In Defense of Narrative Identity

Babich Vladimir Vladimirovich ORCID: 0000-0001-8537-9782 PhD in Philosophy Associate Professor of the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Tomsk State Pedagogical University 634061, Russia, Tomsk region, Tomsk, Kievskaya str., 60 v.v.babich@gmail.com Other publications by this author

Introduction

Over the past few decades, a number of influential philosophers and psychologists have considered the concept of narrative as the main category used in thinking about ethics, personal responsibility and identity ^[1,2]. A number of philosophers (Alasdair McIntyre, Charles Taylor, Paul Riker and Maria Shechtman, etc.) have argued that our sense of self-identity and unity of life is related to our ability to tell a coherent story about ourselves and that the modern philosophical debate about personal identity has reached an impasse due to the separation of personality from its narratives. The thesis was put forward that, from an ethical point of view, we should strive to achieve the unity that we discover by creating narratives about our lives. However, a number of critical statements have been formulated against the theory of narrative identity, as exemplified by the works of Galen Stroson, Peter Lamarck, John Christman, Derek Parfitt, and others. In this paper, the arguments of the opponents of the narrative approach are analyzed and answers to the critical remarks of the opponents are proposed. The presented defense of the theory of narrative identity is mainly based on the philosophy of Alasdair McIntyre and Charles Taylor, in whose reflections narration plays an important role in gaining an ethical component of subjectivity. It is argued that the ethical horizon of human existence implies the pursuit of narrative unity, which is necessary for the formation of personal identity.

I. The Three Fundamental Tenets of Human Existence and Alasdair McIntyre's Concept of Narrative Identity

From McIntyre's point of view, it is impossible to understand personal identity and ethics without thinking in terms of narrative. The narrative implicitly assumes the presence of the main characters, who are personalities, as well as making value judgments that create an axiological perspective of the story. In addition, the behavior of the hero should be explained in the narrative, and not just be described, such as weather phenomena or the existence of inanimate objects. McIntyre noted:

"It is important to note that I am not arguing here that the concepts of narrative or its comprehensibility or explainability are more fundamental than the concept of personal identity. The concepts of narrative, comprehensibility, and explainability presuppose the applicability of the concept of personal identity in the same way that it presupposes their applicability, and in the same way that each of them presupposes the applicability of the other two. It is a relationship of mutual necessity. It follows, of course, that all attempts to clarify the concept of personal identity independently and in isolation from the concepts of narrative, comprehensibility and explainability are doomed to failure" ^{[3, p. 296]}.

In an attempt to answer the question "why is storytelling crucial to our thinking about personality?", we turn to three fundamental propositions describing human existence. First, the self, or personality, is an existence with self—awareness and reflection - as Locke also noted, an existence capable of "considering oneself as oneself, as the same thinking being, at different times and in different places" ^{[4, p. 387]}. Thus, human identity, preserved in time, always includes a reflexive element. This is what distinguishes a person from other similar temporary existences, for example, such as a tree or a stone. Secondly, a person is a subject; he is not just an expression of a chain of causal relationships of certain processes, but a being acting on the basis of goals and desires; which implies the existence of an axiological and teleological horizon of existence. Thirdly, the human personality is a temporary existence, which means that personal identity must be an identity in time — unlike, say, the timeless identity of a number. The stability of personal identity presupposes a person's ability to think of himself as existing in time, while narrative identity is understood as an achievement that may or may not take place, be changed or lost.

However, what do these three fundamental propositions have to do with the narrative? The answer to this question will depend on what we understand by narrative. T.V. Zherebilo's Dictionary of Linguistic Terms defines narration as "a type of text based on a story about events and actions" ^{[5, p. 264]}. Lamarck, arguing with the defenders of the theory of narrative identity, gives the following definition of the narrative minimum:

"At least two events should be depicted in the narrative, and there should be some more or less free and illogical connection between the events" ^{[6, p. 394]}.

This minimalist concept of narrative misses the concepts of temporality and meaning. McIntyre and other philosophers developing the theory of narrative identity (Taylor, Riker and Shechtman, etc.) understood the narrative differently. In McIntyre's philosophy, the crucial thing about storytelling is that it connects events and actions over time in a way that gives them meaning. At the same time, the meaning constructed by the narrative is a special kind of meaning that differs from simple information. By making events understandable, it makes it possible to distinguish between a narrative and a simple chronicle (listing events in accordance with the time order). McIntyre also distinguishes the narrative type of meaning from the simple articulation of the causal order of events.

