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2006?6063

Philosophy columnCharles Taylors Notion of Identity

Yeuk-shing Mok

Philosophy column

Charles Taylors notion of identity

Yeuk-shing Mok

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong

My aim here is to elucidate Taylors notion of identity.
In What is Human Agency?, Taylor says:

By identity I mean that use of the term where we talk about
nding ones identity, or going through an identity crisis.
(Taylor, 1985a, p. 34)

And in

Sources of the Self

, he writes:

My identity is dened by commitments and identications
which provide the frame or horizon within which I can try
to determine from case to case what is good, or valuable, or
what ought to be done, or what I endorse or oppose. In other
words, it is the horizon within which I am capable of taking
a stand. (Taylor, 1989, p. 27)

These passages show that the term identity is used
by him to refer to those properties which a person
cherishes and identies herself with. Moreover, in
characterizing identity by identications and commit-
ments which constitute a persons horizon of signi-
cance, Taylor, I think, has implicitly set out two
necessary conditions for identity. I shall call them,
respectively,

the signicance condition

and

the identi-
cation condition

. They are conceptual limitations
concerning what can count as a constituent of a per-
sons identity. In what follows, I shall lay out what
these conditions involve.
I begin my analysis with the signicance condition.
For Taylor, something is a constituent of our identity
only if it is seen to be intrinsically worthy by us. In
other words, being regarded by us as intrinsically wor-
thy is a necessary condition for a certain property to
qualify as a constituent of our identity. By intrinsi-
cally worthy properties, he means goods or ends
which are not valued insofar as they are objects of
choice or desire, but are rather seen as ends we should
seek (Taylor, 1985d, p. 266). That is, they are seen as
goods which we ought to desire, even if we do not,
goods such that we show ourselves up as inferior or
bad by our not desiring them (Taylor, 1985c, p. 120).
This carries the implication that intrinsically worthy
ends are recognized as being incomparably higher
(see Taylor, 1985c, pp. 237238, 1989, p. 19). They are
incomparably higher in the sense that they are nor-
mative for desire so that our having no desire for
them entails self-criticism and . . . justied criticism
by others (Taylor, 1985c, p. 120; Flathman, 1987, p.
43). It is by virtue of having this special status that
these ends differ from our ordinary ends (such as my
preference for tea). Unlike intrinsically worthy ends,
ordinary ends are ones that have value so long as they
are desired or chosen by us. For this reason, our not
desiring them would not subject us to criticism. Nor
would this in any way cast a reection on us. If I
decide not to prefer tea any more, [t]here is no fur-
ther purchase for an ought statement enjoining me to
go on liking it or choosing it (Taylor, 1985d, p. 266).
Now, since identity, for Taylor, is conceptually related
to intrinsically worthy ends, and since all intrinsically
worthy ends are incomparably higher in the above
sense, it seems to follow that whether an end can
count as a constituent of a persons identity is in part
determined by whether it can be regarded as having
an incomparably higher status.
It seems clear form the above analysis that not just
anything can count as a constituent of our identity. To
reiterate, for something to gure in our identity, it
must be one that is recognized by us as of higher
importance or worth (Taylor, 1985c, p. 3). Now,
Charles Taylors Notion of Identity

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whether something can be recognized as such is, for
Taylor, not simply a matter of our choosing it. To
maintain otherwise would be to assume that some-
things being chosen is sufcient to bestow signi-
cance of this kind on it. (Call this the subjectivist
notion of signicance). Assuming for the sake of
argument that this subjectivist notion of signicance
is correct, then even the property of having 3732 hairs
can be deemed signicant, if someone happens to
choose it. (I borrow this example from Taylor, 1992,
p. 36). And by the same token, this property can be
said to full the signicance condition for identity.
Taylor disagrees. The reason is that in the absence of
further explanation, it is beyond the bounds of sense
to regard the property under discussion as signicant.
To be understood as signicant at all, that property
must somehow be connected to what Taylor (1985c,
p. 3, 1989, p. 19) calls a background of qualitative
distinctions. By this he means a background under-
standing one has of some ends as incomparably
higher than others in the sense specied above.
Unless the aforesaid property bears an intelligible
relation with higher ends of this sort, it cannot possi-
bly be regarded as signicant. Nor can it therefore
count as a constituent of a persons identity. From
here we can see that the background of qualitative
distinctions, for Taylor, is an indispensable condition
of intelligibility for the signicance things have for us.
And since our identity, as noted earlier, is constituted
by intrinsically worthy ends ends that we regard as
of higher importance, the said background is also an
indispensable condition for our having an identity.
It should be noted at this point that Taylor himself
has not directly employed the term intrinsically wor-
thy ends to characterize identity. Rather, he always
uses the term fundamental evaluations (or strong
evaluations) in this connection (see Taylor, 1985a, p.
34). However, in this discussion I deliberately use the
term intrinsically worthy ends to replace the term
fundamental evaluations. My reason for doing so is
that using the term evaluation in the above context
may mislead one into thinking that our identity is
formed exclusively by ends which we adopt as the
outcome of critical reection and rational delibera-
tion. This is due to the fact that the word evaluation,
as Taylor himself notes, relates to the verb evalu-
ate, and the verb here implies that this is something
we do, that our evaluations emerge from our activity
of evaluation (Taylor, 1985a, p. 28). In point of fact,
Taylor has criticized himself for using the word eval-
uation in this connection by saying:

