The State and the Self

Contents

Acknowledgements

1 The Metaphysics of Personal Identity

1.1 The Curious Case of Benjaman Kyle

1.2 The Primacy of the Practical

1.3 The No-Self View

1.4 Is Relation R Really What Matters?

1.5 Three Separatist Solutions

1.5.1 Lockeans

1.5.2 Kantians

1.5.3 Animalism

1.6 Pronoun Magic

2 Narrativity and Normativity

2.1 Identity as Social Reality

2.2 Why Narrative?

2.3 The Psychological Narrativity Thesis

2.4 Forensic and Administrative Narratives

2.5 Epistemic and Moral Concerns

2.6 Exposing the Fraudsters

2.7 Dehumanization and Depersonalization

3 Identity and Modern Statecraft

3.1 ‘Seeing Like a State’

3.2 The Personal Number

3.3 Whose Power?

3.4 Identities as Brands

3.5 High Modernism and Postmodernism

4 Identity, Security and Trust

4.1 Epistemic Gaps

4.2 Trustworthy Identification

4.3 Hypochondriac Identities

4.4 The Mistrust Loop

5 Conclusion

Bibliography

Index

About the Author