SURVIVING
THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS ABOUT
PERSONAL
IDENTITY QUESTIONS:
A REJECTION
OF DEREK PARFIT'S MORAL THEORY
___________________
A Thesis
Presented
to the
Faculty of
California
State University Dominguez Hills
___________________
In Partial
Fulfillment
of the
Requirements for the Degree
Master of
Arts
in
Humanities
___________________
by
Spring 2008
Copyright
by
SUSAN FLECK
2008
All Rights
Reserved
Dedicated
in loving memory to my husband, Robert E. Fleck.
The memories
of his companionship, constant love, abiding friendship,
and
unfailing support are forever ingrained in my heart.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
COPYRIGHT PAGE ..ii
APPROVAL PAGE . ..iii
DEDICATION . ..iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS . ...v
ABSTRACT .. vii
CHAPTER
1. INTRODUCTION
..
..
....1
2. IMPORTANCE
OF PERSONAL IDENTITY PROBLEM
.4
3. HISTORY
OF THE DEBATES
..
....10
Hobbes to Kant .. 10
Contemporary Debates .. 16
4. IDENTITY
VERSUS SURVIVAL
..
..19
Changing the Question . .19
Shoemaker Promotes Survival .. .20
Survival Thought Experiments ..21
Parfit: Survival in Degrees.. ... 22
5. PARFITS
PERSONAL IDENTITY THEORY
.24
Relation R .. . . .. 24
Q-Relations . .. .26
Unity of Consciousness . ... ..29
Indeterminate Answers .. 33
Survival Is More Important Than Identity .35
Do Parfits Puzzle Cases Convince? .. 43
CHAPTER PAGE
6.
MORAL
IMPLICATIONS OF PARFITS IDENTITY THEORIES:
A MOVE FROM ETHICAL EGOISM TOWARD IMPERSONAL ALTRUISM....45
Overview. . .. 45
Contemplating Ones Demise. .. .47
A Reductionist Look at Self-Interest ... .. 49
Impartial Altrusim .. 51
Social Changes .. .51
Unity .. 56
Contrast With Other Personal Identity Theories .. ..58
7.
QUESTIONING
THE USE OF SCIENCE
FICTION THOUGHT
EXPERIMENTS.....................................................................61
Why Thought Experiments Are Used. ... 61
How Thought Experiments Are Used .. .63
Einsteins Example ... ... .. 66
More Problems With Personal Identity Thought Experiments .. 68
Ungers Experiments.. .. .70
Korsgaard On Outside Influence and Pain .....73
Drawing Conclusions From Experiments .. 74
Real Life Puzzle Cases . ..75
8. CONCLUSION
..
.79
WORKS CITED .. ..83
ABSTRACT
Derek
Parfit and other philosophers put forth science fiction thought experiments to
substantiate their views on personal identity, a topic that subsumes the
metaphysical nature of humans and persons. The moral and ethical implications
from Parfits account are far reaching and revolutionary. A review of the
literature and debates surrounding Parfits views is conducted. Other
methodologies for exploring the nature of personal identity are examined. The
conclusion is that judgments about personal identity and survival should not be
formed based solely on intuitions derived from the methodology of using
imaginary thought experiments.
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
Most
people, either consciously or implicitly, have a commonsense belief that they
each constitute a unified self. David
Hume reflects that some philosophers think that we cannot be certain of
anything if we doubt the "perfect identity and simplicity" of our own
continuing existence (131). However, based upon the numerous and diverse
theories about personal identity found in the literature, one realizes that
such a commonsense belief is in itself an unarticulated speculative theory. I
agree with Daniel Kolak and Raymond Martin who contend that a healthy
skepticism about our individual unities liberates us to create alternative
theories and we may thereby come closer to the truth about ourselves. When
exploring these theories, we will have enriched experiences by viewing
ourselves and the world from different perspectives (Unity Introduction 15). Nevertheless, it is important to be skeptical about
alternative theories: often they are the basis for promoting radical changes in
one's beliefs about morality and ethical behavior.
There
are many questions surrounding the general topic of personal identity. Although
all of them are related, they are different questions. Eric Olson provides a
summary of eight questions, stated briefly here. (1) Who am I? This is a
question about ones individual psychological identity and how this changes
over time. (2) What is necessary and sufficient for something to be counted as
a person? For example, can an ovum or
embryo, or someone in a vegetative state be considered a person? (3) The
Persistence question asks: What are the necessary and sufficient criteria for
personal identity for a person to be the same
person over time. This is different from the Evidence question: (4) What
evidence determines whether the same person here now (say in the courtroom) is
the one who was at a specific place yesterday? (5) The Population question
asks: How many people are there at a certain place at a certain time? What does that number signify? Could a human
being with a split personality be considered two persons? (6) What am I,
metaphysically speaking? Am I merely a biological animal, or essentially an
immaterial soul, or bundles of perceptions, or the bearer of a historical
narrative, or some combination of these things? (7) How could I have been different than I actually am, say if I had
different parents? (8) What is important about the fact of my identity or my
persistence? Can survival be separated from identity and can that be more
important? (Olson)
The
problem of personal identity that is the focus of this paper is essentially the
persistence question of what makes someone the same, continuously existing
person over time. In order to answer that question, one must delve into the
question about what is the nature of persons. The question of survival versus
identity will be discussed at length in relation to the persistence question.
With the added dimension of consciousness, and in particular self-consciousness, the problem of
trying to account for unity and multiplicity over time makes personal identity
a special case in trying to establish the metaphysical principles that
determine the ways one establishes boundaries of entities and counts how many
things there are. Tamar Gendler reports that most recent philosophical
literature on this subject is based on arguments that "use an assumed
convergence of response" to imaginary cases, or thought experiments (448).
Kathleen Wilkes backs up this opinion. She claims that the literature on
personal identity is "rich and fun" because the majority of it
focuses on thought experiments that "amuse, provoke the imagination, and
allow one to reach splendidly revolutionary conclusions" (1).
Derek
Parfit and other philosophers put forth thought experiments, to postulate that
one's survival is more important than
one's identity. Parfits arguments to
make this case are put forth later. The moral and ethical implications from
this perspective are far reaching and revolutionary. Before subscribing to any
proposition put forward in the arena of personal identity, one must proceed
with caution and evaluate the philosopher's logic and the methodology used to
support his arguments. Because he is influential in the debates about personal
identity, I focus on Parfit's theories and method of analysis.
To
further an investigation about the nature of personal identity, I address these
four questions of interest in this order: (1) Why is the topic of personal
identity important? (2) Is survival more important than identity? (3) What are
the moral and ethical implications of Parfit's personal identity theories? (4)
Is the use of imaginary thought experiments a valid or successful method for
exploring this topic?
These
conclusions will be demonstrated: (1) Survival is not more important than identity because one's survival cannot be
separated from one's identity. (2) Parfit's logic in this arena is
flawed and his methodology is at the heart of what is wrong with his theories.
(3) The use of science fiction thought experiments is
not valid as the primary method for answering personal identity questions. (4)
Based on these findings, fundamental changes in
current moral theory must not come
about in the way Parfit and others in a similar manner advocate. Heeding my own
advice I thus proceed with caution.
CHAPTER
2
IMPORTANCE OF PERSONAL IDENTITY PROBLEM
Why
are issues of personal identity important? Investigations within different
fields of study are examining the questions of personal identity. The topic is
still very much alive and heavily debated in our contemporary world. This
section describes areas of investigation about personal identity within the
areas of psychology, metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. First there is a
brief discussion about unity of consciousness from a psychological perspective
and then an example of an experiment examining how one may form a concept of
one's self-worth and how that may relate to personal identity. Next, an example
is given about how the nature of persons is explored in the realm of physics.
Then it will be shown how one philosopher ties the metaphysical problem of free
will to our subject problem. Following that, there is a brief glimpse regarding
how personal identity, according to one view, is deeply connected with
epistemology. Finally, there is a discussion about how important personal
identity theory is in relationship to moral and ethical theories. One could
argue that one's belief about personal identity is implicit in whatever moral
and ethical theories that one adopts.
On
the psychological front, evidence from experiments using patients who have had
commissurotomies[1]
(so-called split-brain patients) and from investigations about Multiple
Personality Disorder patients suggest a threat to the commonsense view about
one's unity of consciousness. As Jennifer Radden points out, a claim that one
body may have more than one center of awareness affects how we would understand
selves and minds and how we would understand the concepts of awareness and
subjectivity (347). In another
psychological experiment, job applicants conceptualized their own self-worth
differently depending upon what other kinds
of people were in the waiting room with them. Based on these findings, Kenneth
Gergen suggests "that personal identity is an important measure
dependent on the immediate or continuing social milieu. . . . What is
"truth" about self depends on those available for comparison"
(379-80).
Within
the world of physics and neurophysiology, scientists are trying to understand
the quantum mechanics of the brain. Allen Stairs reports that many have used
quantum mechanics to provide arguments for various theories about selves such as splitting and re-merging
selves and mind-body dualism (453). He poses the
question: "What does supervenience[2]
tell us about the superposition of mental states, or more broadly, of states of
the self?" (466). He concludes that at this point of such investigations
we do not have any understanding of this phenomena and, thus, "the
relationship between mind and microphysics is still a mystery" (467).
