is there an enduring self?
Perhaps the most uncomfortable and perplexing question to ask one’s self is whether there truly is an enduring self. Whether we change from day to day, or whether we are now all we will ever be, the question remains does our self endure? Answering this question has taken me weeks, nearly months to consider. Not necessarily because it is so far beyond my comfort zone, although of course that was a factor, but because I could not sway significantly to one side or the other. In fact, I wrote and edited an entire essay on why there was no enduring self, eventually however I realized I was the one disputing myself. It was then that I realized there must be an enduring self. Our legal system and the beliefs we have surrounding it requires the existence of an enduring self. We hold people responsible for a crime they committed in the past, sometimes 30 or 40 years in the past. How can we prosecute them unless they are the same person who committed the crime? The case is similar with our ethical beliefs.