A special understanding of McIntyre's narrative arises from his critique of the reductionist, scientistic, and atomistic approach to the philosophy of action. The philosopher insists on the importance of understanding the meaning of human actions, arguing "that the concept of reasonable action is a more fundamental concept than the concept of action as such" ^{[3, pp. 281-282]}. A reasonable action is an action that can be presented as an episode of a narrative when we talk about a person.

"The importance of the concept of intelligence is closely related to the fact that the most basic difference of all that is included in our discourse and our practice in this field is the difference between human beings and other beings. Human beings can be responsible for what they have done; other beings cannot ... Therefore, this means understanding [a person's] action as something that is explicable, about which a reasonable explanation is always appropriate" ^{[3, p. 282]}.

McIntyre's concept of "intelligent action" connects the narrative with the first fundamental position of human existence that we have highlighted. We can consider actions as "reasonable" only in the context of describing the subject's intentions and cultural interpretations that have made those intentions understandable. Thus, McIntyre's narrative is a story about people and their actions; it is, first of all, an account of the actions of reflexive, intentional agents.

The understanding provided by the narrative goes beyond just describing a causal relationship. My actions become clear when they are immersed in the context of culture, when it is told why or why I committed them. Hence the teleological nature of the narrative, it contains information about the causes and goals of the actions of the "I". Lamarck's criticism ignores these aspects of the narrative. He believes that all we need to avoid atomism and discreteness is "to present ... actions in a causal and temporal sequence" ^{[6, p. 402]}. Further doubting the special value of narrative explainability, Lamarck writes: "Given that a narrative is just an ordering of a sequence of events, the arrangement of events in a causal relationship, then this is a truism that narratives can explain. What could be a better explanation than an explanation from the point of view of the cause?" ^{[6, C. 406.]}. To this rhetorical question, McIntyre's philosophy gives the following answer, in the case of human existence — a teleological explanation. It is the explanation in terms of the goals and motives of the intentional agent that distinguishes McIntyre's narrative from the simple causal casual relationship that Lamarck calls narrative. Thus, the teleological nature of the narrative is what connects it with the second fundamental position of human existence.

In the context of narrative identity, a statement about a subject's action is not only a description of facts or events, but an expression of a person's responsibility justified by his actions. This determines the relationship between the facts and the point of view of the agent from the first and third person, which together make up the meaning of the actions performed. Our concept of action, like our concept of ownership, is culturally sound and depends on accepted rules of conduct. According to the philosopher of law Herbert Hart, action is irreducible to empirical facts (psychologically conditioned movements of the human body), but is a synthesis of cultural norm and fact and by its nature ascriptive ^{[7, p.79]}. Human action cannot be expressed only with the help of descriptive concepts, it cannot be explained without resorting to the non-descriptive use of sentences through which duties or responsibilities are attributed.

Critics of narrative identity suggest the use of narrative as a cognitive tool that binds episodes of biography, like a thread binds pearls in a necklace. Consistent with this understanding, narration is a secondary, retrospective process of constructing illusions of order and presupposes the previous existence of "raw", atomized minimal units of experience that do not depend on human processes of giving meaning and meaning; which are asserted as truly "real" ^[8-12]. According to Lamarck, this position avoids the anti-realism of narrative identity, according to which in reality there are no events, but only a lot of stories that we invent, and as a result we lose the distinction between reality and fiction.

McIntyre denies such a definition of narrative identity. A holistic understanding of the narrative by a philosopher excludes the possibility of identifying a person's actions or the events of his biography separately from the narrative. According to McIntyre, we cannot consider discrete, atomized episodes of biography outside of narrative practices, "action is always an episode in a possible story" ^{[3, C.291]}. Speaking about the experience of human subjectivity, we do not start with events as an automated "real" experience, and then build a narrative around them, just as we do not start with "pure" sensory experiences, which we then conceptualize. We begin with a story in which events are understood as fragments cut from the narrative. We do not construct ourselves ex nihilo, our stories about ourselves are not based only on the experience of the "here and now", we discover who we are when we tell stories about our life project using an accessible range of cultural interpretations. A holistic understanding of the narrative implies that events and actions do not exist on their own, before and independently of the narrative.