Within the
more abstract world of philosophy, Christine Korsgaard describes the connection
between the problem of personal identity and the problem of free will. Although
these are both metaphysical concepts that effect matters of ethics, Korsgaard
thinks that it is more important to consider them as related in finding
expression in one's identification with a unifying principle underlying one's
way of choosing. We adopt an identification from a deliberative standpoint not
because of any metaphysical facts; rather, it is because of the necessity of
making deliberative choices. Whether or
not philosophy is able to answer the metaphysical questions of personal
identity, Korsgaard reflects: "I must still decide whether the
consideration that some future person is me has some special normative force
for me. It is practical reason that requires me to construct an identity for
myself: whether metaphysics is a guide to me in this or not is an open
question" (325).
It can be
seen that Korsgaard subscribes to Kantian ethics. Louis Sass considers the
implication of conceiving of subjectivity along Kantian transcendental terms,
"as the medium by which everything
is known or in which it has its
being." If that is true, then Sass asks how it could ever be possible for
subjectivity itself to be known. Subjectivity could not become an object within
the medium that it itself is. Furthermore, if human consciousness is viewed as
the foundation for all of reality that is relevant to human beings, then the
implication is that "consciousness, or the human self, might seem to hold
a position of ultimate sovereignty and omniscience" (325).
These are
but a few examples of various inquiries and debates regarding the issues of
personal identity. The most important reason for investigating the problem of
personal identity involves ethical concerns. David Shoemaker asks a provocative
question about whether metaphysical questions regarding personal identity
should be prior to the ethics entailed in proposed answers, or whether,
instead, the metaphysics should be constrained
by our practices of moral responsibility. He informs that Kantians and communitarians argue against the disunifying implications from
reductionist accounts like Parfits. Instead, they declare that the human
community is unified either as practical agents or as selves dependent on
social matrices and that we are in a moral space together for normative reasons.
Any identities to be constructed on
these accounts must be constrained by such normative considerations (D.
Shoemaker). However, if the current standard methodology of putting metaphysics
first were to be abandoned, there would be much debate about which ethical
system should be chosen. In any case, most seem to be in agreement regarding
the important relationship between personal identity and ethics. We still have
good reason to maintain that ethics depends on the metaphysics.
John Locke
articulates: "In this personal identity is founded all the right and
justice of reward and punishment; happiness and misery being that for which
every one is concerned for himself, and not mattering what becomes of any
substance not joined to, or affected with that consciousness (120). Locke
claimed that person is what we call
our self as a continuing, same intelligent agent, and that it is a
forensic term that applies to ones actions and their merit. As individuals,
one must think that there is something that constitutes one's self that one
would have a concern for, something that has had a continued duration and will
have such duration for whatever future length of one's life is to come (121-2).
This thinking is the foundation for one of the dominant theories in ethics,
that of self-interest. Following is Parfits formulation of the Self-interest
Theory:
This claims
that, for each person, there is one supremely rational ultimate aim: that
things go as well as possible for himself. A rational agent should both have, and
be ultimately governed by, a temporally neutral bias in his own favour. It is
irrational for anyone to do what he believes will be worse for himself. (Personal
Identity, Rationality 301)
Parfit
declares his agenda to refute the Self-interest Theory by targeting two
commonly held beliefs. The first belief he tackles is about the nature of personal identity that holds
that in all cases the question about identity must be determinate. With this
view, one must be able to definitively know
whether one would exist or not given any scenario of future events. The second
commonly held belief is that if the question about identity is indeterminate, then we are unable to
answer related important questions such as those about survival, memory, and
responsibility (Personal Identity 167). Parfit asserts that he will convince
us to change our view about the nature of personal identity and that this
should persuade us "to change our beliefs about rationality, and about
morality" (Psychological View 261). It will become apparent in the
course of this discussion that this author is not swayed by Parfit's
propositions. Problems with his logic and his use of thought experiments will
be pointed out.
Thomas Reid
declares: "But identity, when applied to persons, has no ambiguity, and
admits not of degrees, or of more and less. It is the foundation of all rights
and obligations, and of all accountableness; and the notion of it is fixed and
precise" (126-27). If it is true
that the notion of personal identity is fixed and precise, then I would have no
reasons for investigating the topic and for writing this thesis. However, as
theories abound in this arena, one can see that there is still plenty of
controversy to chew upon. Nevertheless, as John Pickering reminds us, a fundamental
assumption in social science, law and theology is the notion of the enduring
identity of individual persons to which legal and moral responsibility can be
attached. He ponders the implications of the possibility that philosophy would
discover that the enduring self is an
erroneous notion. What kind of impact would such a finding have on our legal
and moral institutions? One option would be to put philosophy aside and
continue to treat persons in the same manner as per our current customs and
practices. "But philosophical inquiry," Pickering muses,
"happily, resists being set aside as much as it resists ethical
neutrality. Moreover, the deeper the inquiry, the more significant it
eventually appears to be" (74-75).
So, one
realizes that much is at stake in pursuing investigations about the nature of
personal identity. If philosophers are able to persuasively argue that the
enduring identity of individual persons is not important or possibly not even a
valid assumption, then the moral fabric of our society may begin to unravel and
be knitted anew with different assumptions. It will be shown that Parfit is one
who calls for revolutionary changes in societys moral values based upon this
kind of argument. Following a historical overview about the problem of personal
identity, the discussion will focus upon Parfits arguments. He argues that the
nature of personal identity does not necessarily need to be determinate and,
furthermore, that one's survival is
more important than one's identity.
CHAPTER 3
HISTORY OF THE DEBATES
Hobbes to Kant
Before
examining Parfit's arguments, a historical background is provided as context
for the commonly held beliefs that Parfit wants to undermine. How did the
problem of personal identity become one of the central concerns of
philosophy? Thomas Hobbes was one of the
first to distinguish this problem from the more general problem of identity per
se. He explains the three dominant views about the identity of things, about
what makes a thing the same thing at later time. Individuality is based upon
matter, or form, or an "aggregate of
all the accidents together." He
clarifies: "For form, that when
a man is grown from an infant to be an old man, though his matter be changed,
yet he is still the same numerical man; for that identity, which cannot be attributed to the matter, ought probably
to be ascribed to the form" (111).
What might
this form of a person consist of?
When Renι Descartes came to the conclusion that he could not doubt his
conscious existence because any act of doubting presupposes consciousness, this
begged the question, what is it that
exists? Jonathan Shear reminds us that
"Descartes concluded that the self that we know indubitably exists is a consciousness, the selfsame consciousness, single,
simple and continuing throughout
one's awareness" (Descartes 66 ff.,
121; Shear, Experiential 407-8).
Parfit tells us that one of the current prevailing views about what persons are
and what is involved in their personal identity is known as the Cartesian view, a view that espouses
that a person is essentially a non-physical substance, or soul. The current
form of this view has evolved away from Descartes theory that our soul is
seated somewhere in the body or brain, for example, in the pineal gland. It is
now often called the Ego Theory, or
transcendental view, whereby a person continues to exist as an Ego, a subject of experience. According
to this view, a person's multiple experiences at any one time are unified in
consciousness because one ego-person is having these perceptions and
experiences. A whole life is unified because one ego-person has all of those life-long experiences:
one ego-person is one and the same subject of experiences (Divided Minds
83-84).
According
to Amihud Gilead, Baruch Spinoza criticizes Descartes for separating mind from
body and for claiming that the minds self-knowledge is self-evident. Spinoza
assumes that we cannot have immediate awareness of our personal identity. The
mind does not know itself unless in so far as it perceives the ideas of the
affections of the body (Ethics II,
Prop. XXIII qtd. in Gilead). For Spinoza, the mind can only know itself through
the cognition of the active or passive body. Gilead interprets: . . . the mind
gets acquainted with its own identity and unity by investigating its place in
the causal chain . . . as a body which has a certain ratio of movement and rest.
In order to understand anything, one must be able to fit its idea into
a network which reflects a complete chain of causes and effects (Gilead). As
I understand Gileads reading of Spinoza, personal identity would consist of
one understanding ones place, or ones impression, in the whole causal chain
which constitutes the monistic Reality.
Martin Lin
points out that some have interpreted Spinoza to have preceded Locke by twenty
years in fixing the memory criterion of personal identity. In his Ethics,
Spinoza gave an amnesia example similar to cases that led Locke to make a
distinction among persons, human beings, and souls. Spinoza had heard about a
Spanish poet who did not believe that he had authored the stories and tragedies
that he had in fact written. Spinoza judged: He might have been taken for a
grown-up infant had he also forgotten his native tongue (IV39S qtd. in Lin).
Lin explains that Spinoza shared Lockes intuition that memory loss indicates
significant discontinuity, but Spinoza did not distinguish between the body and
the mind. Nevertheless, he concluded that in the poets case the same human being did not survive his disease.
Lin proceeds to explain Spinozas theories about complex bodies and memory and
how the poets case can be interpreted to be about personal identity. With
Spinoza, severe memory loss follows an overall change in ratio of the total complex structure of a human: normal
discontinuity, or forgetfulness, does not indicate this change. With this view,
a persons same physical ratio must remain intact for survival,
or persistence, and not merely psychological
continuity and connectedness via memory (Lin).
