Identità narrativa, individuazione ed etica eudaimonistica

This article aims to probe the ethical import of a personological viewof self-narrativism that is well-entrenchedin a naturalistic context. Against thebackdrop of William James’ theory of the duplex self, the claim that we constituteourselves as morally responsible agents (as ‘Lockean persons’) by forming and usingautobiographical narratives is combined with Dan McAdams’view of narrative identity as a layer of personality. During personality development, internalised andevolving stories of the self layer over other layers of personality, and this process oflayering may be integrative. The process of self-representation originated from the I/Me dialectic, then, takes the form of what Jung identified as “individuation”, namely,a striving towards the unity of the various strata of personality. Such a process has anethical dimension that is reminiscent of the ideal of eudaimonia, the discovery andactualization of one’s own unique potentials and talents.