It is important to note that such an explanation of how we understand human actions is primarily applicable to our own self. Narration is not what I tell when I retrospectively interpret my actions and events in which I participated; it is what I articulate, living my life in the present and making plans for the future. Me, other people and the world around me, what I interact with, make sense (to me) only because I can discover them in a similar narrative. The narrative assumes that I am not in a zombie state, realizing my own life. By constructing and living my life project as a kind of unity, I become aware of myself (even if fickle and always incomplete), my motives, modes of action and goals that I want to achieve, and this determines the plans and events of my life. Having a coherent narrative about my own life project that I can tell myself and others is a necessary part of the Self as a reflective and intentional agent.

Lamarck argues that "if the unity of life depends on the unity of the narrative, then it turns out that most lives do not have unity, because there is no such narrative… Narratives are stories that exist only when they are told. Without a narrative, there is no narrative" ^{[6, C. 404]}. However, the concept of narrative identity does not imply that I have to constantly retell my life story as a lengthening mantra in order to realize my self-identity as a time-limited being. The existence of an autobiographical narrative (addressed to myself or others), building a plot, gives meaning to those events and actions in which I took part as an actor, or to those plans and goals according to which I plan to act.

Speaking about the third fundamental position of human existence, we turn to the general statement that people feel like beings immersed in time. Narrative is important for understanding the identity of our Self primarily due to the fact that narrative (unlike causal sequence or chronicle) is a form in which self-aware subjects gain an understanding of themselves as persona persisting in time. The perception of oneself as an organism involved in cause-and-effect relationships (reductive physicalism) or as a thing with an experimental ability (phenomenal minimalism) may be a necessary, but not sufficient condition for thinking about oneself as a person persisting in time.

The argumentation presented in this article in defense of narrative identity is based on the acceptance of the three fundamental principles of human existence presented above. Therefore, to refute the narrative model, it would be sufficient to describe a person through physiological and biological processes, or deny that a person is by nature a temporary existence, or consider human activity as a set of atomized casual processes. The presented research defends the thesis that narrative identity is not an arbitrary contingent mental construct, but is necessarily present in human existence and is associated with the hermeneutic understanding of man as a temporary being capable of reflexive activity, the construction of meanings, assessments and goals.

II. Holism, intelligibility and teleological narrative

Some critics of the theory of narrative identity agree with the statement that understanding the meaning of human actions must necessarily have a narrative form, since human actions are based on goal-setting ^[13]. The consensus of critics is found in the denial of the thesis that we can move from understanding individual episodes of human actions to understanding the entire life project as a narrative. Galen Stroson opposes what he calls the psychological thesis of narrativity, according to which people "live their lives as a kind of story or story" ^{[14, p. 428]}. In his criticism of narrative identity, he defends the judgment that "... the narrative is false in any non-trivial version" ^{[14, p. 438]}. Giving an example of the process of making coffee, the philosopher states:

"If someone says that making coffee is a narrative that includes narrative, because we need to think about future actions in order to do them in the right order, and that everyday life includes many such narratives, then I believe that this statement is trivial" ^{[14, p. 439]}.

Based on their reasoning, we can conclude that, although unwillingly, he still recognizes that the process of making coffee is teleological, and as a result is narrative, however, he continues to insist that the presence of many such narrative episodes does not mean that my life project represents a kind of narrative unity. The fact that understanding even simple human actions should have a narrative form is not trivial, given the many competing explanatory models of human actions.

If we try to divide events or actions into minimal narrative episodes, we will find that this is not so easy to implement. Just as events become understandable when placed in the context of "elementary" narratives, so these "elementary" narratives become understandable in the context of "big" narratives. The statement, "I make coffee so that you can drink it," must be placed in a broader context for understanding. It is necessary to clarify how this particular episode of making coffee fits into my day and how it relates to my motives. Is this an ordinary coffee that I make for myself in the morning and the preparation of which allows me to give my day a familiar structure? Is this the coffee I'm making in anticipation of a friend's visit, or is it coffee for an unexpected guest? Maybe making coffee is an episode of procrastination and repression, an excuse to postpone doing unpleasant work. Does the aroma of brewed coffee return to a pleasant vacation at sea, or is it instant coffee drunk on a raid in the middle of a working day? Even the most "elementary" actions carry different levels of meaning, manifested in the context of "big" narratives.

Strawson considers it "trivial" to assert that "everyday life includes many such narratives," however, the division of the narrative into minimal narrative episodes remains conditional, since they cannot be understood outside the broad context of the "big" narrative. As the above example demonstrates, any "elementary" narrative is always part of a more complex narrative. We can highlight a very brief narrative episode, but it can always be expanded by diving back into the past or turning to the future in order to make the narrative more detailed. A person cannot be understood through a single moment of time "here and now", it is necessary to understand his retrospective history and his goals and plans for the future. However, the pragmatic question arises when we should stop in our expansion of the narrative.