Gottfried
Leibniz also appreciated the importance of memory in distinguishing the nature
of humans from that of other animals. In his Monadology, Leibniz criticized
the Cartesians because that they believe that minds alone are monads and that
beasts do not have souls (14). However, he thinks that it would be more
appropriate to give substances that have perception only the name monad or
entelechy, and the name soul should be reserved when perception is
accompanied by memory (19). He tells us that the soul is more than a simple
monad, and that memory imitates reason, providing the soul with a kind of succession. Thus, for example, dogs have
souls because they remember pain that a stick has caused and run away when the
stick is shown to them (20; 26). However, he claims that through knowledge of
necessary and eternal truths men acquire reason and the sciences, raising us
to the knowledge of ourselves and of God. And it is this in us that is called
the rational soul or mind (29). It
is through these truths that we are able to conceptualize and make abstractions
such that we rise to reflective acts,
which make us think of what is called I
. . . (30). So for Leibniz, although memory is important to underpin
persistence of the soul, personal identity is the result of rational thinking,
but from a different process than what Descartes proclaimed.
Locke tried
to eliminate an immaterial substance from an account of personal identity,
according to Kolak and Martin, by arguing that sameness of consciousness is
what makes someone the same person throughout their life. Although he still
clung to a form of a substance view,
he originated the important relational
view: Personal identity consists in relations among transient elements.
"The important relations, on his view, are those that obtain among present
conscious memories and the earlier experiences or actions remembered" (Personal
Identity 164). Locke was
the first thinker to use thought experiments in dealing with the personal
identity problem and the first to explicitly connect personal identity with
ethical concerns. He has been called the father of the personal identity
problem, because for a long time most thinkers who wrote on this subject were
responding to Locke (D. Shoemaker).
Joseph
Butler and Reid took exception to having personal identity become separated
from both biological and substance-soul identity. Butler called Lockes notion
a wonderful mistake because Locke failed to recognize the circularity of his
thoughts. Consciousness-memory presupposes
identity and therefore cannot constitute it. A memory of an experience is not
what makes it mine: I am able to
remember it because it is already
mine. Butlers view is that these are experiences of a substance that constitutes me now. Reid agrees and poses two more
objections (D. Shoemaker).
For the
first challenge, Reid uses an example of a brave officer who at age forty, as
he is stealing an enemys standard, remembers stealing an apple at age ten.
However, when he was eighty, he remembers stealing the standard, but no longer
remembers stealing the apple. According to Lockes view, the old man would both
be and not be identical to the apple-stealer. He would be identical to the
apple-stealer because of the transitivity of the identity relation: he is
identical to the officer, who is himself identical to the apple-stealer. But he
would not be identical to the
apple-stealer because he has no direct memory of that boys experiences.
Secondly, Reid asks how identity, i.e., sameness,
could be based on the relation of consciousness, something that changes from
moment to moment. On this basis, no one could be held responsible for ones
actions. This also upsets the normative consideration of prudence: if one
changes from day to day, why should one care what did happen to one yesterday,
or what might happen to one tomorrow? Because of these absurd implications,
Reid rejects Lockes notion of personal identity, and commits himself to the
view that ones identity is fixed and precise (D. Shoemaker). It will be
explained later how contemporary thinkers meet these challenges posed by Butler
and Reid.
David
Humes view of the self is about as
far away from being fixed and precise as one can get. One might say that Hume
is the father of logical construction theories for personal identity. In
contrast with the Cartesian view of a
substantial self, Hume offers the Bundle view which accounts for our
concept of self, according to Shear, in terms of bundles of experiences that
are connected by the logical relationships of contiguity and resemblances of
our perceptions (Experiential 408). On Hume's view, one mistakes what is merely a bundle
of perceptions for a self as a
perceiver. Parfit expresses: "A Bundle Theorist knows that it is absurd to
think of one's self or others as merely series of events. On the other hand,
according to this view, there are persons or subjects only in a
language-dependent way (Divided Minds 83-84). Kolak and Martin think that
this poses a dilemma for Hume: "It seems an outright contradiction for you to discover that you do not exist" (Personal
Identity 167-8). However, this is a
dilemma for all philosophers working on the problem: To what may you refer? That question is the personal
identity problem in a nutshell.
Immanuel
Kant responded to Hume, as Kolak and Martin explain, by asserting that one's
experiences are unified and that unified experiences cannot exist unowned. Having experiences, therefore, presupposes an
experiencer. However, someone who has experiences is not a substantial self (Personal
Identity 167). He agreed with Descartes, as Shear suggests, in that
inner experience is extended in time, and outer experience is extended in space
as well as in time. If an experience did not have these spatio-temporal
qualities, they would be too short or too small to be seen. On the other hand
Kant agreed with Hume in that one could not
derive an overall principle of unity, or any definite concept of a necessarily
inferred unitary self, from the content of one's experiences. Instead, Kant
called such an overall unity "the transcendental unity of apperception.
The self, according to Kant, can only be known as an abstraction, a
"something=X." Because both Descartes and Hume were right in that the
self is both absolutely necessary and at the same time vacuous and ungraspable,
Kant muses that this paradox "mocks and torments" men (Kant 329 ff.;
Shear Experiential 408-9).
Although
there were certainly philosophers and thinkers after Kant and before the late
twentieth century that discussed the
human condition and human nature per se, I have not read or seen any essays
from this era particularly addressing the personal identity problem. That is
not to say that there are none. But whenever I have seen a collection of essays
on this topic, they usually include some of the aforementioned thinkers and
then the contemporary philosophers working on this problem.
Contemporary Debates
Modern
philosophers are still wrestling with the problem of personal identity. Kolak
and Martin explain that even though Kant's theory of a transcendental self
still has influence, it accounts for personal identity by appealing to such
substances which focuses such an inquiry outside the bounds of both experience
and science. Contemporary theorists usually work within the context of
relational views (Personal Identity 168). Martin maintains, as David Shoemaker tells us, that
Locke was the first one to provide us with a fission thought experiment when he
proposed a finger gaining a separate consciousness from the rest of a persons body.
However, Locke did not clarify what the relations were between the finger and
the fingerless person still in existence. Shoemaker suggests that if Locke
would have loosened his account of identity in order to admit a relationship of
degrees in consciousness to allow for limited recall the further one gets from
experiences, this may have then enabled an admission of degrees into the
normative arena. Shoemaker further speculates that if Locke would have considered a case of
consciousness of one person duplicated in two different bodies, and then
discussed what this might mean in terms of identity, relationships, and
normativity, then he would have begun to work on the questions that are at the
heart of the contemporary approach (D. Shoemaker).
These theorists
use complex types of memory and psychological relationships in their neo-Humean
theories about personal identity. Nevertheless, as will be explained,
reductionist accounts of identity is still Lockean in that personal identity
consists in overlapping chains of continuity and psychological connectedness
that hold strongly from a day to day basis. They have expanded the Lockean
criterion of memory to include other relations such as intentions and desires.
The contemporary debates began with Parfits early 1970s articles and his
subsequent restatement and development of these ideas in Part III of his book Reasons
and Persons.
Before
delving into the specifics of Parfits and others thought experiments and
views, this historical overview will conclude with a general explanation of the
three main contemporary camps and by
naming some of the workers in these camps. Eric Olson provides a good summary
of this information. Proposed solutions to the Persistence Question fall into
one of three categories, or type of criterion necessary for personal identity
to obtain. With the Psychological Approach, you are the future being that
inherits its mental features such as memories, beliefs, desires, and so forth,
from you, and you are that past being whose mental features you inherited.
There is dispute about whether these mental features must be underpinned by
physical continuity, or whether a non-branching requirement is necessary
(branching will be explained later). Since the early twentieth century, most
philosophers writing in this arena subscribe to some version of the
psychological criterion. Advocates of this approach include Mark Johnston,
Brian Garrett, H. Hudson, David Lewis, Thomas Nagel, Derek Parfit, John Perry,
Sydney Shoemaker, and Peter Unger (Olson).
Olson calls
the second camp the Somatic Approach: some brute physical relation is
required through time for identity to obtain. Whether or not you survive has
nothing to do with psychological facts: rather, your body must survive. (This
should not be confused with the Evidence Question that deals with finding out
who is who.) Even though Olson himself holds this position, he admits that it
is an unpopular one. Other advocates in this camp are M. Ayers, W. R. Carter,
D. Mackie, P. van Inwagen, and Bernard Williams (Olson).
With the
psychological and somatic approach, something, either bodily or mental continuity, is
necessary for personal identity to persist through time: something other than
itself. The third view, called the Simple View, denies this. This view is often
combined, but not necessarily, with the notion that we are immaterial (with
souls) and have no parts. With this view, Olson claims: The only correct and
complete answer to the Persistence Question is that a person existing at one
time is identical with a being existing at another if and only if they are
identical. Those writing in this camp include R. Chisholm, R. Swinburne, E.J.
Lowe, and T. Merricks (Olson). This view is sometimes referred to as the Ego,
or soul view.
CHAPTER 4
IDENTITY VERSUS SURVIVAL
Changing the Question
One major
contemporary view is centered on Parfit's reductionist account. As it has been
mentioned, the contemporary debates on the Persistence Question began with
Parfits initial essays on this subject. It will be explained later how his
account is based upon reductionism. Parfit sets the stage for changing the
debate by changing one of the central questions. The persistence question asks:
under what condition is your personal identity preserved? Parfit focuses on this
question: under what conditions is what matters primarily to you in survival
preserved? Until recently, philosophers thought that these two questions would
produce the same answer, i.e., that identity is what matters the most in
survival. However, in the late twentieth century, philosophers began to argue
that there were more important things than identity per se. The importance of
personal identity was called into question through the use of thought
experiments involving hypothetical fission cases in which one person splits
into two qualitatively identical personspersons who are also qualitatively
identical to the original person (Martin, Identity 291).
