ABSTRACT
A close connection is often drawn between agency and personal identity. The guiding idea is the simple and intuitive one that for an action to be agential it must flow from an agent, reflecting who she truly is. This is frequently understood to imply that a person’s identity is made up of the motivations that give rise to the actions that are rightly attributed to her. Since agency is thought to require unity and consistency of motivational profile, this approach yields a view of personal identity that also requires unity and consistency. This view, which can be called the ‘agential identity view,’ has held a central place in philosophical work on both agency and personal identity. This chapter offers a critical evaluation of the view and the assumptions leading to it. The considerations in favor of the view are presented by looking at two contexts in which it has been defended. A challenge is raised to the picture of personal identity the view yields by showing that reflection on personal identity independent of questions of agency suggests a quite different account, one which requires much less consistency and stability. Various responses to this challenge are considered. While it is allowed that the agential identity view can avoid the challenge without radical modification by qualifying the scope of its claims, it is suggested that there is reason to consider a more radical approach, one which uses the less-unified conception of personal identity presented to rethink and complicate the picture of agency on which the view is constructed.