The longer the narrative, the more context we discover, the clearer the person himself, his actions, motives and goals become; this process does not have a definite end point. Thus, "ultimate upliftment" is when there is nothing to add to the narrative of a person; such an understanding can be embodied in the theological concept of an omniscient God or the idea of an absolute spirit in Hegel's metaphysics. In the historical perspective, we always have to be content with a limited narrative and partial understanding.

Christman recognizes the teleological nature of personal narratives (more long-term than making coffee), but at the same time insists that such narratives do not necessarily have to form a narrative unity of personal existence. "Most people implement completely separate projects and goals, each of which, although it has an internal organizing purpose, cannot be interconnected within the framework of a common scheme" ^{[15, p. 702]}. Some people may quite consciously set themselves the goal of realizing a grandiose project and make almost all their efforts within the framework of solving this problem; a conditional example is the biography of Henry Ford, but this happens quite rarely. The concept of narrative identity does not imply that a personal life project should be built around a single overriding goal, rather, the fact is that a person should take into account all desired goals. A typical personal narrative will not be a story about the pursuit of a single goal, but a narrative about how the subject tried to coordinate his various projects and goals. A subject who seeks to distribute his limited resources between family, work, hobbies, recreation, communication, creativity, etc., will do this taking into account different goals within the framework of the only life he lives, and at the same time think about how to combine them with each other. The simplest example is our limited time: every day we decide how to distribute it, what weight and importance to devote to projects, which ones to abandon, which ones to make a priority, and which ones to put in the second place. This brings us back to the third fundamental position of human existence: we are finite temporary beings; that is why we have to make painful choices between goals, determining which one is more meaningful to us. Thus, the personal narrative becomes a story about how the subject manages to coordinate the requirements of various projects, for example, family life and work. This question arises in the lives of many people; to ignore it, arguing that these are two different "sequences of human life that proceed completely independently of each other", would be absurd ^{[15, p. 702]}. These are not separate episodes that generate unrelated events and actions; since I am a subject involved in both projects, I need to think about how they can combine with each other, being important aspects of my single life.

Christman argues that "in a trivial sense, it is true that all events in a person's life are causally related", and suggests that "this fact is due to the fact that all events were experienced by the same physical subject, which makes it unnecessary to assert that these events should be connected in a narrative way" ^{[15, P. 702]}. Pointing to the casual connections that define the identity of the embodied subject, Christman ignores the intelligible and value aspect of the concept of narrative identity ^[16]. In the narrative approach, I am not just a passive subject who is endowed with the ability to experience and provide a casual connection between ongoing, unrelated events ^{[17, p.192]}. As a person who lives a single life, I have to think about how my goals and actions to achieve them in one area can affect what I value in another. Since I am always the subject to whom such demands are made, I have to reflect and make decisions about how to integrate the tasks of different projects into a single lived life.

In his criticism, Christman ignores another aspect of narrative identity related to special self-care, which Shechtman defines through four practical problems:

a) concern for personal interest (a special concern that we feel only about our own future states);

b) moral responsibility for their actions;

c) compensation (obtaining benefits or losses in the future for their actions in the present);

d) survival ^{[18, p. 164]}.

My identity is determined by what is important to me (that my interests be realized taking into account my will and value ideas); by the fact that I bear moral responsibility for my actions; I can plan and anticipate the consequences of my actions (for example, go on vacation, for which I saved money); and, finally, by the fact that that I continue to exist.

Ignoring or misunderstanding of these aspects of the concept of narrative identity underlies other popular objections of anti-narrativists. For example, it is often argued that narrative theories ignore the problems of deception or self-deception, the variability and impermanence of oral narratives, arguing that life is less structured than literary works ^[19-21]. These important remarks constitute a critique of narrative identity and reveal a contradiction in the understanding of a personal narrative if it is understood as an unmistakable, always true and complete narrative about oneself. Perhaps the "founding fathers" of the theory of narrative identity, Ricker, McIntyre and Taylor, did not exhaustively describe the difference between personal and literary narrative. But they once did not claim that narratives always testify to the true state of affairs and do not contain errors, or that we can talk about our biography and plans from an absolute point of view, like the Calvinist understanding of fate. When we live stories from our own lives, we constantly review them, because our understanding of the meaning of the past is subject to change, we constantly go back and re-evaluate the events and actions that form our personal narrative. As Kierkegaard wrote: "one can understand life only by looking back, and live only by looking forward." We live our lives based on the self-understanding that we have through looking back at what our life was like up to this point. Of course, we never achieve complete and absolute knowledge by realizing the imperative "know yourself", but this is not the basis for assertions that recognizing our finiteness and imperfection of our cognitive ability should lead us to radical agnosticism, skepticism and despair when trying to obtain any structured knowledge about ourselves. Speaking about the emergence of self-understanding, we should rather turn to the concept of fallibilism, or the principle of "the best possible articulation of experience" (test account) by Taylor ^{[22, p. 142.]}. According to this principle, criticism of the previous articulation of experience and the new experience gained are the reasons for the transformation of meanings, meanings and understanding of our perception of who We are there. As a result, one articulation turns into another, more preferable for the subject, thereby generating a new narrative.