In this
section two thought experiment examples are presented that Sydney Shoemaker
uses to argue for the priority of survival over identity. Next, an explanation
is provided about how philosophers use thought experiments in their arguments
to support the conclusion that survival matters more than personal identity.
Then, there is an examination of Parfit's analyses in support of his thesis
that survival is more important than identity. The conclusion is that Parfit
has not made a good case. Finally, a
summary is given about why survival should not be separated from identity:
therefore, it is not more important than identity.
Shoemaker Promotes Survival
Sydney
Shoemaker questions the assumption that what a person wants in wishing to survive is that the same person who wants to survive will exist in the future after any
survival event in question. He subscribes to a priority of survival over
identity based upon conclusions from using thought experiments. For example, if
I were given two options for having my healthy half-brain transplanted into
another body that is healthy, I should choose the less risky procedure whereby
my cancer ridden half-brain and body would be destroyed after the operation. With this option, it would mean for certain
that my identity will not carry forward onto the recipient person even though
there is psychological continuity between me and the recipient. Two persons
cannot have the same identity at one time. The more risky process entails first
destroying my diseased half-brain, and then transplanting the other half. If
that procedure were chosen, the recipient person would have no
"competitor" at any time for the status of being me, and therefore, she could count as me. The reason I should choose the less risky procedure is because,
in a case like this, my identity is not important, but survival is important
(271).
Shoemaker
then describes the fission case (also called the My Division case) where both of my healthy half-brains are
transplanted successfully into two other bodies. Even if I accept the analysis
that neither recipient person will be me, nevertheless, before the surgery I
should not consider this procedure as impending death. Instead, assuming that
the psychological continuity criteria of personal identity is a correct view, I
should have an attitude toward my two successor persons essentially like I
would normally have about my own future delights, successes, and failures under
normal circumstances (272).
Survival Thought Experiments
Peter Unger
demonstrates how philosophers employ thought experiments in three different
manners to describe what matters in survival. With what he calls the desirability use one would describe what
would make continued survival more desirable than death. With the second, the prudential use, one looks at survival
from the perspective of what future being is there that one would rationally be
intrinsically connected to. For
example, suppose you must undergo an irreversible operation whereby your
memories are eradicated and you will end up with an IQ of about thirty.
According to the desirability use,
the answer to the question about how much of what matters in survival will
there be after this kind of surgery will be: not muchthis would be about as
bad as death. With this view, you may want to arrange for a painless death
after the surgery, even if you considered the person emerging from the
operation to be yourself. However,
with the prudential view, you would
question whether there was someone left from the surgery for whom you had a
rational egoistic concern. You would answer: "Yes; there is someone left, namely, the unfortunate amnesiac imbecile
who will be you: and, for yourself, the strength of the rational self-centered concern will be very great"
(196-8).
The third
manner Unger describes is the constitutive
use. With this method, one focuses on what factors about a case counts toward a case involving someone
who survives. In these types of cases there are factors constituting survival
that are matters of degree. This use, unlike the other two, does not involve
evaluative or motivational aspects concerning one's survival. Therefore, Unger
thinks, this use has no direct connection with self interest, or "rational
concern for one's self in the future" (198). The constitutive use of
survival thought experiments is the method that Parfit employs in his attempt
to bring down the Self-interest Theory of ethics.
Parfit: Survival in Degrees
Josι
Bermϊdez describes the first prong in Parfit's overall strategy, within his
psychophysical reductionist philosophical viewpoint, which is to promote the
importance of survival over personal identity:
It starts
with a version of the general ontological principle that there is no entity
without identity, interprets this so that it is satisfied only if there is
always a determinate answer to the question of whether the putative entity has
continued or ceased to exist, and then deploys thought experiments and sorites
form of argument to show that cases can be imagined where there is no such
determinate answer. (433)
The
neo-Humean theories of Parfit, as Radden reports, give us a scalar conception
of personal identity whereby a later self may be identical with an earlier one
by some lesser degree. This eliminates the presumption that there can only be
one person to one bodily lifetime (344). Based on cases he presents, Parfit claims that
we should change our view about our nature, which will, in turn, change our
view about how we should behave as humans.
He stresses the strong relationship between these themes in quoting Rawls, who
said that the correct regulative principle for anything depends upon the nature
of that thing (qtd. in Parfit, Reasons 336). Let us now look at how
Parfit comes to his conclusions about the nature of persons, and why survival
is more important than personal identity with his view.
Parfit
thinks that if there was empirical evidence supporting the claims of
reincarnation, then this would be good evidence supporting the Cartesian, or
Ego View, of the nature of persons and personal identity. If it was discovered
that there is no physical continuity between a past life and a current life,
but the present person has a way of knowing about the past life which is like a
memory of the present life, then we might abandon the belief that the carrier
of memory is the brain. . . . This would not, however, show that the continued
existence of these Egos is all-or-nothing (Reasons 227). Parfit claims that we do not have good evidence for
reincarnation, or any other evidence to support the Cartesian Ego. Therefore,
we have reason to reject this view (Reasons 228). However, given the numerous books and articles that claim to
provide true and real accounts of
past lives of persons now living, one may ask: why is a supposition of
reincarnation more far-fetched than some of the puzzle cases that Parfit uses
as arguments to support his claims?
Albeit, there is a distinction between a positive truth claim about
reincarnation and the use of thought experiments. Nevertheless, since he cites the possibility
of reincarnation as a plausible argument for the Ego view of identity, it would
be helpful if Parfit discussed what kinds of evidence would count as verifying
claims of past lives.
CHAPTER 5
PARFITS PERSONAL IDENTITY THEORY
Relation R
How does
Parfit attempt to refute the Ego view? What view of personal identity does he
hold? Although Parfit maintains a strict physical
view of personal identity, he gives us a modified version of what he thinks are
the necessary and sufficient conditions
for personal identity to obtain: [. . .] to be a person, a being must be
self-conscious, aware of its identity and its continued existence over time. His
reductionist view is that personal identity just consists in physical and
psychological continuity (Psychological View 229). He presumes that mere
identity stripped of continuity would paralyze a person. One could not act,
plan, or think without connections of memory and intentions (Psychological
View 230-32). One wonders where someone with an advanced form of Alzheimer's
disease or with severe mental retardation would fit into Parfit's scheme. This
begs the question: in Parfits account, how much
psychological continuity over what length of time qualifies one to be
considered a person, as distinguished from merely being human? One could argue
that there is the problem of a matter of degree of severity of Alzheimers
disease or retardation such that one could not establish an arbitrary cutoff
point by which humans on one side of the line would satisfy Parfits conditions
for personal identity. This quandary fits into the later discussion about
Parfits argument that survival is a matter of degrees.
Parfit
revises Lockes memory-consciousness concept such that when we have an
overlapping chain of experience-memories, then there is a continuity of
memory. For example, most of us can remember some of our experiences of the
previous day. Therefore, from day to day we have this continuity. Besides
memories, there are other venues for psychological continuity such as
intentions, beliefs, and desires. We may have thousands of direct psychological
connections between who we are today (X) and who we were yesterday (Y). But
there may only be a few connections between who we are today and who we were
twenty years ago. It is the overlapping chains concept that Parfit uses to tie
all these together to count for a
continuous person. His expanded Lockean view gives us the Psychological
Criterion, or deep psychological
connectedness (hereafter called Relation
R) (Psychological View 232).
There are
three versions of this criterion based on what is the right kind of cause of
continuity: the Narrow version
stipulates that it must be the normal
cause, it can be any reliable cause
with the Wide version, and any cause under the Widest version (Psychological View 232). Using Parfits simple
Teletransportation example, let us say that I enter a teletransporter whereby
my body and brain are exactly
replicated on Mars out of new material and my original body and brain are
destroyed. Under the Narrow version, the replica on Mars would not be me because the continuance was not due
to a normal cause. It would be me, however, under the two Wide formulae. He
uses the following analogy for accepting the wider causes in terms of
psychological continuity. If scientists perfect the technology to develop
artificial eyes such that a blind person could have visual experiences just
like those who are not blind, then that person would still be seeing things even though the cause of
sight was not normal (Psychological
View 233). Along these lines of
thinking, then, why should it matter whether this brain and body gets to Mars. The natural fear, Parfit
construes, is that, according to most peoples belief, only that condition
within a Narrow cause will ensure
that I get to Mars (Psychological
View 263).
Parfit must
make a case to cause people to accept his Wide
versions of personal identity theory: that it is
the effect that matters, not the
cause of continuity. He reminds us that Bishop Butler contends that Lockes
account of personal identity was derived from a circular argument in that one's
identity consists of ones consciousness of memories of past experiences.
