How Shall I Name Thee?

Abstract

The relation between Cartesian dualism and the developmental dualism of the nature-nurture dichotomy is discussed, with special attention to the treatment of subjectivity and agency. I argue that causal explanation need not drive out active subjects, as it so often seems to, and that it is especially questionable to attempt to solve questions of moral responsibility by weighing biological against environmental causes, or causes in general against reasons. A developmental systems perspective provides a way of seeing subjectivity as both constructed and natural. Aspects of persons cannot then be attributed to biology or culture, and responsibility is a matter not of independence from causal influence, but of action and accountability in a social world.

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