Critics of narrative identity are right when they say that deception and self-deception matter. Of course, there are false, distorted, inaccurate or self-deceptive narratives. But the fact is that the only way to demonstrate that a story is false or distorted is to compare it with a more plausible account. This is exactly what Taylor says, forming his principle of "the best possible articulation of experience." The only conclusion we should draw when faced with false or distorted stories is that we should look for a more appropriate narrative. A particular narrative may be false, but the narrative form itself is not inherently falsifying. We may never be able to tell a complete, undistorted, and absolutely true story of someone's life, but that doesn't mean we can't construct a more meaningful articulation of the experience.

The criticism of anti-narrativists tends to depend on ontological assumptions inherent in reductive physicalism or phenomenological minimalism; these assumptions suggest that there are "pure", atomized units of experience that do not depend on the human ability to give meaning and significance ^{[14,20,23,24]}. Anti-narrativists try to contrast "simple facts", "minimal experiences" or "minimal narrative episodes" with the stories we tell about ourselves. But, as already demonstrated above, even simple facts or minimal narrative episodes, for example, when I make coffee or decide to stay at work, develop in a narrative form. When human existence is understood as a process of interpretation, involving a constant interweaving of the past, present and future, it is problematic to imagine an "authentic", undistorted, direct experience of the existence of our Self, cleansed of interpretations and independent of temporary changes. If such a "pure experience" cannot be extracted, then there is no reason to reject narrative interpretations as unrealistic or knowingly false.

Many criticisms of the theory of narrative identity are based on the fear that we have too much creative freedom in defining ourselves: I can tell a story in which I present myself as who I want to be (but am not), I can choose which events to talk about and which not, to emphasize on one aspect of the story or another, or, in the end, just lie about who I am. However, this does not contradict McIntyre's narrative theory, which does not assume that our narrative is completely under our control.

"We are no more (and sometimes less) than the co-authors of our own narratives. It is only in fantasy that we live as the story tells us. In life, as Aristotle and Engels noted, we are always under certain restrictions. We enter a stage that we did not design, and we find ourselves part of an action that is not the product of our action. Each of us, being the main actor of his own drama, plays a subordinate role in the drama of others, and each drama limits these others" ^{[3, p. 287]}.

Our narratives are intertwined with the stories of many other people, and, of course, unforeseen circumstances intrude into our narratives that can radically change our lives. But since I am a subject, I need to find ways to respond to new circumstances; which, in turn, involves including them in my story. If my illness leads to the fact that I cannot continue my sports career, then I have to answer the questions what should I do now and what significance my past history and sporting achievements have for me. If I suddenly fall in love, which means a new feeling for me, will it change my plans that I had before?

Our narratives become more complex and change as we live our lives. Building a narrative unity that unites the elements of our personality, taking into account the accidents that we encounter while living a life project, is an ongoing process ^[25]. It is important to note that narrative unity does not mean striving for maximum simplification of the life project or its reduction to anything. People are complex beings; the concept of narrative identity involves combining this complexity into unity, rather than simplifying it by reducing it to "simple facts". After all, the best story is not the one in which the fewest events occur and the fewest meanings are revealed.

III. The ethical potential of the narrative

The philosophers who developed the theory of narrative identity (primarily Ricker, McIntyre, and Taylor) believed that narrativity was central to ethics ^[26-28]. In turn, critics of narrative theory often raise the question of why we should strive for narrative unity and perceive it as a blessing. Many of them argued that narrative unity is not only ethically neutral, but contains a negative value, being undesirable. Strawson suggests that the self consists of a sequence of directly given moments, and that all the processes of self-interpretation that a person tries to express through the narrative continuity of his life distort this reality.

