In and Out of Me

An important role in many recent philosophical analyses of personal well-being and psychological health has been played by a principle I call the "the principle of responsible innerness." This principle states that a person is psychologically healthy and well only if she or he acts in critical situations on preferences and desires that are responsibly in her or him rather than being merely in her or him. Various analyses have been proposed of what it means for a desire or preference to be responsibly in a person—namely, that he or she identify with it or that the desire or preference be part of his or her wholehearted or decisive identity as a person. Harry Frankfurt (1988) has formulated a version of the principle in his accounts of personal caring and freedom of will. Charles Taylor (1976) has deployed a version of the principle in his account of self-assessment and personal redefinition. In this issue of Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, Mark Rego with deference to Frankfurt suggests how a responsible innerness principle (Rego does not name the principle as such, of course, because the neologism is my own) might be deployed in a therapeutic setting. In this brief commentary I explore an obvious commitment of the principle, namely that there is a difference between the responsible psychological inside of a person and both the mere (nonresponsible) inside and the outside. In connection with the presupposition I include some comments on Rego's thoughtful and suggestive paper.

Individuating Me

What individuates a person? What makes a person one person or individual as opposed to another person or individual?

One hypothesis is that an individual person is individuated by their being a particular living human animal (see Olson 2003; Van Inwagen 1990). Mark Rego (the name) refers to one particular living human animal. George Graham (the name) refers to another. In my case an animalist (someone who holds that an individual human person is a particular living human animal) would say that I am nothing other than the six-foot tall living human animal whose photograph you would take if you were to take a picture of me writing this brief commentary. I am not an immaterial substance nor am I a composite made out of any such substance and this animal body (or some part of it). I am, instead, a biological being, made of biological parts—the organs, cells, and so forth of which living human animals are made.

Although one might worry about just how animals themselves are individuated, it is not too hard to appreciate what philosophers (like Eric Olson and others) who favor animalism must be attracted to. The attraction of animalism is this: individuation requires limits or boundaries and, for animalism, whatever is in the animal as a proper part of its being alive therein is in the person, whereas whatever is outside of the animal therein is outside of the person. So, if I am a particular living human animal, and if something is in or out of me, this means it is inside or outside, respectively, my living body. Various neurons are in me; the heavenly stars are out of me. Various information processes are in me; the athletic dispositions of the Boston Red Sox are out of me.

Suppose animalism is true. Suppose I am nothing other than this particular six-foot tall living human animal. Suppose also that I have a mental health problem. Suppose I am a pathological gambler. Suppose, in addition, that I am under the care of a therapist. With her help I have learned various facts about my addiction: that it thrives on a variable ratio schedule of reinforcement, that it is strengthened by my quasi-prayerful invocations of a mythic figure I call "Lady Luck," and that it relieves albeit severely imprudently assorted stresses and strains in my professional career. Alas, though, such lessons notwithstanding, I gamble. I am in the grips of an addiction. My therapist tells me that I should avoid self-deception and acknowledge or own up to the fact that I am addicted. She claims, too, that I should disown or...