Separateness of Perspectives, Separateness of Persons, and Duties to the Self

Abstract

Recently, Paul Schofield has developed a highly original and sophisticated case for the existence of duties to the self. The core idea is that since each of us occupies multiple perspectives from which our interests conflict, we can be said to relate to ourselves on recognizably moral and political terms. In this article, I argue that Schofield’s argument fails because it does not take seriously enough the key disanalogy between conflicting interpersonal perspectives and conflicting intrapersonal perspectives—namely, the fact of interpersonality itself. To show this, I first argue that interpersonality offers a simple explanation of the intuitive moral difference between otherwise similar actions, thus suggesting that interpersonality is morally relevant. I then consider and reject two responses: that there are alternative explanations of this moral difference and that there is no moral difference here in need of explanation. I conclude by suggesting that this argument provides independently interesting insights into the sometimes-obscure idea of the separateness of persons.