抄録
Over the last twenty years, the study of implicit attitudes has been significantly developed. Meanwhile, the existence of these attitudes raises an important philosophical
question about their relations with our ”real self, ” which makes a moral
appraisal of ourselves possible. Do implicit attitudes constitute our real self?
In other words, do these attitudes express who we really are? In order to address
this problem, I shall divide the model of the real self into the synchronic
and the diachronic model, by drawing from the works of H. Frankfurt and his
critics. As is commonly-known, Frankfurt provides a hierarchical account in
this context, which has been criticized by some philosophers. Thus, I will first
examine the controversy between Frankfurt and his critics, and then I shall elicit
the core ideas from the synchronic model and the diachronic model which are
related to the real self, and are common to both perspectives in the controversy
over each model. These core ideas of the synchronic and the diachronic model
are expressed as ”the coherence of mental states through the connection among
their semantic contents” and ”the inflexibility of the thematic continuity” respectively.
Given this, I examine whether implicit attitudes constitute the real
self from the perspective of each model. And, based on my examination, I argue
that they do not constitute the real self in either one. If my argument thus far
is correct, it follows from one perspective of moral responsibility that we are
not responsible for behavior caused by our implicit attitudes. However, I point
out that the lack of such moral responsibility might be contrary to our intuition
or practice related to our ordinary attribution of moral responsibility.
Therefore, perhaps it might be the conception of the real self itself that should
be reconsidered, which is an issue that I raise for future research