Butler points out that a consciousness of personal identity presupposes personal identity and
therefore it cannot be a truth that it presupposes (Psychological View 235). Parfit admits that it is a
logical truth that we can only remember our
own experiences. In order to get around this
logical truth and
Q-Relations
Parfit develops a wider
relational theory of personal identity using concepts called q, or quasi-relationships. He gives us
this definition of quasi-memory: I have an accurate quasimemory of a past experience if (1)
I seem to remember having an experience, (2) someone did have this experience,
and (3) my apparent memory is causally dependent, in the right kind of way, on
that past experience (Psychological View 235). On this account, our ordinary memories of past events become
a sub-class of quasi-memories. Even though we do not quasi-remember others experiences, we might be able to do so if science could find a way to create a copy
of anothers memory-trace within ones brain. Furthermore, the continuity of quasi-memory is produced from
overlapping strands of strong connectedness. With these expanded concepts of
memory and continuity, Parfit thinks he has met
Parfit
provides an example by using a thought experiment. Imagine
a case of Divided Brains (also called My Division),
where there would be three people in an accident. One has a body destroyed but
still has a healthy brain, the other two have healthy bodies but their brains
are destroyed. The one persons healthy brain is halved and then transplanted
into the two other healthy human bodies.
The resultant two people would have to acknowledge that, right after
such an operation, they have only q-memories
of the third person whose half brain they now each possess. In a like manner,
right after the surgery, they would have only the q-intentions and other such psychological attributes of that third
person (Personal Identity 171-2).
We can imagine a case like this, Parfit claims, because it is factually true
that one brain hemisphere is enough for survival. He bases this assumption on
stroke and other brain injury cases where one loses the function of one
hemisphere. He admits that he assumes that both hemispheres have a full range
of abilities (Psychological View 252-3).
This assumption goes
too far. According to a TV KPBS special documentary about the brain, the two
hemispheres definitely do not have
equal abilities and functions.[3] That technical problem
aside, we still have an identity problem. Assuming that Relation R is the necessary and sufficient criterion for personal
identity, we cannot claim that the resultant two people are one-and-the-same
continuing original person of any of the three victims. Parfit does stipulate
that personal identity cannot obtain
when the psychological criterion takes a branching
form, as it does in a case like this where there are two or more resultant
persons with the same psychological continuity.
Furthermore, Nathan Oaklander
points out that Parfits analysis still remains circular if one's q-memory is of one's own past experience
if and only if there are numerous other q-memories
of one's own earlier experiences. If he avoids circularity by saying there is
strong-connectedness such that the q-memory
is of one's past experience if and only if there are numerous other q-memories, then his analysis is
incomplete since there could be strong-connectedness without there being any
personal identity involved. Oaklander thinks that strong-connectedness is
sufficient only if all the simultaneous q-remembered experiences belong to the
same person. Parfit can apply his q-memory
theory as an impersonal (non-circular) description of personal identity only if
he can explain the unity of consciousness, i.e., what unifies simultaneous
experiences into one and the same person (526-7).
Unity of Consciousness
Parfit attempts to meet this challenge,
but his response is fraught with difficulties.
Unity of Consciousness seems to be the best concept that fits the
Further Fact that many Non-Reductionists subscribe to for personal identity.
However, Reductionists, according to Parfit, have a different view of unity of
consciousness from that of Non-Reductionists. He explains a common
understanding of unity of consciousness as being what unites different
experiences one has concurrently, experiences such as me-at-this-time being
aware of typing this sentence, of the sunlight streaming through the window,
and of the warmth of the fire next to me. It is the fact that these are all
experiences being had by me, a particular
person, and that I am the subject of these experiences. Some think that what
constitutes my whole life, what unites all of my experiences, thoughts, and so
forth, is the fact that they are all mine. This view is that psychological unity is explained by
ownership (Reasons 214-15).
Parfit claims that we cannot
explain these unities by claiming the experiences are had by the same person. These unities must be explained by
describing the relations between these many experiences, and their relations to
this persons brain. We can refer to
these experiences, and fully describe the relations between them, without
claiming that these experiences are had by a person (Reasons 217). He thinks that at any one time
there is in the brain a single state of awareness of simultaneous experiences,
i.e., that several experiences can be the objects of one state of awareness (Reasons 250-51). At any given time, for Reductionists, nothing more is
involved in unity of consciousness.
Parfit
thinks he has empirical evidence
backing his claims about the nature of the unity of consciousness. He points to
actual cases where surgeons have performed commissurotomies by cutting the
fibers connecting the two upper hemispheres of the brain in order to reduce the
severity of fits of epileptic patients. A side effect of the operation,
according to one surgeon, was the creation of two separate spheres of
consciousness. Parfit goes on to describe some complications within these
actual cases. For example, speech is entirely controlled by the right-handed
hemisphere. Nevertheless, he denies "the necessary unity of consciousness"
based on these cases whereby he thinks each hemisphere separately displays
unity of consciousness (Reasons 245;
247).
Recall the My Division case whereby surgeons divide
my brain in half and replace each of my identical triplet sisters destroyed
brain with one of my half brains. Parfit discloses how much weight he gives to
a denial of unity of consciousness:
Does it
matter if, for this reason, this imagined case of complete division will always
remain impossible? Given the aims of my discussion, this does not matter. This
impossibility is merely technical. The one feature of the case that might be
held to be deeply impossible - the
division of a persons consciousness into two separate streams - is the feature
that has actually happened. It would have been important if this had been
impossible, since this might have supported some claim about what we really
are. It might have supported the claim that we are indivisible Cartesian Egos.
It therefore matters that the division of a persons consciousness is in fact
possible. . . . the main conclusion to be drawn is that personal identity is not what matters. (Reasons 255)
Using
evidence from commissurotomy patients, Parfit thinks that this suggests that
the subject of our mental life is a
divisible brain. Using the My Division
thought experiment, Parfit declares the brain as an unfit bearer of personal
identity (Divided Minds 88).
Because Parfit puts so much weight on the importance of empirical evidence to
support his theory, this warrants close scrutiny. Parfit acknowledges that he
has to make many assumptions to make My
Division work, such as: (1) both hemispheres have full range of
capabilities, (2) it is possible to connect the nerves, and (3) the lower brain
stem is either not important, or else it can also be divided. He admits that
this case will probably never be possible, but, the mere technical difficulties
do not matter to him. What is important to keep in mind for Parfit is that the
feature whereby a person's consciousness has been divided into two separate
streams has actually happened. He bolsters his argument with the fact that one
can survive even if half of one's brain is destroyed or removed (Psychological
View 253; 256).
However, R.
W. Sperry explains that splitting a brain in half does not mean that each of
its functional properties is divided in half. Although there is extensive
bilateral redundancy and most functions seem to be fully organized on both
sides, Sperry cautions against thinking that these commissurotomy patients are
just as well off, or better off, mentally than before the operation. He also
judges that there are other unifying factors between the two brain hemispheres
that enhance normal behavior under ordinary circumstances (60-62). Wilkes
points out that only half of the brain cortex is removed in hemispherectomies,
not a whole half-brain. Only parts of
the cortex are divided in a commissurotomy. In each case, areas that are
crucial to psychological functions, the subcortical regions, are left intact.
She cites neuropsychologist S. Dimond in claiming that the peripheral
structures of the brain, when viewed from a perspective from within the brain, are in some sense more important than the
cerebral cortex: these subcortical regions can be likened to "the display
facilities of an operations room" (Wilkes 37-8).
John
Robinson presents two major problems about Parfits denial that unity of
consciousness may be a further fact. First, in cases where patients survive
when one of their upper brain hemispheres is removed, there is the remaining
brain stem to consider. What
psychological abilities and capacities are involved with the brain stem? Only
if we could transplant an upper hemisphere into a body which already had a
brain stem in it could there be a resulting person. The second problem deals
with the controversial conclusion that in the cases where epileptic patients
have brain nerve bundles severed there truly are two separate streams of
consciousness (324-26). Robinson cites C. Trevarthen, whose more recent experimental
work refutes Parfits conclusion: These two way links of hemispheres with the
brain stem . . . make complete surgical duplication of consciousness in man an
impossibility (qtd. in Robinson 327). The empirical evidence topples Parfits
puzzle case.
Robinson
imagines Parfit asking these questions about the My Division case: "So how can I survive as only one of the two
people? What can make me one of them rather than the other?" Robinson
responds: One answer is to question the
wisdom of taking the imagined case seriously. . . . It is contrary to
everything known about human brains to suppose that their two hemispheres are
exactly similar (324). Wilkes reflects that matters are rarely as
straightforward as many philosophers would like them to be: "As [J.]
Indeterminate Answers
In the My Division case, the answer to this question is indeterminate to a
Reductionist: which resultant person, if either, will be me? If I was a
particular Cartesian Ego, Parfit suggests, that could explain how one of the
resulting persons could be me, if my Ego regained consciousness in that one person
(Reasons 258). However, a case could be made that such an operation may
be impossible precisely because
persons are Cartesian Egos, or because of some
further fact, the essence of which precludes such an operation from being
successful.
Nevertheless, Parfit thinks he has
refuted the Ego view. A Reductionist is content to think that the outcome is
that two persons do, in fact, survive, and that each one will be
psychologically continuous with the original person. It is irrational, to a
Reductionist, to regard the prospect of division in the triplet's case as
death, since it was agreed upon (based on Parfit's criteria of Relation R) that one should survive in
another twin's division case, where
there would be only one surviving person after a half-brain transplant. The
hurdle to overcome in the triplet's case, in terms of identity, is duplication, because I cannot be two different people. If someone offered one a drug
that was supposed to double ones life span, and one regarded taking that drug
the same as death, then one is being irrational according to this view.
