Personal Identity And Values

Personal values, beliefs, and principles are important for individuals to know about themselves. However, when asked the question, “what are your personal values, beliefs, and principles?” The first response is often a laundry list of characteristics with the assumption that those three words are synonymous. From my experience when posed this question the laundry list became long and in retrospect, I began to wonder what the differences were between each of these terms. As a teacher, employee, mother, and Christian knowing these differences and how to answer the question is an important component of determining how I make decisions when faced with ethical dilemmas. Hence, began the investigation of how the terms relate, their meaning and what my answer is to this question. Since my laundry list was quite long for this essay, I will share and explain the top two elements for each category, how they relate to one another and how the knowledge influences tough decisions.

No matter how much a person desires to live according to their personal autonomy, he or she will never escape the influence of societal forces. Explicitly or subtlety, these forces shape our individuality. One intriguing manner that these societal forces manifests itself in is our name. As Ruth Graham writes, “It’s becoming increasingly clear today that names carry a wealth of information about the world around us, the family we arrived in, the moment we were born—and that they mark us as part of cultural currents bigger than we realize.” Names alone provide evidence that individuals are made by interactions with social institutions and groups. Ultimately, the inescapable nature of society’s influence demands individuals to ponder how much personal autonomy is actually autonomous and to what extent does the pursuit of personal autonomy lead to a life of emptiness and vanity.

Self-identity has always been an integral aspect of human beings, allowing individualism and variety among the human race. However, difficulties in finding self-identity have been extremely common, especially towards the end of youth. Many families have set expectations on how an adolescent should behave. This may generate self-doubt upon the teenager and eventually result in unwanted conflict when the expectations cannot be achieved. Associating with influences from family members, many young adults have also experienced a negative interaction with peers due to contrasting personalities. The environment shared with the peers may become hostile, forcing a change, in a desperation to fit in. Society has taught young people that disobeying

Family is a bond, and the bond I have with my family is very strong. Every Saturday, my family goes to my Grandparents and we have a big family dinner. Those Saturday night dinners have shaped me to believe that it’s important to be close with your family. Those dinners created a bond that will never be broken between my family and I. Every Saturday, I learn something new about my family and we get closer to each other each week. Without my family, I wouldn’t be pushed to strive for greatness. They push me to be better and further me to succeed.

Stereotypes have been around since the beginning and continue to hurt the lives of certain people in society. Due to stereotypes and prejudice made by certain people, the author, Evan Hunter, successfully demonstrated through the story “On the Sidewalk Bleeding” the consequences of stereotyping. The story focuses on a sixteen year old boy named Andy, and his last moments being alive after being stabbed by a rival gang known as the Guardians. Andy was stereotyped because of his purple jacket that identified him as a member of the Royals. While he is reflecting on his life, four people come by but do not take the time to help. The drunk man

Personal identity is essential in the human experience. Identity is complex and can be broken down into two main groups: introspective identity, and bodily identity. Introspective identity is based off of the groups, mentalities, or beliefs that you align yourself with, and bodily identity is based off of the physical side of yourself. Whether physical or introspective, your identity impacts every action you take. Whether choices ranging from what colors you prefer to which college you want to attend are primarily based off of your introspective identity, which is a combination of both memory and consciousness, physical identity impacts how others perceive you. Consciousness is mainly the awareness of bodily identity as well as continuous introspective identify, while memory is awareness of introspective identity. These two different facets of identity are imperative in the distinction between bodily identity and introspective identity. In means of personal identity introspective identity (which is evident in memory), is essential, while bodily identity (based partially in consciousness) has less credit.

Derik Parfit is a philosopher from Britain who concentrates on issues of personal identity, ethics, relation and rationality. Parfit is of the argument that unless questions about identity are dealt with then it is not possible to tackle specific crucial questions like memory, responsibility and matters as survival. Personal identity is important as it helps in addressing certain vital questions. According to Parfit, survival does not require maintaining or preserving of identity but it is a common relation that needs pursuing apart from identity and the relation consider are those that deals with intentions and memory. Parfit argues that survival is a matter of degree unlike identity. In his argument he aimed at differentiating between identity and matters of survival. As for survival, whereby in his view it is possible for a person to survive as two, the original person’s relation to that of each of resulting people is of great concern as it creates a sense in which a single person can survive as two. He assumes that if one’s brain is divided into two and planted into new bodies; both resulting persons will possess the original person’s character and memories of his life. On the other hand, as for identity it is a one-one (is all-or-nothing) relation but matters in survival need not be one-one.

