MODULE 1: The Self from Various Perspectives

Part I: Philosophy

“Who am I” is a question that throughout the dawn of civilization haunted

humanity. "Who am I? What is my real self? What is my fundamental identity?" are
interrogations of the nature of selfhood that is said to be until now one of the most
puzzling and troubling process of inquiry. Ken Wilber, a contemporary philosopher,
explains that most often the inquiry leads one to identifying what is self by setting
boundaries from those things, which are considered not-self. When we are asked
“Who are you?” the answer that usually will come from us seems to involve this
process of drawing of a mental boundary or line that separates those what are
considered to be inside or what constitute the “self” from those that are outside the
line or what is the “not-self”. Self-identity then, explains Wilber, depends heavily
where we draw that boundary line. All possible answers then depend entirely on first,
where the drawing of the boundary line is made. All that is inside is “me” and what is
outside is “not-me”. “I am human and not a tree” or “I am brown and not white” or “I
am kind and not cruel” is a process of “I am this and not that.”

Philosophical theories have tried to explore and explain as to what constitute as

our real self or true nature, and what relationship this self might have to the material
body. To start exploring these conceptual positions, it is usually proper to turn to the
ancient Greek philosophy, and in particular the views of Plato, who first posed many of
the questions that remain to this day on the philosophical framework of the nature of
the self.

Plato

Plato have presented a very influential idea of the self or human nature, the view
that human life or existence is essentially a struggle between reason and desire, and
that, a struggle that reason ought and needs to win. For Plato and many thinkers who
come after him, reason is the 'higher' part of the human being, and desires are the
'lower' part that constitutes the primitive, irrational and the chaotic level. In these
explanations, human beings are usually identified most closely with his reason or with
his rational side. This is considered to be what we most centrally are or what we are at
the core of our being. Desires are seen as being less central though still part of us but
nevertheless in some sense foreign to us. This part of the human being needs to be
firmly controlled by reason or by the rational side. This just goes to say that we need
to exercise temperance and self-control. The desiring side if allowed to have its way,
the 'higher self' would be destabilized or undermined and we human beings would be
at the mercy of our irrational, unruly appetites and passions. This idea of human
nature resurfaces and reappears in various forms and modes in subsequent thought.
In fact, we can say that Christianity took over the idea of human life as a struggle
against desire.

Plato believes in the idea that the true self is made of reason or the intellect and
this is the one that makes up the so-called soul of the individual. This soul according
to Plato is separable from the body and constitutes our immaterial self and which he

Source: Understanding the Self. A compilation of readings and activities

MODULE 1: The Self from Various Perspectives
believes as indestructible and immortal. He describes the soul as consisting of three
parts: reason, desire and spirit. Reason is the level of the soul that knows reality, and
which also calculates and makes decisions. Desire is the irrational, and is composed of
the instinctive cravings, urges and appetites. This includes all the physical desires, such
as hunger, thirst and sexual desire. The third is what he calls the thumos or spirited
level. Plato believes that spiritual or mental health is achieved when all these three
parts are in harmonious balance with one another, each level playing its proper part in
the whole. Reason is central to Plato's explanation of knowledge and this also plays a
central role in his picture of the soul. For him, the appropriate role of the rational part
is to govern, to rule the other parts of the soul. The central role of the spirit is to
provide reason and with this to govern all the other parts or level of the self. The spirit
control and regulate the appetitive or desire part. According to Plato, problems and
conflicts arise if the self becomes unbalanced, unhinged from this stable relationship
where the various parts are not playing their proper role, and especially if reason is
unable to control the appetites. In this condition, the appetites rule over us, and we
become mere slaves of our desires.

Descartes, Kant

The influential conception of human nature as a struggle between reason and

desire, as proposes by Plato is perpetuated through Christianity and also very much
reasserted and reaffirmed through the rationalist accounts of Descartes and Kant.
They also frame human life as an endless battle between reason and passions. These
two philosophers, one coming from the seventeenth century (Descartes) and one
coming from the eighteenth century (Kant) formulate strongly rationalist versions of
the nature of the self where the soul or mind is to be identified with reason.

These two philosophers however, differ from Plato in some aspect. They excluded
desire, feeling and emotion---constituting the non-rational aspects-- altogether from
the soul and relegated these aspects solely belonging to the body. Plato has included
desire, feeling and emotion as aspects of the soul, even if only considered as the
'lower' part but for Descartes and Kant they serve only to disorder the soul. Emotions
and desires for them must be thoroughly excluded if we are to exercise our
reason and attain knowledge. According to Kant reason allows us to decide what is
the moral thing to do. They however clarify that even in these strongly rationalist
accounts, we cannot just exclude desires, emotions and feelings. These aspects of us
remain part of our overall self and make-up. They say however that we have to tame
and control them so that they will not rule over us. Kant strongly believes that reason
should take the driver seat because if not inclinations and emotions will rule over us.

