DO I HAVE MANY SELVES?

DO I HAVE MANY SELVES? An article in the November Atlantic by Paul Bloom, a professor of psychology at Yale, reviews the work of researchers who look at human decisions as the result of contests between two or more selves contained within us. As Bloom summarizes the state of the research: “Many researchers now believe, to varying degrees, that each of us is a community of competing selves, with the happiness of one often causing the misery of another.” I posted yesterday on Hume’s view that we don’t have a fixed self. Hume also entertained the idea that there are many selves. Bloom quotes Hume: “I cannot compare the soul more properly to any thing than to a republic or commonwealth, in which the several members are united by the reciprocal ties of government and subordination.”