Ethical issues in moral and social enhancement

6.3.
 
Can Ricoeur’s view of narrative identity ground an ethical objection 
to MB?
6.3.1.
 
Ricoeur’s view of narrative identity 
Narrative accounts of identity pose that in practice we create the sense of who we 
are through the construction of an autobiographical self-narrative.
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Those self-
narratives are commonly thought to be the means by which we order our 
experiences, give and re-evaluate their meaning and importance, understand and 
give meaning to our lives and even exercise agency. Because those narratives 
incorporate our motivations, actions, beliefs and decisions within the social context 
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Different versions of this view are espoused by Paul Ricoeur (1992), Marya Schechtman 
(1996); Alisdair MacIntyre (1981), Daniel Dennett (1992), Peter Goldie (2003); Jerome 
Bruner (2003); Charles Taylor (1989); and Anthony Rudd (2009). 

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and over a substantial span of time, they are thought to explain and shape how we 
behave and thus influence our identity – who we perceive ourselves to be. It is 
often posed that construing self-narratives is very important, if not necessary, for a 
full and flourishing life, and on that ethical account of narrative identity, the ability 
to construe self-narratives promotes flourishing. In the narrative psychotherapeutic 
approach, the process of construing, revising and living in accordance with this 
narrative identity over time is seen as central to personality functioning and 
development, as well as a person’s well-being (McAdams, 2001; Singer, 2004; 
Singer and Blagov, 2004).
A well-known example of the narrative approach to personal identity is that of 
Ricoeur (1984, 1985, 1988, 1992), who sees narrative identity as necessary for 
personal identity. His approach is worth examining for several reasons. Firstly, 
Ricoeur’s approach is rooted in literary discussion, and thus focuses to a greater 
extent than some other approaches on the specifically 
narrative
character of 
narrative identity. Secondly, the central focus of Ricoeur’s approach is the interplay 
of character and the ethical commitment to self-constancy. Moreover, for Ricoeur, 
the narrative is what puts together and orders the external and the internal, the 
involuntary and the voluntary, in the process of making it both understandable and 
‘mine’ – incorporated into self-view. Thus, Ricoeur’s account is a 
prima facie
fruitful tool in analysing the ethical dimension of emotion modulation leading to 
character change, be it gradual or abrupt. While accounts such as Schechtman’s 
have been discussed in the context of biomedicine, there has not been much direct 
discussion of Ricoeur’s approach to identity in that context.
According to Ricoeur, narratives incorporate both the voluntary and the involuntary 
influences on action and the external and internal events, making sense of them as