Likewise, one should be glad that in My
Division, ones Relation R
continues on in two separate persons. It would be somewhat like having doubled
ones life span, only the lives of the two resulting persons are lived
concurrently. Parfit proclaims that one should clearly be able to see that
survival in terms of Relation R matters
more than personal identity. If this can be agreed upon, and therefore the view
that identity matters is abandoned, then one can say that neither of the
resultant people will be identical to the original and that the original person
is about to die (Reasons 264). Besides, in this case, Parfit asks, How
could a double success be a failure? (Personal Identity 167).
Assuming
the validity of using this hypothetical case, this view seems plausible.
However, I still cannot conceive of myself
(my Relation R) going off, literally,
in two directions as two different persons. Let us say that one of these
resultant persons becomes a successful Philosopher and the other becomes a
successful novelist. We may reason thusly, as Parfit admits, that if I am neither of these two people, then
they are not fulfilling my ambitions.
If that is still a concern, then identity
is what matters (Reasons 264). But one should not take this view,
according to Parfit. When considering ones relation to each person surviving
the operation, one would ask if there is some vital component missing that
would be present in ordinary survival. Parfit thinks there is not. Since
nothing is missing, there is nothing about the nature of ones relation to the two surviving people that would
cause one to claim that one failed to survive. The only thing wrong is the
duplication (Psychological View 256).
Parfit reiterates
the question: "Is what matters personal identity, or relation R?" In
ordinary cases (which can be taken to mean real
life), Parfit admits, we do not have to make such a decision or distinction
because these relations coincide. But in a case like My Division where the relations do not coincide we must decide what
matters, identity or Relation R (Psychological
View 257). At this point, however, such a decision is not warranted. Parfit
has failed to convince us that his view of the unity of consciousness is sound.
As already described, Parfit had stated that if it had not been shown through
commissurotomy patients that ones consciousness could be divided into two
separate streams then the view that we really are indivisible Egos could be
supported. Since Parfit puts much weight on empirical evidence to support My Division even while admitting that it
may be impossible, others have pointed out the problems with this thought
experiment.
Survival Is More Important Than Identity
Let us
examine how Parfit carries through with his project. Because many are
sympathetic with Parfits ethical theories, it is important to analyze the full
scope of his metaphysical arguments underpinning his moral stance. He suggests
that one could say that one survived as both new persons in My Division and still imply identity.
For example, one could think of the two persons as composing a third person in
a manner like the Pope's three crowns are one crown. However, Parfit does not
like this solution because it keeps the language of identity at the expense of
changing the concept of a person. Instead, he advocates giving up the language
of identity, stating that one survives as two different people. This is a more
flexible way of thinking about identity that allows us to conceive how one
person can survive as two. Furthermore, he reinforces that this view
"treats survival as a matter of degree." Whereas identity is an
all-or-nothing relation, relations that matter in survival are relations of
degree. Parfit asserts: "If we ignore this, we shall be led into quite
ill-grounded attitudes and beliefs" (Personal Identity 168-9; 172).
Duplication
Parfit
creates more thought experiments that produce branch-line type of cases. For
example, in Teletransportation, a
new and improved scanner is used, which records information, but one does not
get destroyed immediately. A person is replicated on Mars, then the original
one (on Earth) dies soon after that (Reasons 199). With each of these
types of cases, replications, or duplications, of persons may not be considered
identity. Parfit uses these cases to further his claim that these are cases of survival, to one degree or another, and
that the survival relation matters more than identity. One should not consider
that ones death on Earth is almost as bad as ordinary death if one has a
Replica on Mars who is psychologically related to the original one of Earth.
Instead, according to Parfit, one should consider this "about as good as
ordinary survival" (Psychological View 229). After all, with normal Teletransportation, most people who
watch science fiction television and movies consider this kind of process as
simply traveling (such as when
Captain Kirk in Star Trek pleads: "beam me up, Scottie!"). The main
difference in this example with the new scanner is the duplication problemthe
same type of identity problem encountered with the My Division case.
Refuting
Physical Criterion for
Personal Identity
In order to
flesh out the concern about degrees of
survival relationships, Parfit uses another tactic while still employing
thought experiments. He attempts to demonstrate that questions about identity
can be empty questions with no
determinate answer. He lays out his aims: "One is to suggest a sense of
"survive" which does not imply identity. Another is to show that most
of what matters in survival are relations of degree. A third is to show that
none of these relations needs to be described in a way that presupposes
identity" (Personal Identity 171).
He introduces the Physical Spectrum
case to counter Bernard Williams' view that advocates the physical criterion
for personal identity. Williams concludes, according to Parfit, "that if
my brain continues to exist, and to be the brain of a living person, I shall be
that person. This would be so even if, between myself now and myself later,
there would be no psychological
connections" (Psychological View 243).
In this
case, let us say there are 100 possible operations to be performed. In a case
at the near end, scientists replace 1% of ones brain and 1% of ones body with
material made of new organic matter which contains copies of one's own cells.
In the middle of this spectrum, 50% of ones body and brain are replaced. Near
the far end, 99%, and at the farthest end, ones complete body and brain are
replaced only after they are first destroyed and a replica is made at a later
time. One sees that there is no physical continuity at the farthest end of this
spectrum. Parfit suggests that such near end cases for bodily replacements are now possible, given the organ and cell
transplants that are quite successful. He realizes that most of the far end
cases will remain impossible, but this impossibility is merely technical. He
declares, Since I use these cases to discover what we believe, this impossibility
is irrelevant (Reasons 234).
Before this
is categorically swept away as being irrelevant, think about a possible
explanation about why all through the
spectrum these cases may be impossible. Stairs cites Jaegwon Kim's analysis in
pointing out that the common conception that wholes are composed entirely of
their parts is probably a mistaken notion. This notion suggests that if you
were able to make an atom-for-atom copy of something, then the replicated
object will be an exact duplicate of the original at all levels. However, according to Kim, quantum mechanics discloses
that this thesis is false "even for
a single pair of electrons" (Stairs 467-8). This has to do with supervenience theory that is beyond the scope of this paper.
However, it is important to acknowledge that there are physics theorists who
would not subscribe to the kind of Reductionism that Parfit advocates.
Nevertheless,
for the sake of continuing on with Parfit's logic in order to understand his
conclusions, this impossibility will be considered irrelevant at this time in
the discussion. If one continues to believe that ones identity must be
determinate, given these cases, Parfit claims that one must therefore believe
that somewhere along the spectrum there is a sharp borderline where one ceases
to exist. If one does draw a line arbitrarily, then there cannot be any
rational or moral significance to where one can regard the one case, on the one
side of the line, as good as ordinary survival and the other case, on the other
side of the line, as bad as ordinary death. This arbitrary decision cannot
justify any claim about what matters. Reductionism entails that, in some cases,
questions about personal identity are indeterminate and that they are empty questions.
Robinson
disagrees with this argument, and suggests that further facts are being overlooked. He thinks that psychological
properties supervene upon physiological properties, and that some psychological
properties are essential properties
of ones self and some are
contingent. According to this view, properties of the brain underlie psychological properties.
Therefore, changes in brain cells that underlie essential properties do affect our identity. Robinson avers
that explaining survival involves understanding the properties, the facts, over and above those about
psychological continuity and connectedness. This, he asserts, cannot be done
independently of a theory about the nature, unity, and continuity of
consciousness (328).
A
Reductionist would have an aversion to assigning such abstruse properties to
brain cells, and would stick to his claim about indeterminacy in such spectrum
cases. Although Robinsons view seems plausible, there is much in current
literature to support the view that there is not a unity, but, rather, a
plurality in consciousness per se. For example, Daniel Dennett provides a good
case for plurality throughout his book Consciousness Explained. It is
beyond the scope of this paper to examine the nature of consciousness. However,
any theory about the nature of persons and personal identity must give some account about the nature of
consciousness.
Humean Bundle Connection
Parfit
realizes that it is natural for one to believe that one's identity must be
determinate. One naturally thinks that in any situation there should be a
simple yes or no answer to the question: am I about to die? (Psychological
View 243). The Humean Bundle Theory,
Parfit presumes, should enable one to reject this belief. You are not a separate entity according to this view, so one can
describe exactly what will happen in various cases without having to answer a
question about what will happen to you.
If you had fifty percent of your cells replaced with exact duplicates, it would
be "a mere choice of words" whether to call the resulting person you or whether to call her your Replica.
Parfit asks, "How could it be a real question what would happen to you,
unless you are a separately existing ego, distinct from a brain and body . .
.?" (Divided Minds 86).
Reproduction Survival Experiments
Parfit
provides another line of reasoning to help one get over ones unhealthy
attachment to the importance of ones identity. He discusses survival in terms
of human reproduction. While he attempted (somewhat) to stay within the
confines of scientific possibilities
with various scenarios described above about imaginary surgeries, he goes far
afield of reality by proposing ways in which humans do reproduce in order to make his case for survival and identity without
further facts. Reviewing a few of these cases will demonstrate the bizarre
nature of these kinds of thought experiments.
