Identities, capabilities and revisions

In this paper I want first to ask whether one can change « who » he is. A dilemma is lurking there, a dilemma between autonomy of change and continuity of personal identity. The notion of capability is submitted to a related difficulty. Autonomy implies to be self-committed to an activity but commitment implies revisions of other activities, and this changes the situation and the evaluation of the freedom given by capability itself. I will show that the two difficulties (how to ensure continuity of choice and how to evaluate a situation of choice changed by the very revisions that each of its choices imply) can be overcame by putting conditions on revisions –epistemic revision and preferences revision. These conditions define a procedure leading to what I call a « justified path of revision and action ». They could also be considered as conditions for defining justified adaptive preferences. I will examine several examples in order to show how this procedure of evaluation works. It works as a prospective evaluation as well as a retrospective one. It can compare two different capabilities while ensuring the continuity of personal identity and the real autonomy of the person.