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This chapter focuses on why all of the participants—rescuers, bystanders, or perpetrators—had claimed that they had no choice in how they treated others during World War II. It argues that self-image is the central psychological variable, with rescuers, bystanders, and Nazi supporters revealing dramatically different self-concepts. Identity constrains choice for all individuals, not just rescuers, though character and self-image are not all there is to it. The chapter further asserts that the ethical importance of values works through the fashion in which values are integrated into the speaker's sense of self and worldview. Personal suffering, in the form of past trauma, heightens awareness of the plight of others for rescuers; for bystanders and Nazis, however, it increases a sense of vulnerability manifesting itself in a defensive posture and heightened in-group/out-group distinctions. Finally, the chapter notes that the speakers' cognitive categorization systems carry strong ethical overtones.

Society has come to recognize the leaders of modern corporations, among many others, as heroes. In order to understand why some business leaders are being seen in larger-than-life contexts, this chapter examines the concept of hero as illustrated in mythology and folk literature. It argues that what business heroes have in common with the heroes of myth and religion is that they not only symbolize dreams and aspirations to their firms, and even to general society, but also are accomplishers of pragmatic goals. The chapter also presents how the heroic self-concepts of leaders in the latter part of their careers, tempered by the corporate settings, gives rise to distinctly different departure styles. Four categories are illustrated: monarch-like exits, general-like exits, ambassador-like exits, and governor-like exits. This chapter concludes by providing a brief outline of the book which includes an overview of the succeeding chapters, the book's goals, and the primary sources of data.

Are we responsible for our characters? This question is the heart of this chapter. People are responsible for their characters because they chose them. Holding people responsible for their characters, even if these are largely involuntary, is effective and functional in a way in which holding people responsible for involuntary actions is not. People should be responsible and liable both for their characters and for actions that flow from their characters. The fact of the matter is whether someone is responsible for her or his character and this fact is independent both of how we actually talk in such matters and of whether it is advantageous that we continue to talk in such a way.

Rocco J. Gennaro defends the HOT theory of consciousness against the charge that it cannot account for somatoparaphrenia, a delusion where one denies ownership of a limb, and the related anosognosia, a condition in which a person who suffers from a disability seems unaware of the existence of the disability. Liang and Lane have argued that somatoparaphrenia threatens HOT theory because it contradicts the notion that according to HOT theory, when I am in a conscious state, I have the HOT that “I am in mental state M.” The ‘I’ is not only importantly self-referential but essential to tying the conscious state to oneself and thus to one’s ownership of M. Indeed, it is difficult to understand how one can have a conscious state but not, at least implicitly, attribute it to oneself. Gennaro argues, for example, that understanding somatoparaphrenia as a delusion leads to a number of replies to Lane and Liang. He also examines the central notions of “mental state ownership” and “self-concepts” to account especially for the depersonalization aspect of somatoparaphrenia. Among other things, Gennaro also discusses to what extent HOT theory can make sense of Shoemaker’s immunity to error through misidentification (IEM) principle.

This chapter places chefs in their field to explain the patterning of relations between culinary styles, self-concepts, and field positions. Through the analysis of the distribution of culinary styles and self-concepts in the culinary fields of New York and San Francisco, the chapter explains chefs’ choices about their styles and representations, and compares the internal logics and social organization of the two fields. Chefs’ actions cannot be explained without according independent analytical weight to self-understandings. But chefs develop a sense of who they and where they want to go from their field positions—it is from here that their logics of action develop and guide them in navigating the field. The chapter closes with a discussion of the analytical and theoretical implications of this study of culinary fields, with a focus on the tenets of field theory, contributions of pragmatism, routine behavior, creativity, and self-concepts.

The property theory of de se belief denies that believing is a propositional attitude, maintaining instead that for Lingens to believe that he himself is lost is for him to self-attribute the property of being lost. For Lingens to believe that Lingens is lost is for him to self-attribute the independent property of being such that Lingens is lost. The chapter argues that this theory postulates differences where we expect uniformity, introduces unnecessary theoretical complexity, is false to a variety of linguistic and phenomenological facts, and fails to explain many psychological and linguistic facts. If “self-attribute a property” means “believing oneself to have the property,” then the theory provides no explanation of de se belief. The author sketches a propositional theory on which the objects of the attitudes are complexes of concepts (thoughts), de se attitudes involving one type of indexical concept.

Chapter 7 explores the ways culture shapes our conceptions of self, identity, and personality. It discusses self-definitions, culture and self-definitions, cross-cultural comparisons of self-definitions, types of self-concepts, cultural contexts and the self, and culture-specific and cross-cultural studies of the self. It explores self-efficacy, culture-specific and cross-cultural studies on self-efficacy, face, face and self-concepts, and face and dignity cultural communities. It also discusses definitions and the construction of identity, whether identity is fluid and whether it is possible to have more than one identity. Finally, it addresses the self and personality, the five-factor model, cross-cultural studies on personality, the applied value of the five-factor model, and indigenous personalities. This chapter includes a case study, Culture Across Disciplines box, chapter summary, key terms, a What Do Other Disciplines Do? section, thought-provoking questions, and class and experiential activities.