Moral Identity And Self Discovery

"We live in a time when trust in leaders at all levels of society has declined, when students at colleges and universities openly acknowledge that they cheat, and when the reputations of even the most admired leaders have been sullied by misconduct. It is a time when the future of tomorrow's generation appears to be growing dimmer and those who have passed on burdens that will have to be borne have clearly neglected their moral responsibilities. Fixing the blame is far less important than fixing the problem. The root cause of today's concerns and tomorrow's future lies in the failure of those who claimed to be trusted leaders to demonstrate personal integrity. This book introduces the concept of "moral identity" as a metric for leaders and organizations of all types to reexamine their moral responsibility. We suggest that moral identity provides a compass for leaders and organizations to adopt in rethinking their obligations to themselves, to their associates, to their customers, to society, and to future generations. The book includes a metric for personal self-assessment, for guiding individuals and organizations, and for establishing a standard for evaluating those who aspire to lead. This book takes a harsh look at the failings of leaders and provides a meaningful resource to those who are willing to lead society to rethink its future"--

This book is part of the growing field of practical approaches to philosophical questions relating to identity, agency and ethics--approaches which work across continental and analytical traditions and which Atkins justifies through an explication of how the structures of human embodiment necessitate a narrative model of selfhood, understanding, and ethics.

Grounded in investigations conducted over the past 25 years, Adolescents’ Self-Discovery in Groups demonstrates how adolescents can become more active in society based on how they form, maintain, and evaluate groups. By collaborating with youth in a wide range of communities, Thorkildsen details the trajectory of adolescents’ development—from a primarily self-oriented perspective to beliefs about and participation in local and global activities. Focused especially on the potential of schools for catalyzing this development, this volume details youth’s affirmations and critiques of educational practices, and uses these evaluations to illustrate adolescents’ readiness to fulfill leadership responsibilities. Written for scholars, students, and professionals seeking to understand how adolescents construe their social worlds, Adolescents’ Self-Discovery in Groups makes a powerful case for group interaction being central to adolescent development.

Charles Taylor's latest book sets out to define the modern identity by tracing its genesis.

There is agency in all we do: thinking, doing, or making. We invent a tune, play, or use it to celebrate an occasion. Or we make a conceptual leap and ask more abstract questions about the conditions for agency. They include autonomy and self-appraisal, each contested by arguments immersing us in circumstances we don’t control. But can it be true we that have no personal responsibility for all we think and do? Agency: Moral Identity and Free Will proposes that deliberation, choice, and free will emerged within the evolutionary history of animals with a physical advantage: organisms having cell walls or exoskeletons had an internal space within which to protect themselves from external threats or encounters. This defense was both structural and active: such organisms could ignore intrusions or inhibit risky behavior. Their capacities evolved with time: inhibition became the power to deliberate and choose the manner of one’s responses. Hence the ability of humans and some other animals to determine their reactions to problematic situations or to information that alters values and choices. This is free will as a material power, not as the conclusion to a conceptual argument. Having it makes us morally responsible for much we do. It prefigures moral identity. Closely argued but plainly written, Agency: Moral Identity and Free Will speaks for autonomy and responsibility when both are eclipsed by ideas that embed us in history or tradition. Our sense of moral choice and freedom is accurate. We are not altogether the creatures of our circumstances.

The subject of personal and moral identity is at the centre of interest, not only of academic research within disciplines such as philosophy and psychology, but also of everyday thinking. This is why the Neth erlands School for Research in Practical Philosophy and the Institute for Ethics of the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam took the initiative to bring together scholars from various disciplines, interested in the subject. The expert-seminar on 'Personal and Moral Identity' took place from 12-14 January 1999. Financial contributions from the Vrije Universiteit, the Dutch Scientific Organisation (NWO) and the Royal Dutch Academy for the Sciences (KNA W) made the event possible. The chapters in this book either go back to papers presented at the seminar or were written afterwards by participants, inspired by the discussions that took place during the seminar. We are very grateful to Dr. Hendrik Hutter for his assistance in editing the texts and making the manuscript camera-ready. December 2001, The Editors. 1 Introduction Albert W. Musschenga Although scholars studying the identity of persons usually address diverging issues and have different research agendas, there is a grow ing awareness that one may benefit from insights and results present in other disciplines dealing with that subject. This explains the enthu siastic responses to the invitation of the Netherlands School for Research in Practical Philosophy and the Institute for Ethics of the Vrije Universiteit to participate in a seminar on 'Personal and Moral Identity'.

This volume examines the psychological, social-relational, and cultural foundations of the most basic moral commitments. It begins by looking at the seminal writings of Augusto Blasi, whose writings on moral cognition, the development of self-identity, and moral personality have transformed the research agenda in moral psychology. This work is now the starting point of all discussion about the relationship between self and morality; the developmental grounding of the moral personality; and the moral integration of cognition, emotion, and behavior. Indeed, it is now widely believed that organizing self-understanding around basic moral commitments is crucial to the formation of a moral identity which, in turn, underwrites moral conduct. Using Blasi's work as a point of departure, a distinguished interdisciplinary and international group of scholars have contributed essays summarizing their own theoretical and empirical research on these topics. This book features new theories of moral functioning that range across several psychological literatures, including social cognition, cognitive science, and personality development. Examining the social-relational, communitarian, and cultural aspects of moral self-identity, it provides a comprehensive account of moral personality. Uniformly integrative, field-expanding, and on the cutting edge of research on moral development and personality, the book appeals to scholars, developmental theorists and graduate students interested in issues of moral development, education, and behavior, as well as cognitive development theory.

Many contemporary philosophers, such as Akeel Bilgrami, Crispin Wright, Christine Korsgaard, and Mrinal Miri, have explicitly discussed the relevance of self-knowledge in relation to the discourse of normativity. This book addresses the notion of self-knowledge as relevant in the formation of moral identity.