Personal Identity And Problem Of Persistence Flashcards
(17 cards)
Structure of the essay
Philosophical issue, law and ethical implications, thesis statement.
Position 1: Bodily continuity, ethical implications, ship of Theseus, law of transitivity, same parts principle and gradual replacement theory, same parts principle, more extreme version, Hobbes counter example.
Position 2: Psychological continuity, ethical implications, Bernard William’s Torture example, John Locke, Thought experiment
Position 3: Reductionism, Derek Parfit, Brain-splitting scenario.
Compare and Contrast first 2 positions and talk about how Reductionist avoids these issues
Philosophical Issue
Does Identity persist through time?
Bodily Continuity
It is the philosophical position that anchors identity in the continuous existence and functioning of an organism.
Implications
Bodily Continuity: It suggests that what makes you “you” is the body, which suggests that the mind and body are the same entity. Ethical implications: if the mind are not separate and then brain is governed by physical laws, there would be no such thing as free will, which means that we can’t be responsible for our actions.
Psychological Continuity: Ethical implications, If you forget that you committed a crime, you wouldn’t be considered as the same person anymore; therefore you shouldn’t be held morally responsible for the crime that you committed. Furthermore, people in a coma wouldn’t be considered as themselves anymore, since they’re not conscious.
Reductionist: Legal implications; If identity doens’t matter and we’re constantly changing, how can someone take responsibility for an action that’s technically not done by themselves (if you believe in the reductionist view)?
Ship of Theseus
One of the thought experiments that explores bodily continuity is the ship of Theseus. It explores the nature of identity over time when physical components are gradually replaced.
One potential response to Ship of Theseus
Same parts principe: If an object X and object Y share all and only the same parts, arranged in exactly the same way, then objects X and Y are the same object.
Gradual Replacement Theory: S_1 = S_2 and S_2 = S_3=,…,=S_100; thus if the same parts principle holds true, then gradual replacement theory must also be true; hence the ship of Theseus is the same throughout the replacement.
Hobbes counter argument to the gradual replacement theory
Two objects can be qualitatively identical if they share all the same properties (e.g., two identical iPhones).
But they are not numerically identical, because they are two distinct objects.
Suppose that the ship repairman has saved all of the old planks that he removes from Theseus’ ship, all of these old planks are arranged exactly as they were in Theseus’ original ship. “Which of the two existing ships is numerically the same as Theseus’ original ship?”, obviously it is the ship that consists of the old planks.
Implications of Hobbes’ counter example
There’s an error in gradual replacement theory; it has two components:
1) Law of Transitivity: Regarded as an axiom in mathematics, rejecting this would cause pandemonium within the maths world.
2) Same parts principle: Imagine that you own a bicycle, and your very kind roommate dismantles it, cleans all of the parts, and puts it back together. You would never say, “Hey! You destroyed my bike! It no longer exists!”
Psychological Continuity
Rooted in the belief that our psychological attributes, such as consciousness and memory provides the foundation for personal identity.
Bernard William’s torture example
Suppose that you and William have been abducted by a mad scientist. The scientist plans to recode both of your brains so that your personalities, memories, etc. are switched. He then tells you that once the experiment is finished, he will torture one of you, and give the other one of you a large sum of money.
He asks you which one he should torture and which one he should give the money to. What would your response be and why? I would have switched, just like all of my friends in which I asked this question to, this led me to a conclusion similar to Bernard’s intentions — He wanted to get people to question and consider the intuitions that they have about personal identity, and the general responses to this thought experiment suggests that we intuitively associate the persistent of identity much more with our mind than with our body.
John Locke
He argued that it is the “sameness of consciousness” that persists through time and that is “central to our identity”.
Thought experiment
Consider the following thought experiment, suppose there’s an officer that remembers being a soldier, but he doens’t remember being a boy. By the position of psychological continuity, the boy and the officer are two distinct people. However, this goes against our normal intuitions about personal identity.
Thesis statement
I contend the reductionist view on personal identity, that personal identity does not matter for survival, memory, or moral responsibility.
Reductionism
Reductionism is the philosophical idea that complex phenomena can be explained by reducing them to their most basic parts.
Derek Parfit
In this specific context, Derek Parfit is a British philosopher that shares this view; he argued that humans are no more than the existence of certain mental states; he also argued that identity is not what matters in survival—what matters is psychological connectedness, which is the “survival” of the consciousness in any form. Therefore, parfit suggests that to be human is not to be a fixed entity, but to be comprised of a chain of experiences.
Brain Splitting scenario
Parfit argues for this by using the brain-splitting (fission) scenario where one person’s brain is divided into two halves, thus creating two separate individuals with equal claims to being the original person, this demonstrates that identity alone cannot be what matters in survival.
Compare and Contrast
Compare and Contrast, Unlike bodily or psychological continuity, reductionism offers a more flexible and less paradoxical account of personal persistence, making it the most compelling position among the three. Furthermore, its implications aren’t to the same degree as the other two positions.