What would it mean if two people
were to fuse into one, such that the resulting person would q-remember the lives of the two former
individuals? Those who regard survival as a matter of all-or-nothing would
regard this as death for the two beginning persons. Parfit recognizes the
challenges presented by such a prospect as this. How would the characteristics
and desires of the former individuals get blended? Nevertheless, he maintains
that only the very self-satisfied would think of this as death. Parfit thinks
that fusion is neither definitively survival nor clearly a failure to survive.
His point in this experiment is to demonstrate that "what matters in
survival can have degrees" (Personal Identity 172-3).
Parfit does not discuss this fusion process in terms of gender.
It does not make sense for a man and woman to fuse together: what would be the
gender of the resultant person? Without providing for any restrictions in this
process, then a fundamental part of human nature, i.e., sexuality, is
disregarded. Even if this fusion process were a plausible possibility to
consider, would anyone feel confident about the outcome of such a fusion? It
seems that one would have qualms that the other person in a fusion partnership
would have q-intentioned future
aspirations in a stronger or contradictory manner than one has done so before
the fusion process.
If fusion does not meet ones
fancy, then one should consider the prospect of natural division, whereby one is to imagine beings that would
divide into two separate persons, much like an amoeba divides. In this example,
the original person, A, divides into B1 and B2. B1, in turn, divides later into
C1 and C2. B2 divides into C3 and C4. In the next generation, C1 becomes D1 and
D2, C2 becomes D3 and D4, C3 becomes D5 and D6, and so on (Parfit, Personal
Identity 173). One can envision a
tree structure diagram, with one, A, at the root and branching off into several
generations of future, seemingly exactly
similar, persons. This can be construed as an inversion of a family tree
diagram in which one traces one's roots back through several generations
whereby one can see a connection to
many ancestors within that family tree structure.
In a normal family tree structure,
the diagram shows an individual at the bottom of the tree, A, with one's
father, F, and mother, M, at the next generation back level. Going up the tree structure, next, then, are
one's fathers parents: ones grandfather, G1, and grandmother, G2; and one's
mothers parents, G3, and G4. The next level depicts one's great-grandparents,
GG1 through GG8, and so on. Family traditions and values normally get handed
down through direct psychological contact with ones family members and
associates of family members. Parfit's new mode is a perversion of the normal type of human reproduction
whereby ones connectedness to one's past generations is through the passing
down of genetic properties, family values, and family story-memories.
With the normal model, one can
understand the general claim that the more remote the ancestor from the past,
the less direct psychological connectedness one will have. With Parfits tree
of future selves from natural division,
the farther into the future, the less direct psychological relations one will
have with a distant future self. Q-memories,
in time, will be replaced by others. The same holds for other q-relationships such as q-desires, and so forth. The main point
Parfit wants to make with this supposition is that survival and relationships
with one's past selves and future selves should be treated as relations of
degrees. With this method of reproduction, one has the most connectedness with
the immediate past and future selves (Personal Identity 173).
Now, put
these two processes together and imagine another type of human whereby one
reproduces by fusing every autumn, and then divides every spring. This would
make a human a kind of everlasting being in which psychological relations would
hold only over limited periods of time. Parfit claims that direct psychological
relations would hold only between those parts which are close to each other in
time. According to this view, when one gets to the point where ones character
has undergone a significant change, or where one no longer has memories of a
certain period, one would say: It was not I who did that, but an earlier
self. Parfit claims that this is a very natural way of thinking and talking.
It is entirely a matter of choice whether, when talking about any of these
persons along the fusion-division chain, one would say I, one of my future
selves, or a descendant self (Personal Identity 175). Again, his whole point in these imagined cases is that
survival is a matter of degrees. Parfit goes on to describe yet another type of
imaginary being where there is neither division nor fusion, but there are
everlasting bodies that gradually change over periods of time.
Do Parfits Puzzle Cases Convince?
At this
point, enough cases of Parfit's imaginary beings have been described for one to
understand the picture he is painting. He has made a logical progression from
the My Division case, to the Physical Spectrum scenario, and through
various forms of alternative human reproduction, in order to argue that
survival is more important than identity, and to prove that survival is a
matter of degrees and is not always determinate. His view that unity of
consciousness only applies to the immediate moment is too narrow, and his
rejection of the wider view of unity of consciousness relies too heavily on
evidence that consciousness is split in commissurotomy patients. Based on that
evidence, he launches into impossible cases in order to tease apart human
survival and personal identity. He acknowledges that in ordinary cases we do
not have to make a decision between survival and identity. However, he wants us
to decide in favor of survival and
indeterminacy based in large part on a series of cases that ignore the nature of human reproduction. Because he
has relied solely on science fiction thought experiments to logically prove that survival is more important
than identity, he has proven his case only in some possible other
world. He has not provided a convincing argument that human survival can be
separated from personal identity in this
world.
He admits
that one's belief that identity is
what matters is hard to vanquish, especially in light of discussions about
problem cases that actually occur: cases like ones involving amnesia or brain
damage. Nevertheless, he considers that the My
Division case produces a breach in this belief: therefore, the remaining
certainty should be easy to topple (Personal Identity 170). What, then, would
be the moral and ethical implications if society at large accepted Parfits
views? A final argument against Parfits theory will now be presented to
demonstrate that the consequences of accepting his view are absurd.
CHAPTER 6
MORAL IMPLCATIONS OF
PARFITS IDENTITY
THEORIES: A MOVE FROM
ETHICAL EGOISM
TOWARD IMPERSONAL ALTRUISM
Overview
In this
section, it is explained why Parfit's personal identity theories are deeply
disturbing to some because of the moral implications resulting from such a
view. It will be shown why Parfit thinks this view liberates one from morose feelings resulting from thinking about
one's eventual demise. Parfit's account, if true, defeats the moral principle
of egoism, or ethical self-interest. One will see how adopting Relation R concepts enables one to be
more impartial and to move away from ethical egoism and toward rational
altruism. Parfit advocates for radically new policies to enable widespread
political and social changes. He is a proponent for these policies: a
distribution of wealth, paternalistic government intervention to prevent great imprudence by individuals, a legal
distinction between persons and humans enabling the killing of humans via
abortion and euthanasia, and less punishment the further away from a crime a
convict is with respect to his Relation R
in regard to the crime. Documentation for these positions will be provided in
the details that follow.
If one does
not accept Parfit's view of personal identity, then one cannot accept the
metaphysical links he attempts to forge when making his case for altruism. Even
if one did subscribe to this view, difficulties with the kinds of moral and
ethical changes Parfit is advocating are pointed out. This section ends with a
brief discussion about moral implications from other personal identity theories
in order to demonstrate further the importance of this topic.
Parfit
reveals other Philosophers' criticisms about his account. Reid thinks that all
ethical rights and obligations are undermined with this view that eliminates
any further fact that may ensure
determinacy in personal identity. G. Madell claims that the Relation R theory of personal identity
"is utterly destructive of a whole range of our normal moral
attitudes." V. Haksar claims that Parfit's view undermines all human
rights and moral constraints, and is "incompatible with any kind of humane
morality" (qtd. in Parfit, Personal Identity, Rationality 312-13). Parfit agrees that most people
would find it "deeply disturbing" if such a truth about personal
identity had this kind of impact.
Some may
think that the Reductionist View must be false if these were the implications. However, Parfit judges that this would not be a valid argument to reject this
view: "The truth may be disturbing." Just like many people are deeply
disturbed about the claim that the Universe was not created by a benevolent
God, that feeling alone cannot show
the claim to be false (Personal Identity, Rationality 313). Mary Midgley, it seems, would agree with Parfit's reasoning
along these lines. For example, she thinks that we have backed into "the
social atomism which underlies Social Contract thinking" because the
consequences of more organic, hierarchical systems were such that people got
rid of the conceptual basis for those systems in favor of the more separate
atomistic social structure that is prevalent in the western world (469).
Why does Parfit go to such
imaginative, albeit creative, lengths to stress the importance of survival in
terms of psychological connectedness (Relation
R)? His motivation is to underpin an
ethical code with a metaphysical principle and to demonstrate that the
prevailing moral principle of self-interest and egoism per se has no force. In
the first section of his book Reasons and Persons, Parfit provides a
strong argument, independent from this argument about the supremacy of survival
over identity, that the theory of self-interest is self-defeating. Although one
can agree with his line of reasoning in that regard, he does not provide a
self-defeating case against all forms of ethical egoism. For example, Ayn Rand,
in most of her fiction and non-fiction, presents arguments for individualism
and a form of rational egoism that does not seem to be self-defeating. Her view
of ethics entails what she calls the Trader Principle whereby one cannot ask
others to sacrifice themselves or their desires for ones own aims. Conversely,
one should never sacrifice ones self for the sake of others goals and
desires. Rand also believes that it is important to underpin ethical theories
with metaphysical principles, including the nature
of persons.[4]
With Parfits view, if we can
concede that there will be some
psychological connectedness to all (of our)
future selves, and we can also concede that this is what matters instead of
whether we continue on as some kind
of further fact entity, then the
implications concerning our beliefs in codes of morality are far-reaching.
Contemplating Ones Demise
Parfit expresses exhilaration about
the liberating effects of his way of thinking about ones self: When I
believed that my existence was such a further fact, I seemed imprisoned in
myself. My life seemed like a glass tunnel, through which I was moving faster
every year, and at the end of which there was darkness. When I changed my view,
the walls of my glass tunnel disappeared (Reasons 281).
