A Theory of Persons

Richard Ostrofsky
(May, 2000)
One way or another, political philosophy can scarcely avoid getting started
from, and basing itself upon, some theory of the person – as the subject of
relationships and associations, political activity and government. In our own
society, we tend to see the person as a locus of desires and needs and
interests, and of rights and obligations. We think of the corporation as a
kind of fictitious, legal person; but in some respects, it might be more
correct to say that we now imagine the person as a kind of animate, mortal
corporation – buying and selling, producing and consuming, and pursuing
business interests of profit, power, growth and market share. This liberal
version of personhood is challenged by communitarian ideas, which prefer
to see the person as embedded in (and sometimes wholly owned by) one or
another family, ethnic or cultural collectivity. The argument between these
visions is often rich and interesting. Just as often, it becomes obtuse and
abusive, with neither side willing to hear or respond to what the other is
saying.
Important as it is, I will not retrace that argument here. Rather, I wish to
explore a different perspective – to date, more influential in the field of
clinical psychology than in political thought: the vision of the person as
locus of a sui causa (roughly, self-creation) project. According to this
theory, the human animal becomes a person by latching onto one or several
existential projects aimed at giving meaning to his or her life. These may be
almost anything–from making music to running the family farm, from
advancing knowledge to raising children. These specify and modify
themselves as the person develops, but show a remarkable continuity: By
the age of four (give or take) the child shows an awareness of the scandal of
its own contingency and fleshliness. (Mommy and Daddy made me by
doing that??!!) By the age of six there is in place an enterprise of
transcendence, aimed at redemption and transfiguration of the dependent
creature as a social being of volition and spirit. The nature of this project
varies greatly according to the examples and cultural materials available,
and also according to the physiology and “bent” of the individual child. The
occurrence of such a project, and the age at which it becomes manifest,
seem to be grounded in the biology of the human species. My cat was a cat
almost from the moment she was born. My daughter formed herself in
stages, as I myself did once upon a time. By now, she is her own work of art
– as I am, as we all are: an artifact of self-projection through our various life
projects.
This conception of personhood seems to me in better keeping with the
facts than either Lockean individualism or any version of communitar-
ianism; and its political consequences are more acceptable. With the former,
it conceives the person as en soi and pour soi: in himself and for himself, to
use the existentialist language. But it allows that the individual may find
fulfillment not only in projects pursuant to some idea of self-interest, but in
projects appearing to require the abnegation of self and self-interest.
(Indeed, most people seem to find much deeper fulfillment in giving of
themselves than in merely taking, and throw themselves into their crassest
commercial activities with ascetic zeal.) This conception gives the poor man
no automatic claim upon the fortune of the rich one, but it endorses social
justice as an ideal worthy of commitment by rich and poor alike. It rejects a
priori claims of ownership of the person by familial, ethnic or religious
communities. On the other hand, it allows such communities to offer
themselves as worthy objects of commitment, and furtherance of their aims
as a worthy project. It suggests, for example, why religious education
should be a permissible tactic in claiming the child for a particular
community, while ritual mutilation should not. It is right and proper to
invite your children to enlist in your own cherished projects. It is clearly
wrong from this perspective to conscript them irrevocably without their
competent, willing consent.
The real interest of this conception lies in its qualified Lockean
liberalism and libertarianism. Prima facie (it suggests), the person has a
right to seek fulfillment in projects of his own devising. The community
and the private person both have the right to propose themselves as projects
for the participation of others, and to solicit commitment toward themselves
and their projects. They are wrong when they attempt to foreclose the
commitments of others, or circumscribe their freedom to do so. The good
society is one in which individuals have a maximum of real freedom for
creativity in their existential projects. Obviously, freedom in some
directions will have to be purchased by constraints in others; but the burden
is on those who would limit freedom to show why limitation is justified.
Admittedly, nothing limits existential freedom more than the need to wrest
some kind of living from society and the Earth. We must tolerate a very
considerable loss of freedom to sustain our lives, and keep any freedom at
all. It follows that economic arrangements should be judged as solutions to
this conundrum: how to reconcile human freedom with productive
efficiency? The real question is not whether individuals have abstract rights
to property and the pursuit of property. Rather: when does the exercise of
these alleged rights destroy more human freedom than it allows?