Personal Identity in Moral and Legal ReasoningMany questions about moral and legal judgments hinge on how we understand the identity of the agents. The intractability of many of these questions stems, this book argues, from ignoring how we actually connect actions with agents. When making everyday judgments about the morality or legality of actions, we do not use Aristotelian logic but what is termed "character logic". The difference is crucial because implicit in character logic is an understanding of personal identity that is both coherent and intuitively familiar. A person, as we conceptualize him in moral and legal contexts, is a character of resolve. By unpacking what it means to be a character of resolve, this book reveals what underwrites our most fundamental beliefs about a person's rights and responsibilities. It also provides a new and useful perspective on a variety of issues about rights and responsibilities that perennially occupy philosophers. This book discusses the following: - How we can make better sense of "human rights" if we think of them as "personal rights". By making explicit the axioms of character logic and exploring their origins and justification, the book provides a conceptually powerful tool for interpreting the protocols of a person-respecting society. |
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Personal Identity in Moral and Legal Reasoning Richard Prust,Jeffery Geller No preview available - 2019 |