"I assume that it almost always does more harm than good–that the narrative tendency to seek plot or narrative coherence in one's life is usually a serious obstacle to understanding oneself.": for a just, general, practically real feeling, hidden or explicit, of its nature" ^{[14, p. 447]}

Modern neuroscience, according to Strawson, has shown that memories of your past and stories about it necessarily contain distortions, which means: "the more you remember, retell, tell about yourself, the further you risk getting away from an accurate self-understanding, from the truth of your existence. Some people constantly talk about their daily experiences to others in the form of stories. They are increasingly moving away from the truth" ^{[14, p. 447]}. Martha Nussbaum is not, like Strawson, a consistent opponent of narrative theory, but expresses similar concerns. She is concerned that an ethical view proclaiming the pursuit of integrity and harmony may lead to "blindness to values and goals, subordinate the specific requirement of each commitment and love to the requirements of harmony" ^{[28, p. 227]}. Philip Quinn, arguing with Kierkegaard's statements about the value of unity and harmony of life, praises "discord" and "disunity" ^[29]. Just as critics of narrative identity are concerned that it exaggerates or absolutizes the degree of control we actually have over our lives, they are also concerned that narrative theory exaggerates the degree of ethical control we should strive for.

The question of whether we should strive for narrative unity is confused by the above critics with a discussion about which life is preferable: calm, orderly, predictable or adventurous, filled with risk, adventure and new experiences. It is obvious that we differ significantly from each other in our preferences: someone prefers peace and quiet to stormy impressions and new experiences - to a large extent this is a matter of personal temperament, and not something to which the normative requirements of ethics should be applied.

Let's highlight the differences that make it possible to identify the poles of the quietism–adventurism spectrum:

(a1) the desire for a quiet life – (a2) the desire for an active life;

(b1) the desire to be invulnerable – (b2) the willingness to be vulnerable;

(b1) the desire to focus on one dominant goal – (b2) the desire to implement a life project that includes a wide variety of goals, interests and knowledge.

An adventurous existence unites every second option from the presented pairs (a2, b2, b2). It is important that these differences do not imply any necessary connection between them. Even without considering in detail all the possible combinations of these desires, we can say that none of them implies a mandatory connection with the other. The pursuit of one dominant goal does not exclude the search for adventure in a person's life; the pursuit of adventure can be a way to realize the desire to be invulnerable, as well as the rejection of an active life. And, most importantly, in the context of our reflections on narrative unity, none of the presented desires is a criterion for distinguishing between a single and disjointed life in an ethical sense. The ethical unity expressed in narrative identity does not imply limitations based on the difference of desires that define a life project within the spectrum of "quietism – adventurism"; ethical unity does not imply the absence of adventures, attempts to be invulnerable and the pursuit of one dominant goal, etc. It has already been discussed above that the theory of narrative identity does not contain a statement about complete creative freedom in defining one's own life or that our narrative is completely under our control. It also does not imply that we should strive to form a special obsessive self-control in order to achieve the narrative unity of a life project. Whichever of the options (a) or (b) you choose, the question remains how to live your life in an ethically responsible way.

Taylor formulated the reason why a person should strive for narrative unity as follows:

"[Our] being is essentially connected with our sense of goodness... since we cannot help but focus on goodness and thus determine our place relative to it and, consequently, determine the direction of our life, we must inevitably understand our life in narrative form as a "quest" ^{[30, p.51-52]}.

Taylor suggests that our existence as individuals implicitly contains the ability to navigate in a moral space. If we, as reflective beings, are aware of our values as a good, then we need to periodically ask ourselves: "where am I in relation to my values, how successful is their implementation in my life project?". Creating a narrative of our own life project helps us determine where we are on the trajectory indicated by our aspirations; in order to understand who we are, we need to be aware of why we have become like this and what goals we strive for. Forming the principle of "the best possible articulation of experience," Taylor argued that:

"Articulation of values is aimed at bridging the gap between emotions (moral feelings) and perceived values. When we articulate values, we give them a form that allows them to be included in the discussion, which can lead to the affirmation, denial or transformation of our values and moral feelings" ^[31].

Taylor suggested that the presence of values in a person, acting as the basis of the international personality structure, implies the need to consider his life project through narrative unity. If a person really adheres to certain values and principles, then they necessarily act as a unifying force in his life project. This is illustrated by the answers to Christman's objections given in the previous section. Any subject has to determine the degree of his involvement in various projects that he implements, this is a requirement of assessment in terms of significance for a person. That is, we must answer the question of how much this or that project means to us. But if we are moral beings, then we have another range of problems that require assessment. We will have to admit that there are moral limitations in implementing the balance of our projects, as well as responsibility to others for the way they are implemented (for example, to family members and work colleagues).

