Thomas, Jean-Philippe;
(2025)
New Selves, New Morals: The Ethics of Transformative Experience.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
Some of our experiences radically change us. After losing a loved one, moving to a new county, or having a child, it is common to feel that you are a ‘different person’ to the person you were before this experience. Sometimes these experiences give us insights that we could not have had without going through them. Sometimes these experiences also radically change some of our core values, commitments, and desires. In the philosophical literature, these experiences are often referred to as ‘transformative experiences’. This thesis is about the ethics of transformative experience — that is, the ethical issues arising in contexts in which people go through or are otherwise affected by transformative experiences. The main goal of the thesis is to present a ‘launchpad’ for engaging with new issues in the ethics of transformative experience. I expand the ethics of transformative experience in two main ways. First, I provide new evidence for the idea that one of the main reasons why transformative experiences can lead to ethical issues is that they create a gap between a person’s old self and their new self. Second, I show that the ethical issues arising in the context of transformative experiences are more varied than previously recognised. I develop three puzzles which show that, if we take transformative experiences seriously, we may be unable to properly regret some historical tragedies, unable to morally evaluate transformative experiences which we have not been through ourselves, and, under certain conditions, we may have to give up some of our long-term moral commitments. I end by highlighting the importance of a more general lesson, which is that transformative experiences often make it difficult to identify a single or appropriate subject of moral concern.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | New Selves, New Morals: The Ethics of Transformative Experience |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2025. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Dept of Philosophy |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10208562 |
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