05 PHI - Personal Identity

What is personal identity?

1. What am I?

2. What makes me me? And why am I not you?

Soul view

I am my soul and I continue to exist so long as I have the same soul

Body view

I am my body and I continue to exist so long as I have the same body

1. I am my entire body (cells die min to min)

2. I am my important organs (transplants)

3. I am my brain (too close to psychology view)

4. I am this living organism

Psychology view

I am my psychology as long as I continue to have the same thoughts

John Locke view

Pyschology view requires psychological relation. John locke says that the relation is dependent on memory. A person at a time who remebers having the same thoughts earlier is the same person.

Mind body dualism

the soul is connected to the brain

Materialism

i am my body and only my body so my brain is doing all of the thinking and feeling

Argument from divisibility (descartes)

1. the mind is indivisble

2. the body is divisible

3. In order for two things to be identical they must have identical properties

4. Therefore the mind and body are not idnetical

Privileged access argument (Swinburne)

No matter how much scientists study my brain they can never know what it is like for me to feel or experience things. Therefore if it is not my brain feeling or experiencing things it is my soul.

Miller first night

1. There is a reliable connection between my body and my soul. If iI have the same body I have the same soul

2. There is a reliable connection between my thoughts and my soul. If I have the same thoughts I have the same soul

3. Since my body and my soul are found together then I can generalize this to everyone else.

Objection from first night

Weirob says that you have no way of knowing that you have the same soul from moment to moment because you cannot feel or touch or prove that it is the same soul.

Waking person example

An example from the second night where I do not need to open my eyes and see my body to know who I am

New body example

An example from the second night where if I woke up in a new body I would still be the same person though I did not have the same body.

multiple beings in the afterlife problem (give night, overview, options, conclusion)

(2N) The psychology view struggles to explain how if when I die and I am duplicated to person A and B in the afterlife which being is me.

1. I am both person A and B (how can I be both of them if I am a single person, a single being?)

2. I am only person A or B (why pick one or the other if they are identical)

3. I am neither (this is absurd because how can my existence in the afterlife depend on another being not existing

Therefore the psychology view is absurd and does not work for the afterlife

Cerebrum transplant

Julia has a wasted body and a good cererum. Mary has a wasted cerebrum and a good body. Julia’s cerebrum is transplanted into mary’s body. Mary’s brain is discarded and Julia’s body is kept alive. Where is julia?

(Cohen) proponents of the psychology view will say that Julia is in mary’s body now because what we care about is the character traits, and personality of someone’s personal identity.

Weirob is going to argue that Julia dies if Julia’s body is discarded and Mary survives with Julia’s brain

Brain duplication problem (weirob)

If weirobs brain is duplicated into person A and B

1. both A and B are weirob (both as one person?)

2. only A or B is weirob (why one vs, the other)

3. Neither is weirob how can ones existence depend on some other being not exisiting?