The Mormon Ethical Subject: Reassessing Anthropological Discourse in Latter-Day Saint Theology

This dissertation critically examines current renderings of Latter-day Saint theological anthropology in order to offer my own reformulation. I begin from the premise that Mormonism is a deeply practice-centric tradition, with a particular communal ethos that bears potently on its members' self-formation. Such a premise might fit nicely with a theory of the self as that which is socially made. However, the predominant interpretation of the LDS doctrine of pre-existence leads to a view of the self that has much in common with liberal, Cartesian and Platonic renderings—that is, a dualistic self that fundamentally exists separately from any social operations. I argue that the socially made self is the more coherent understanding for a Mormon theological context. I reassess the doctrine of pre-existence by, first, showing how the common interpretation of a radical and Platonic personhood is logically unnecessary and, second, how Mormonism actually adheres to a robust doctrine of sociality. I further contextualize a theology of the self with the LDS doctrine of material monism. I argue that the characterization of the self as some kind of static Platonic form is inconsistent with the tradition's supposed commitment to materialism, which should see the body as a constitutive condition for subjectivity. I further illustrate the operations and processes at play for a social self, and I address such issues as agency and relations of power within the religious community. I draw from the work of Saba Mahmood, Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, Anthony Giddens, Pierre Bourdieu, and feminists who theorize autonomy through the lens of a social self. I also turn to thinkers within Mormonism who have offered some initial constructs regarding a Mormon habitus and made subjectivity.