but I don't know of an irrefutable example of such. I don't think sex qualifies as an immutable aspect of personal identity and gender certainly, does not qualify.
In grammar. In identity, however, "I" is known by the infant before it is named, before it knows its species. The only 'other' it knows is "thou", the mother or caregiver - and possible "them" if it has litter-mates.
I think (but I have not confirmed for sure) that Arden Hart (on the left) is a trans-man and Doctor student Ben (on the right) is a trans-woman. I don't know, to what extent they have made surgical or 'pill based' hormonal physical changes to themselves but I find the conversations they have with each other, and with online callers, to be very informative indeed, for a person such as me, who they would label a 'cis' male. If you want to watch the example below, note that it is 2.5 hours long and it takes about 3 or 4 minutes to get (load up/stream) to the actual presenters but I think its worth the time spent.
Edit: I just watched a new year podcast of 'The Line' with Jimmy Snow, and Matt Dillahunty was on along with Doctor student Ben and Arden Hart (as described and shown above).
It turns out, Arden Hart is Matt Dillahunty's current partner. So a 'cis male' (Matt) whose partner is a trans-male (Arden).