Grounding and persistence. Personal identity in bioethics

涉及个人身份的问题渗透在生物伦理学文献中。它们出现在关于提前指令、死亡的定义、对某些大脑干预的知情同意等的讨论中。乍一看，这些问题似乎开启了坚持不懈，也就是我们随着时间的推移而产生的数字认同感。然而，许多当代生物伦理学家并不这么认为。根据他们的说法，我们与身份相关判断的基础不是数字上的关系，而是叙述性的身份。与其沉思复杂的形而上学问题，我们因此应该更好地探究人们讲述(或将讲述)他们生活的故事。在我的研究项目中，我将仔细研究这一立场以及它所依赖的个人身份的叙事主义理论。我将解释为什么我对它和它的一些前提持批评态度，并主张另一种根基关系。我们将特别关注个人身份与伦理学的相关性，以及我们通过时间的数字身份不是重要的这一论点。我想挑战支持这一流行立场的各种论点，并重塑我们的数字身份和个人伦理学本体论的作用。由于我假设，当涉及到我们与身份相关的担忧时，数字同一性可能并不是故事的全部，该项目的进一步步骤将是寻找一种可能有助于补充数字同一性的非本土化关系。最后，我想把这个另类的概念应用到选定的生物伦理问题上。

Problems involving personal identity permeate the bioethical literature. They figure in discussions of advance directives, the definition of death, informed consent to certain brain interventions, etc. At first sight, it seems that these issues turn on persistence, our numerical identity through time. Many contemporary bioethicists, however, think otherwise. According to them the relation that should ground our identity-related judgments is not numerical but narrative identity. Instead of ruminating about intricate metaphysical issues we should therefore better inquire into the stories people tell (or would tell) of their lives. In my research project I will scrutinize this position and the narrativistic theory of personal identity on which it relies. I will explain why I am critical of it and some of its presuppositions and argue for an alternative grounding relation. Special attention will be paid to the relevance of personal identity for ethics and the thesis that our numerical identity through time is not what matters. I want to challenge various arguments sustaining this popular stance and refurbish the role of our numerical identity and personal ontology for ethics. Since I hypothesize that numerical identity might not be the whole story when it comes to grounding our identity-related concerns, a further step in the project will be to look for a nonnarative relation that may serve to complement numerical identity. Finally I want to apply this alternative conception to selected bioethical problems.