The Problem of Moral Identity

Abstract

The concept of personal identity is now the focus of a wide variety of studies. In modern philosophy, the analysis of personal identity is addressed in connection with the consideration of problems in philosophy of consciousness, as well as ontological, epistemological, aesthetic, ethical, etc. problems. When applied to ethics, the concept of personal identity is usually explored in connection with the analysis of moral responsibility, as well as bioethical problems. Contemporary approaches to the concept of identity in the field of morality differ in that they are limited to transferring concepts of identity developed within the framework of various “metaphysical” approaches to the notions of morality (intuitive and non-conceptualized). The difficulties of this approach, which some authors recognize as failures, are due to the lack of ethical contextualization of the concept of personal identity. In order to understand how a personal identity is related to certain moral concerns and problems, it is necessary to fit the Self (like all these concerns and problems) into the concept of morality and discuss rather the very concept of moral identity as a concept set by ethics, than the various concepts of personal identity developed in an unethical context, in their relation to ethics. Analysis of ethical and philosophical approaches to understanding the issues relevant to the concept of moral identity in moral philosophy showed that this problem should be considered on the basis of moral philosophy, in the language of moral philosophy and taking into account the real diverse moral experience.