Identity in Stories, Identity in Real Life, and Ethical Subjectivity

In contrast to erroneous claims made in other sources, it is important to clarify that the narrative approach to identification does not seek to enforce a standardized way of life or imitate a fictional persona. Rather, it represents a philosophically intricate reaction to the inherent uncertainty and intricacy of the human experience. In contrast to the predominant reliance on causal models among traditional theorists of self-identification, I posit that the narrative model of identity offers a more suitable framework for comprehensively elucidating the phenomena of self-identification. The story model holds significant importance as it acknowledges the central role of the first-person perspective as an abundant source of ethical subjectivity. This paper aims to examine the scholarly contributions of Paul Ricoeur and Marya Schechtman, with a brief mention of Korsgaard's work on practical identity and normative ethics. The objective is to demonstrate the interconnectedness between narrative identity and ethical subjectivity. I argue that the concept of embodied consciousness requires a more intricate and fundamentally subjective framework of identification than what is provided by a causal explanation. This is because the physical embodiment of the human body is what gives rise to the subjective perspective and introspective nature of human cognition. In order to establish a sense of identity, it is necessary to adopt either a self-constitution or a narrative model of identification.