Hume

Here, we introduce the eighteenth-century empiricist philosopher David Hume

who provides us with an alternative view from the position of a warring body and
mind, and conflicting reason and passion. According to Hume, reason does not play a
big role in the human make-up as proposed by Plato, Descartes and Kant. Hume does
not accept the identification of human beings with reason. He also does not subscribe

Source: Understanding the Self. A compilation of readings and activities

MODULE 1: The Self from Various Perspectives
to the idea that human beings are a battleground between reason and desire. He
does not believe that there is struggle and conflict between reason and the passion.
He believes more that desires and emotions are an important and legitimate part of
the self and that they, in fact, are the source of our motivation and of our behavior. He
contest the idea that reason can tell us what is the right thing to do or that it can
provide us any kind of motive for human behavior. He says that reason is and should
be the slave of passion. For Hume, reason cannot calculate or lead us to the best way
of realizing our desires and passions. A businessman for example might be motivated
by a desire in making money, and it might be that reason will calculate how best to
achieve the goal. This is where reason can affect behavior in calculating steps towards
amassing wealth but Hume says that without the original desire to make money,
reason does not have influence or role.

Freud

From the above discussion the Platonic and the Humean views of human nature
are maybe not entirely satisfactory. Both of these views provide extremes positions:
the one emphasizing reason at the expense of desire, and the other desire at the
expense of reason. Let us try to examine the concepts of Freud (1856-1939), coming
from the psychoanalytic framework. Freud is said to have an enormous influence on
twentiethcentury conceptions of human nature. Freud formulated a psychoanalytic
conception of human nature that seems to combine elements of both the opposing
Platonic and Humean views.

Freud's account of human nature is also said to be like Plato's conception that life
is a conflict and a struggle to restrain and control the desires. Freud and Plato also
divide the self up into three parts. For Freud, the self is divided into the superego, the
ego and the id. The ego is concern in dealing with reality, while the id, is the sum total
of the instinctual impulses. These two categories correspond very closely to Plato's
reason and desire. The superego however is not the same as Plato's idea of spirit. The
superego for Freud is specifically a moral phenomenon, which is composed of moral
values internalized from the context of family and society. The superego only
resembles spirit in terms of function, that it helps the ego, or reason, to keep the id, or
desire, in check.

In the context of the conflict between reason and desire, the primary conflict for
Freud is between the superego (the moral conscience and which is allied with the ego),
and the desires of the id. Freud explains that when there is extreme conflict between
instinctual impulses and moral standards, the denial of instinctual drive and
satisfaction demanded by morality is achieved through repression. This is illustrated in
an event when a person pushes forbidden desires right down into the unconscious
part of the mind. For Freud, this denial is necessary if we are going to be able to live
and function in an ordered society.

To sum up, the ego deals with the outside world; the superego is the moral
conscience that comes from the social standards acquired during childhood; and the
id, contains all the instinctual drives that are constantly seeking immediate satisfaction.

Source: Understanding the Self. A compilation of readings and activities

MODULE 1: The Self from Various Perspectives
These instinctual drives are not confined to sexual desire, but also include aggressive
and sadistic impulses. The ego strives to harmonize and balance the conflicting
demands of the id for desire-satisfaction, the moral rules of the superego and the
constraints and context of external reality. Where Plato is strongly demanding strict
control of desires, Freud recognizes that, beyond a certain limit, excessive repression
becomes harmful. Freud's framework then is also Humean in the sense that he
considers desire to be a important, integral and legitimate part of our make-up. In
view of this Freud has a deeper understanding of the effects of the repression of
desires, the denial of instinctual satisfaction required for civilized life. He states that
we become civilized, but at the cost of frustration, unhappiness and even various
mental disorders. For him, the desires we have suppressed or repressed do not
disappear but continue to dwell in the unconscious. If the repression is too severe, the
suppressed desires find indirect expression in various neurotic symptoms.

Locke

Here, we focus on to a different way of thinking about the nature of the self and
explore the nature of personal identity. This will be answering the question “What
makes us the same person over time?” This question is important because it comes
from other frames of the concept of the self. What are the things in us that do not
change and remain part of who we are and what are those that disappears over a
period of time? What is it that makes somebody the same person despite the physical
and mental changes? Also, we have also to explain the confusing and puzzling cases
of multiple personality, personality breakdown and amnesia.

To answer these questions about the nature of personal identity seems to depend
on what we understand a person to be, or what we see as the self or human nature.
Descartes answer this by saying that it is the continuity of so called spiritual substance
that makes the person essentially who he is, for the person to have the same mind or
soul. This means that an individual can be the same person even if his body changes
radically. It can even mean also that it is the same person even if he occupies a
completely different body, or even if that person has no body at all. The significant
problems with Descartes of his dualist view of human beings, is the difficulty to see
how mind or spiritual substance can interact with a physical body. For us to explore
the answers to these questions we turn to the seventeenth-century British philosopher
John Locke and his account of personal identity.

Locke at the outset declines to support the dualistic view of human beings,
neither denying it but rather suspending his judgement on whether there is a spiritual
substance that is distinct from the body. He makes however, a distinction between
'persons' and 'human beings' whereby what makes a person identifiable over time is
not the same thing as what makes a human being the same over time. He explains
that the identity of the same human being is that of the human organism of the
biological human being. It is like a seed growing into acacia tree remains to be an
acacia tree even if it has change its size and form. This is also the same with animals
even if they have change in the course of their physical development.

