Personal Identity, Agency and the Multiplicity Thesis

Authors:
Dave Ward
Affiliations:
School of Humanities, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, Hertfordshire, UK AL10 9AB
Venue:
Minds and Machines
Year:
2011

Citing 2
Cited 0

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The demographics, motivations, and derived experiences of users of massively multi-user online graphical environments

Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments - Special issue: Virtual heritage

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Abstract

I consider whether there is a plausible conception of personal identity that can accommodate the `Multiplicity Thesis' (MT), the thesis that some ways of creating and deploying multiple distinct online personae can bring about the existence of multiple persons where before there was only one. I argue that an influential Kantian line of thought, according to which a person is a unified locus of rational agency, is well placed to accommodate the thesis. I set out such a line of thought as developed by Carol Rovane, and consider the conditions that would have to be in place for the possibility identified by MT to be realised. Finally I briefly consider the prospects for MT according to neo-Lockean and animalist views of personhood.