As moral beings, we need to ask ourselves, "Are my projects morally acceptable in terms of my values?" Such a question does not allow us to consider the range of projects we implement as separate, unrelated aspects of our lives, since the subject cannot think of himself as a truly ethical agent if, for example, he strives to live in accordance with the values of justice and honesty in one aspect of his life and acts with cruelty and treachery in another. Those who possess the virtues of empathy, honesty and solidarity cannot simply "turn them off" when they come to the office and "turn on" the virtues of efficiency, adaptability and competitiveness. I would venture to suggest that someone who possessed such an ability (for example, a ruthless dictator and at the same time a loving father or a concentration camp guard and at the same time an exemplary husband) would not be a truly moral person. Rather, here we would have to talk about subjectivity, simple adaptability to social situations, rejection of one's own will, values and opinions, since ethical life presupposes a certain constancy that constitutes subjectivity ^[32].

Reflecting on ethics, Strawson suggests that there are two types of personality: "diachronic" and "episodic". "Diachronics" feel the need to build the narrative unity of their life project. "Episodic" personalities do not have a sense and need to experience personal unity in time through narrative, since they do not perceive the conscious identity of their own existence as something continuous and continuous. Strawson argues that "episodic existence" is ethically more valuable and denies the claim that "episodic" personalities are not capable of friendship, are not ready for long-term commitments and are not capable of performing moral deeds. In his reasoning, he appeals to the experience of Montaigne, who admitted that he had a bad memory, but this did not prevent him from possessing the great gift of friendship. The philosopher uses Montaigne's statements to refute the claim that "episodic" personalities cannot be friends ^{[14, p. 450]}.

Strawson understands friendship as something that "does not require the ability to recall past shared experiences and nor any inclination to appreciate them. It manifests itself when a person is in the present" ^{[14, C. 450]}. As an example, we can imagine a person suffering from amnesia who demonstrates kindness and affection to people between meeting and parting with them, but who is not interested in the experience of past relationships with these people or never thinks about what they could do together in the future. I think we could call such a person friendly, but hardly a friend; friendship is not just an emotional experience lasting in the present, it is not something that suddenly arises, but something that requires development and joint experience. Friendship, love and fidelity presuppose the existence of a temporal structure in which the continuity of one's own Self and the Other in time is asserted. Ricker believed that the subject builds this type of identity by himself due to "fidelity to himself in restraining this word." According to Riker, a restrained word indicates the preservation of the Self, which allows us to characterize the subject as the author of motives and actions. When I make a promise, I assure you that I will keep my word — in a sense, preserve myself - no matter what happens in the future, thereby preserving the self—permanence of the individual.

"A restrained word speaks about the preservation of the Self, which, unlike character, cannot be inscribed in the dimension of anything at all, but can only be inscribed in the dimension of "who". Constancy of character is one thing, constancy in friendship is another" ^{[33, p. 153]}.

Apparently, Strawson's understanding of friendship is fundamentally different from what Veda and his critics define friendship, love and loyalty. The philosopher's description of friendship as episodic acts unrelated to each other ignores the temporal coherence of shared experience, its meaningful experience in the present and its dependence on the past and future.

If the narrative is a necessary part of the "explored life" (which since the time of Socrates we have understood as a benefit), that is, it is necessary for understanding oneself and others, if being a person means being an actor of a single narrative, then, in this case, the desire for narrative unity can be considered as an ethical requirement. Hence the questions arise, does it take more than being born human in order to be moral; or, if we approach this question from the other side, does it not require something less than narrative unity in order to be ethical? Do those who have failed to achieve narrative unity (to combine various aspects of their lives into a single narrative) cease to be human? Let's try to answer these questions by referring to Taylor's philosophy.

As noted above, the philosopher argued that to be a person means to exist in the moral horizon; personal existence is associated with a sense of certain values and always contains an axiological content that allows you to answer questions about what to strive for, what is worth doing, and what is unacceptable. It is important to note that, speaking about the ethical horizon of existence, Taylor understands it formally — we all live with some idea of what is good and how we treat it. That is, if the existence of a personality presupposes the existence of an evaluation system, this does not mean that this system must necessarily be universal, holistic and meet ethical requirements (value positions can be deformed or inverted.) ^{[30, pp. 53-91]}. Nietzschean amoralism asserts the rejection of the shackles of "slave morality", but at the same time assumes the presence of strong assessments.