Source: Understanding the Self. A compilation of readings and activities

MODULE 1: The Self from Various Perspectives
On the question of what makes a person identical over time is, according to Locke
a matter of personal identity, which is distinct from the identity of a human being. A
person for Locke is a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and reflection and so
the key essentials of personhood are reason, consciousness and self-consciousness. A
rational being is conscious, able to think, and when one thinks one then become
selfconscious. Accordingly, it is not possible to think, see, and hear without being
conscious of ourselves as doing so. And most importantly a person usually has a sense
of themselves and of their continuity and identity over time as the same person. For
Locke, memory is the condition and gauge of personal identity. It is memory that
provides the sense of sameness that in Descartes' conception is given by sameness of
mental substance. Hence the conception of personal identity depends on sameness of
consciousness or memory, rather than on sameness of mental substance. In this case
one can still make a distinction between personal identity and biological or bodily
identity. Locke still make some of the same points about bodily identity as Descartes,
but without having to commit himself to the latter's problematic dualism of the
conflicting body and soul or reason and passion. From Locke's viewpoint, and
individual can be the same person despite significant bodily changes as long as there
is a continuity of memory.

As we have seen, Locke considers personal identity depending on there being a

sameness, a continuity of memory or consciousness. There is however, a big problem
that arises with this view of personal identity given that there are very often fractures
or gaps in consciousness or memory. We do forget things that we have done and we
do not necessarily think of things we have done even if we are capable of
remembering them. Also when we are asleep, we do not have any consciousness,
thoughts or memories at all, though we have dreams. So the question for us to answer,
at these times is “Am I the same person?” This issue is of certain significance in
connection with questions of moral and ethical responsibility. We can put it like this
that if personal identity is created by sameness of consciousness or memory, that
would suggest that without memory or consciousness of doing something, it would
not be the person that did it, but someone else. To make me culpable or to punish me
for something that I did in my sleep, while sleepwalking for example, would be unfair
or unjust, because since I have no memory or consciousness of it. Correspondingly,
the sober person is not responsible for what they did when they were drunk, or the
sane person for what they did when they were insane. If I am 'not myself' or 'beside
myself', then I am literally not the same person.

Personhood and Moral Value

The idea of personhood that is distinguishable from a human being is an

important one in modern philosophical and ethical thought. It is broadly held that
persons have a special value, and that they deserve particular moral respect. Following
this reasoning, only persons have a right to life and since being a person is
distinguishable from being biologically human, this means that being human does not
automatically qualify one for the special kind of moral respect due to persons.

Source: Understanding the Self. A compilation of readings and activities

MODULE 1: The Self from Various Perspectives
Immanuel Kant offers this influential formulation of the idea that persons have a
special value and are deserving of a special kind of respect. Kant shares Locke's view
that persons are chiefly characterized by their rationality. According to Kant, persons
are essentially rational agents, capable of deciding for themselves the shape and goals
of their life. This capacity for rational self-determination makes persons uniquely
valuable. In this way, there is a need always to treat persons as 'ends in themselves',
and never simply as means to an end. Persons have their own rationally determined
goals, and should be treated with these goals in view and not merely as the
instruments or means for the realization of another person’s projects. From this, one
then should never treat persons as 'mere things'. Mere things have value only insofar
as they serve human purposes, but persons, as Kant puts it, have an intrinsic or
inherent value and that this dignity of being a person makes him valuable above all
price.

There have been many reformulations of the notion of personhood since Kant,
and various additional criteria for personhood have been proposed, such as
selfconsciousness, the capacity to have mental states and the ability to use language.
However, these formulations usually preserve and make as a basis and central the
criterion of rationality stressed by both Locke and Kant. And however personhood is
understood, there remains the concept that persons have a special moral status, and
that persons should not be treated as mere things.

Kant also is the same with Locke in distinguishing a person from a human being.
This is another important feature of the concept of the person, the one that is shared
by most views on personhood and a point that needs to be emphasized. Moral claims
about personhood are often articulated as claims about human beings, but the two
terms are not in fact identical. The former usually refers to a rational, conscious being,
while being human beings merely assigns a biological category, membership of the
species homo sapiens. Consequently, one can say that not all human beings are
persons, for some do not have the required rationality or consciousness. Can we say
then that those considered not to be persons may be accorded less moral respect?
For example, can we say that if they are not considered to be persons that they may
not be thought to have certain rights such as the right to life? These kinds of views or
judgements are always controversial, but on many standard views of personhood,
human beings who are not persons would include human fetuses and those in
irreversible comas. By the same token, in the world of sci-fi, there can also be persons,
conscious rational beings, who are not human beings, such as intelligent aliens,
androids, gods, spirits or angels. Understandably, these beings should be conferred
the same moral respect that we give to human persons. In both cases, one can say
that simply being human, a member of the human species, is not what is of moral
importance.

Source: Understanding the Self. A compilation of readings and activities