Abstract

This essay advances an original theory of mind-group and personal identity and at the same time critically examines related concepts in the work of Peter Strawson and Harry Frankfurt. A mind group is here defined as a kind of social group that is built up by way of the practical beliefs, desires, and preferences of those who make up the group. Part One of the paper introduces a summative model of mind-group identity. It explicates social life as a net of beliefs and desires, the points of intersection of which are persons who share these beliefs and desires. The second Part propounds an account of “person” that strikes a balance between situationists, who hold that persons change their behavior in every new circumstance, and the champions of “character” in virtue ethics. In the interest of achieving this compromise position between these competing orientations, we consider persons as quasi-geometric figures that at once persist in the current of time yet concomitantly change under differing circumstances. Our practical preferences are what determine the frame that facilitates analysis of the person as a quasi-geometric figure. The paper concludes by showing, in Part Three, how the conception of person introduced here resolves diffi-culties of the summative model.