Interdependence and Identity:

Moral Universals in an Historical World

Abstract

The twin concepts in the title will be introduced in the contexts of the philosophy of history and of philosophical personalism, as distinct from (though related to) their uses as logical and metaphysical categories. Overviews of varieties of philosophy of history and of basic principles I employ are foundations of the argument. Concepts, or ideas, in general have, I argue, real existence through the way that personal agents use them in creating the histories of human relations. I introduce a Personalist account, which has a more thoroughly diachronic character. Further remarks on the power of ideas to create relations expands this idea into the key claim: that urgency derived from interdependent human relations links historical and moral considerations. Interdependence and identity are then considered in terms of systems theory, notably biological autopoiesis and panpsychism. The value of all this appears in terms of relationships in moral life and, in conclusion, in an understanding of the connections between moral philosophy and philosophy of history.