The extended self (2009)

Undergraduate: Davis Bennett

Faculty Advisor: William Lycan
Department: Philosophy

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Analytic philosophy has been host to lengthy discussions of exactly how persons persist through time, but matters of our extension through space have been left unexplored. In this paper I argue that our concept of the self should be extended to include objects and entities located outside of the body that we identify with (in the right way). This reanalysis of the self concept provides a novel descriptive account of property ownership, and from that comes a monism of person-related moral theories. My account of categorical parity between body and possessions accords with actual human behavior, and also can be brought to resolve certain bioethical debates.