Using Pharmaceuticals to Change Personality: Self-Transformation, Identity, and Authenticity

Abstract

Opening with a vignette about Francis, who wants to use medications to achieve particular changes in his personality, the paper asks the following: (1) whether his plan involves the use of a biomedical enhancement and, if so, whether this makes his plan morally problematic; (2) whether his plan poses a threat to his identity in a problematic way; and (3) whether his intentions are inauthentic. In response to (1), it is argued that Francis’ plan does involve biomedical enhancement on either of two plausible understandings of the latter concept, but that its status as involving enhancement is not problematic per se. In response to (2), the paper distinguishes numerical and narrative senses of identity and argues that avoiding conflation of these two senses largely neutralizes concerns about enhancement as identity-threatening. In response to (3), the concept of authenticity is analyzed in the service of vindicating the authenticity of Francis’ self-transformation project. The analysis also shows that some self-transformation projects can prove inauthentic due to an agent’s failure to demonstrate sufficient self-respect. Finally, the paper concludes by suggesting redirection of moral attention to certain issues that already confront us.