My mistake was in using the word evaluation, with its
overtones of reection and deliberate opting for one alter-
native rather than another. I should really nd another term.
(Taylor, 1994, p. 249)

Without doubt, Taylor agrees that we can partici-
pate in the formation of our identity through the
process of reective evaluation. Nonetheless, he def-
initely objects to the view that our identity is formed
solely by reectively adopted ends. For our identity
is also comprised of ends that we have unreectively
internalized by way of language learning. In acquiring
a language, we willy-nilly come to dene ourselves by
certain pre-constituted ends ends that depend for
their very existence and intelligibility on a network of
cultural meanings already embedded in the language
of our community. Space does not permit a full dis-
cussion of Taylors arguments concerning the role lan-
guage plays in our identity formation. Sufce it for
now to emphasize that his view that our identity is
dened by our fundamental evaluations should not
be interpreted as an intellectualist one (Taylor, 1985a,
p. 34).
Perhaps, it is also important to stress here that
although identity, in Taylors view, is conceptually
related to intrinsically worthy ends, this does not
mean to suggest that a persons identity is necessarily
formed by moral ends. (The term moral here is taken
in a narrow sense to include only questions of our
obligations towards others.) According to my inter-
pretation, Taylor agrees that moral ends such as integ-
rity and honesty are intrinsically worthy in the above
sense. However, he disagrees that all intrinsically
worthy ends are moral in nature (see Taylor, 1985a,
p. 24, n. 7, 1985c, p. 236). Perhaps, citing an example
from Taylor (1985b, p. 263) can make this point clear.
Some people do take being macho as their self-
denition. Their identity is grounded in a sense that
acting in conformity with the standards for being
macho has an incomparably higher value. That is why
failure to live by them, say acting in an effeminate
62

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way, is regarded by them as contemptible and shame-
ful. To be sure, we would not consider such standards
as moral, nor would we regard the above failing as
morally shameful. But as being macho is seen by
them as having an incomparably higher status, it is
not justiable to exclude it from the concept of intrin-
sically worthy ends. For Taylor, what distinguishes
intrinsically worthy ends from non-intrinsically wor-
thy ends does not hinge on the fact that the former
are moral in nature. Rather, the distinction lies in the
fact that the former possess the incomparably higher
status.
If my interpretation above is correct, then it seems
to follow that when Taylor (1985d, p. 266) denes
strong evaluations (or intrinsically worthy ends) as
the recognition of ends that we should seek, the we
does not necessarily refer to every member of the
moral community. We may refer to every member
of a certain subculture, religious community, and so
on. Moral ends such as those mentioned above are
ends which every member of the moral community
should seek. However, the same thing cannot be said
about ends such as being macho. It is because if I (as
a member of the moral community) do not desire this
end, I may or may not be open to criticism, depending
on whether I am also a member of a subculture which
stresses its importance. If in fact I am a member of
such a subculture, then being macho is an end which
I, like my fellow members, should seek.
While it is a necessary condition for being a con-
stituent of a persons identity that an end be recog-
nized by her as intrinsically worthy, it is by no means
sufcient. The reason for this is that a person can
regard a certain end

x

as intrinsically worthy and yet
does not identify herself with it. For instance, while
regarding religious practice as intrinsically worthy, I
do not identify myself with it. As such, I do not see
religious practice as important

for me

. In other words,
I do not treat it as one of my

personal ends

ends
which I care about in a genuine manner. These ends
are what I aspire to attain in myself so that their
potential realization or frustration is a matter of seri-
ous concern for me. Indeed, if I genuinely care about
a certain end, I shall be disposed to bring it into
fruition, to foster its development, to protect it from
being damaged and so forth. Moreover, I shall be
emotionally touched or moved by its vicissitudes. As
Harry Frankfurt says:

A person who cares about something is as it were, invested
in it. By caring about it, he makes himself susceptible to
benets and vulnerable to losses depending upon whether
what he cares about ourishes or is diminished. We may say
that in this sense he identies himself with what he cares
about. (Frankfurt, 1993, p. 20)

In a similar vein, Taylor (1985a, p. 34) points out
that in identifying with a certain end, a person comes
to dene herself by it so that to disvalue it would be
to reject herself in an existentially painful way. By
bringing in the notion of identication, what I am
trying to get at here is the distinction between an end
that is regarded as both intrinsically worthy and per-
sonal

and

an end that is only regarded as intrinsically
worthy but not personal in nature. And through this
distinction, I want to note that if an end is a constit-
uent of ones identity, it must be an instance of the
former class of ends. These considerations suggest
that for an end to count as a constituent of a persons
identity, it must full not only the signicance condi-
tion, but also the identication condition. That is, it
must be translated into a personal end through the
process of identication.
In closing, I want to emphasize that my intention
of using the term personal end in the above discus-
sion is to highlight the

nature

rather than the content
of a persons involvement with a certain end. As such,
personal ends are not necessarily self-regarding
(such as honour) in content. From the point of view
of content, personal ends do not exclude other-
regarding ends (such as charity) or even shared ends
(such as friendship). To say that two persons mutually
care about their friendship in a genuine manner
would not be self-contradictory.

References

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The Philosophy and Politics of Freedom.


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The
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Human
Agency and Language, Philosophical Papers I

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Taylor C. (ed.) (1985b) Theories of meaning. In:

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Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern
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