Appiah discusses Mill's identity theory

Weaving biography and philosophy, Kwame Anthony Appiah, the Laurance Rockefeller University Professor of Philosophy and the University Center for Human Values, discussed the intersection of ethics and identity as conceived by 19th-century English philosopher John Stuart Mill.

"Identity is at the heart of life," Appiah said. "It is the source of value."

Quoting Sinatra as well as Sartre, Appiah argued that identity, as a "mutable set of organized aims within a longterm vision," is neither arbitrary nor overly individualistic, but contributes to human wellbeing.

While independently choosing a plan of life does not necessarily make that plan good — "Is wasting your life good just because you choose to waste it?" — Appiah said "exercising one's autonomy is good" because it allows for a marketplace of ideas as well as the development of an "individuality that's essential for the human good."

Appiah discriminated between the romantic and existentialist views of identity, choosing instead to take the middle ground. The romantic conception, he said, with the idea of "finding oneself" and "being true to who you already are," fails to take creativity into account.

"We are exactly as capable of making our own character as others are of creating it for us," Appiah said, quoting Mill.

In Appiah's view, the existentialists rely too heavily on creativity, without acknowledging the surrounding environment's role in inspiring that creativity. Instead, Appiah said the idea that "makes some kind of human sense" is that people construct their own identities in response to some factors beyond their control.

"To create a life is to create a life out of what the world has given you," he said. "Self-construction is a creative response to circumstances."

One of the foremost of these circumstances is relationships with other people, Appiah said.

"Mill had notions of wellbeing at once individualist and profoundly social," he said. "Our identities are a product of our interactions from our earliest years with others. We have a dependence on relationships with others — without them, we couldn't become free selves, or selves at all. Individuality presupposes sociality."

However, a certain amount of autonomy is necessary, Appiah said. "Your identity cannot be wholly authored by someone else, or by yourself," he said. "Mill believed that you must in the end find freedom even from the good intentions of those who love you."

Appiah's talk, "The Ethics of Identity," was the second of three lectures in this year's President's Lecture Series. President Tilghman, who welcomed the audience yesterday, created the series in 2001 so the Princeton community can "hear the extraordinary work going on by our own faculty."

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Professor Mark Johnston, chair of the philosophy department, introduced Appiah as an "extraordinary person" and a "speaker of great charm and intelligence." In a field that deals with the "residuum of hard questions not amenable to familiar methods," Johnston said, Appiah has managed to become a "leading philosopher of race and culture."

The third lecture in the series will be presented March 3 by Marta Tienda, the Maurice During Professor in Demographic Studies and professor of sociology and public affairs. She will explore inequalities in accessibility of higher education.