My family shaped my personal and social identity at a micro level by being the first set of influencers the moment I was born. My personal identity is significantly influenced by my family through the approach that my parents have taken to raise and nurture me. The results of my parents raising me is shown through the behaviour and beliefs that I embody. For example, because of my family I have always been aware that there is a God. In consequence, my compliant behaviour towards religion has already been constructed at a young age. Moreover, my social identity’s structure was shaped by my family through they way they have socially interacted with me. My micro level interactions with my family throughout time has created a deeply rooted influence within me. The influence that my family has had on my social identity is demonstrated in the way that I respond in certain social situations. For example, through behavioural observation as a child I have learned not to speak back to my parents when they are lecturing me.

My family started off as a big, beautiful, healthy green tree, but when the two most important branches withered away the tree lost its luster. For my family my grandparents were the foundation, they kept the family together and happy. When they were living their house was our meeting place for Sunday dinner, birthday parties, and everything else. There is an African Proverb that says “A family is like a tree, it can bend but

I could recollect a nostalgic instance in life about a traveling experience, but upon arriving to the city of Amman in the Middle- East, no experience was evermore instilled into the intellect of my ignorant eighteen- year- old, self. Immediately, I could recognize the solemnity of organization; the formal wear between people, the newly creative technology for consumer purposes and the religious reminders echoing through the highest towers of the Mosques. The experience was unlike any from the United States. These perceptions informed me that I was living in some kind of utopian society.

My family has always been very close. We spend a great deal of time together and express our deep feelings and emotions with one another. If one of us has an issue, every member of the family is aware of it and shares the burden. When a person in the family does not share significant information about one’s life with the rest of the members, there is hurt feelings. Also, if a member cannot attend a family event, the family feels disappointed and misses the absent member. It is evident that connectedness is held as extremely valuable.

I was lucky enough to grow up with so much support. Growing up like this taught me the importance of family and how to learn from them, which I believe led to an even deeper and rapid establishment of our family’s core values. My family as a whole has always taught me the importance of hard work, service, honesty, dependability, trustworthiness, and pure kindness. My Pappaw Buddy was like our superman; no matter what his physical condition was, he was always willing to help our neighbors. He never rested when he was supposed to because to him, there was work to be done. Another very important rule my family follows is to smile and speak to everyone you meet. Establishing meaningful connections has always been important to us, especially in our small-town setting. When my grandfather passed away, the entire town mourned; this showed me how many lives he really did touch, and how important it is to live for others.

My purpose is to show my individuality and to express myself. This is for others including myself, to see and to remind us that our identity is very complex.

Everybody has an identity, it makes them individual and unique, and it defines who you are as a person. This project about my identity showed me what makes me unique. I would have never known how much my friends mean to me or how my identities connect with each other. I have three identities that make me who I am, cultural, personal, and social. A specific quality that covers my cultural identity is being Czechoslovakian. Both sides of my family have at least a part of Czech in them. My great-grandparents are from Czech Republic and my grandpa was the first generation in America, he was born in Ohio. This is very important because I have always identified as Czech and it is a big part of me, as I am so interested in ancestry. For my personal identity, the biggest part is my personality, being loud and outgoing, has always been important to me. The reason being, it is how people view me. A lot of people know me as the loud person or the person who talks a lot. That is meaningful to me considering I like people to view me in a certain way The last identity, social, is one of the most important to me because it involves my friends, and through this project, I learned how vital they really are to my social identity. I realized that I have a good amount of friends in this project. It is nice to have people as a support system and to relate with. These qualities show that I value being loud and outgoing. It also says that I value my family and they are a big part of life. The last one, social, ties in with the first one because it shows I am outgoing and friendly.

Many people question themselves, what is it exactly that makes them unique? What is it that defines them as a unique person that no one in the world possesses? In philosophy, these questions do not have just one answer, and all answers are correct depending on which theory appeals most and makes sense to you. In general, there are two ways people approach this question, some say that a person’s identity is the “self” that carries all of their experiences, thoughts, memories, and consciousness (ego theorists), and some say that a person’s identity is just a bundle of experiences and events that a person has been through in their life, these people deny that the “self” exists (bundle theorists). In this paper, I will be arguing that a person’s identity is just a bundle of experiences, denying the self and the memory criterion.