According to Taylor, being a person means living in an axiological space. The philosopher suggests that if we have any values, that is, internalized restrictive-binding or attractive-motivating attitudes, realized as determinants of behavior, allowing us to perceive actions as the result of our own activities, then our life should strive to build a narrative structure. This desire for narrative unity is also characteristic of those who live by values that we refuse to consider ethical and universal. Nevertheless, from an anti-narrative point of view, it remains possible to assert that an existence unrelated to any values and principles, which always corresponds to the desires of the present moment, allows us to avoid building the narrative structure of our lives. However, if we try to imagine a person who consciously chose this modus vivendi, we will find that his choice is preceded by a certain set of values and his actions do not depend on unrelated momentary desires.

A possible example of this principle can be the aesthete "A" from Kierkegaard's "Either-or", who implements the capricious and inconsistent aspirations of aesthetic existence ^[34]. At a superficial glance, it may seem that he does not have a complete narrative about himself, he commits acts that are unrelated and dictated by a craving for satisfying desires through pleasure. Davenport, analyzing Kierkegaard's text in the context of narrative theory, considers "A" as a person implementing a project of avoiding obligations, for whom freedom and enjoyment of the "aesthetic" and "interesting" are the main values ^{[35, p. 96]}. Thus, at first glance, the fragmented, incoherent life of "A" is actually a coherent narrative, its inconsistent incoherent actions gain connection and meaning if we tell a true story about them, in which they will be considered as part of the project of aesthetic life. As Davenport further points out, this project is not realized by "A" and is not reflected by him, that is, "A" cannot admit to himself that he has an attitude to avoid obligations, a kind of primary project of avoiding obligations that binds together his strategy of behavior, aspirations, goals and desires.

To demonstrate someone to whom the principle of narrative unity really cannot be applied, it is necessary to find someone who does not implement the project of avoiding principles and obligations like Kierkegaard's "A"; someone who really does not have guiding attitudes, trailers and values. It should be someone who always acts impulsively, the actions of such a person should depend only on which desire turns out to be stronger at one time or another.

According to Frankfurt's theory of free action, being a person means having the ability to evaluate one's desires (to have second-order desires) ^[36]. Such an assessment requires the presence of values that are perceived by the "evaluator" as something more than just another desire. In this context, the value is what we can use to evaluate our desires not only in terms of their practical implementation, but also using criteria that differ from the desires themselves. Frankfurt's argument that a person deprived of the ability to evaluate his desires is not a person is intuitively understandable, and if this is true, then the attempt to escape from the narrative structure when describing personal identity is either part of manipulation and self-deception (as in the case of Kierkegaard's "A") or, if it really finds an empirical incarnation, then we will find a description of the pre-personal existence of a person.

Conclusion

The theory of narrative identity is based on three postulated fundamental positions of the existence of personality: a) personality is an existence with self—awareness and reflection; b) a person is a subject — a being capable of acting on the basis of goals, values and desires; c) personality is a temporary existence with an experimental ability. Based on three fundamental propositions, the theory of narrative identity successfully solves the problem of personality identity and the related issue of ethical responsibility of the subject, forming a narrative unity of the life project of an individual, in which the interrelation of the concepts of personal identity, narration and evaluation (the ability to evaluate one's desires and aspirations) is built. The denial of one or more of these fundamental propositions will be sufficient to refute the narrative model of identity.

The criticism of narrative identity is based on a misunderstanding of narrative theory, an example of which is the mixing of the problem of striving for narrative unity and preferences of various life projects based on a difference of temperaments; ignoring some of its aspects (holistic, intelligibility, teleological and the principle of self-care), as well as conceptual differences presented primarily in reductionist directions (reductive physicalism, phenomenal minimalism). If additional clarification of the theory of narrative identity is sufficient for the first two reasons, then the third category of reasons requires the disclosure of the potential of narrative theory through a polemic with the conceptual objections put forward.

Based on the potential of the philosophy of Alasdair McIntyre and Charles Taylor, the presented defense of narrative theory argues that the ethical dimension of subjectivity implies the pursuit of narrative unity necessary for the formation of personal identity. Thus, it is argued that narrative identity is not an arbitrary contingent mental construct, but is necessarily present in human existence and is associated with the hermeneutic understanding of man as a temporary being capable of reflexive activity, the construction of meanings, assessments and goals. An attempt to get away from the narrative structure when describing personal identity leads to a description of a person's pre-personal existence.