While most people become depressed,
or at least somewhat anxious, when they think of their eventual demise, Parfit
suggests that other people become closer to one who adopts his view: one
becomes less concerned about ones own life and more concerned about the lives
of others. Although there will no longer be direct chains of connectedness, as
there are in normal personal existence, there will continue to be memories
about ones life, perhaps thoughts which will have been influenced by one, and
deeds done as a result of one's advice or prior actions. Parfit judges: This
is all there is to the fact that there will be no one living who will be me.
He thinks that this way of thinking about death is less bad (Reasons 281).
However, this way of thinking about
how ones life even after death continues to influence others is shared by
Non-Reductionists. They just do not subscribe to the metaphysical links that
Parfit wishes to install. Parfit thinks that the chains of connectedness should
be considered somehow more firm from
one generation to the next. He wants
people to feel more metaphysically linked
to past and future generations in order to guide them away from selfish, egocentric behavior. He needs
his science fiction puzzle cases to make this metaphysical distinction, and to
provide for the connection of individual persons into a universal caring family.
Parfit
equates Egoism with the fear of death, when one expresses the regret that so
much of ones only life should have
gone by. He believes that this emotional sentiment is not necessarily
instinctive, and he judges it to be bad, brought about because of one's common
view of personal identity (Personal Identity 176). People should also change their stance when faced with any
kind of suffering. Instead of saying, "the person suffering will be
me," one should say, "there will be suffering that will be related,
in certain ways, to these present experiences." This way of redescribing the facts makes suffering
seem less bad to Parfit (Psychological View 260). Parfit appears to be advocating an absurd position that one
should distance one's self from one's
self.
A Reductionist Look at
Self-Interest
There are just two main competitors
in the field of morality, according to Parfit. One is the Self-Interest theory
based on the principle that the supremely rational aim for each person is that
his own life, on the whole, go as well as possible. Even though both
Reductionists and Non-Reductionists alike agree that each person is different,
each with individual lives to lead, Parfit agrees with Henry Sidgwick in
claiming that it is the deeper truth
view of Non-Reductionists that becomes the foundation underlying all reasons
for acting. This view, then, is the basis for the Self-Interest theory about
rationality. Sidgwick thinks another equally rational ultimate aim for humans
is that things go, on the whole, as well as possible for everyone (Parfit, Reasons
329). Many believe that this second objective should be the foundation of our
moral theory. Some agree with Sidgwick that when morality conflicts with
self-interest, one cannot answer the question: what is the most rational thing
to do? Sidgwick suggests, according to
Parfit, that one could refute the Self-Interest theory if one took a different
position on personal identity. This is precisely what Parfit advocates (Reasons 329). These remarks demonstrate
Parfit's reasoning:
On this
[Non-Reductionist] view, it is a deep truth that all of a person's life is as
much his life. If we are impressed by this truthabout the unity of each
lifethe boundaries between lives will seem to be deeper. This supports the
claim that, in the moral calculus, these boundaries cannot be crossed. On the
Reductionist View, we are less impressed by this truth. We regard the unity of
each life as, in its nature, less deep, and as a matter of degree. We may
therefore think the boundaries between lives . . . . They may then seem less
morally important. (Personal Identity, Rationality 319-20)
Even though
he is making a strong argument that the Reductionist View and its moral
consequences are good, Parfit needs to explain why he is still "much more
concerned" about his own future than he is about a mere stranger's future.
The reason, he concludes, is based on natural evolutionary forces. He claims,
"Special concern for one's own future would be selected by
evolution." This ethically neutral fact
does not support nor undermine any claim about whether this attitude of
self-concern is justified. He admits that it is still an open question about
whether it is justified (Personal Identity, Rationality 302-3). One could
argue, however, that an evolutionary explanation goes toward emphasizing a
certain aspect about the nature of
human beings and therefore should be included in an account of personal
identity. On the other hand, one could counter this argument by saying that
this biological evolutionary need for
self-concern is no longer necessary since we have come so far in our
non-biological evolutionary processes of building civilizations.
Impartial Altruism
A companion
to the Self-Interest theory is one of Common-Sense Morality. According to this
notion, one should give to ones children, and to others that one values most,
some kinds of priority. Parfits Relation
R helps to move one toward rational altruism, enabling one to be more
impersonal and impartial. According to Relation
R, there are cases where one should not
give priorities to one's own children, but rather, should do what would be best
for everyones children, considered impartially. If one follows this principle
for other relationships such as with parents, friends, neighbors, and so forth,
then impersonality proves to provide
the better outcome for everybody (Reasons 444).
Social Changes
Distribution of Wealth
This
altruistic view naturally leads to specific social and political consequences.
For one result, Parfit argues in favor of a distribution of wealth. He
contends, "Though every gain in welfare matters, it also matters who gains. Certain distributions are, we
claim, morally preferable. We ought to give some priority to helping those who
are worse off, through no fault of theirs. And we should try to aim for
equality" (Personal Identity, Rationality 320).
Paternalism
Since
society should abandon the classical self-interest theory, according to Parfit,
he pushes his views further for an expansion of moral theory to include an
appeal to Consequentialism. This provides for a paternalistic protection of
persons from their own great
imprudence. Whereas currently very few would claim that imprudence per se is morally wrong, this would change under Parfit's scheme. For
example, if a young person takes up smoking, she may be imposing on herself a
premature death. Parfit proposes, "We should claim that it is wrong to
impose on anyone, including such a
future self, the risk of such a death. More generally, we should claim that
great imprudence is morally wrong. This claim strengthens the case for
paternalistic intervention. We ought not to do to our future selves what it
would be wrong to do to other people." He claims the right to keep people
from acting wrongly towards
themselves. He supposes that this claim would not hold sway over minor wrongdoing, but that it would be
our duty to prevent serious
wrongdoing, "even if this involves coercion" (Personal Identity,
Rationality 310-11).
One can
argue that paternalism per se can be appropriately incorporated within our
societys moral structure. For example, most would agree that laws enforcing
the wearing of car seat belts and motorcycle helmets are good laws, in spite of
any personal freedoms they may inhibit. However, it seems that adopting
Parfits views would entail an inordinate amount of legislation and morality
policies in order to limit personal freedoms such that persons would not affect
serious wrongdoing against themselves. Although this is not a philosophical
argument against his position, one can only imagine the consequential legal
quagmire that would ensue.
Korsgaard
argues that one can live one's own life only if one is free from this kind of
interference. Freedom is necessary for one to be one's own person. Her unity of
agency view does not preclude a concern for the future of larger agencies with
which one is associated. One usually has a present and future personal concern for one's family,
workplace, certain projects, and state or country. This personal concern that
begins with one's self, and then widened as just described, can develop further
into ever-widening spheres that does not necessarily
preclude a concern for the Earth's environment and fellow creatures at large
(334-5).
On the
extreme opposite end of Korsgaard's view, Frithjof Bergmann puts freedom at the
low end of his hierarchy of values. Because freedom can bring one nothing that
could be considered one's "brutal, bare necessities," and because in
many cultures most have lived in hostile circumstances without freedom, then
one should consider freedom a luxury. Bergmann thinks that we are spoiled to
want more than these others have, and that it is presumptuous to demand freedom.
He presumes that freedom is necessary to provide "the consonance between
my life and my nature or my identifications," but this should only be a
consideration after brute and bare necessities are obtained. According to his
assessment, one should feel guilty for wanting freedom when there are so many
without. For example, he claims "that the free pursuit of one's material
gain deserves perhaps only a very lowly status. . . . To take advantage of
every manner of interdependency while one acquires, but then to shout freedom
at the sign of the first claim by others should by now provoke a laugh, or
maybe angerbut not a philosophical debate" (419-20). Nevertheless, one
cannot simply dismiss property rights theories by claiming that any such ideas
are not philosophical in nature. However, that would be a subject for another
thesis.
Abortion
Returning
to Parfit, on the issue of abortion the Non-Reductionist would claim that there
must be a moment when one starts to exist, because ones existence is an all-or-nothing
proposition. A Reductionist, using a spectrum
perspective, would not believe that at every moment from conception to birth
one either does or does not exist. One
can now believe that the transition from a fertilized ovum to a person takes
time and is a matter of degree. Some, like Locke, make a distinction between
human beings and persons, and those who hold this distinction may claim that a
human being becomes a person only at
the time one becomes self-conscious. With this view, there is room for
disagreement about whether a fetus is a person, even granting that it becomes a
human being before the end of pregnancy. One may, under this reasoning,
consider that only the killing of persons
is wrong (Reasons 321-2). Of
course, Parfit still faces the dilemma of deciding at what point along the
continuum during pregnancy a person emerges,
and therefore, it would be morally wrong to abort after that point in time.
Euthanasia
At the
other end of ones life, using such a distinction, euthanasia can now be considered
in terms of human beings versus persons. If
someone is in a coma, without ever a chance to regain consciousness
(assuming that one could ever know this for certain), does one still consider
this a person or not? Parfit declares that one should believe that person has ceased to exist, and it would
therefore be alright to end that human life (Reasons 323). Should one
claim, like Parfits example suggests, that killing human beings that cannot be
considered persons is morally
acceptable? This is the logical conclusion one might draw if one subscribes to
Parfit's account of personal identity.
Punishment
What does Parfit have to say about just deserts? Locke thought one should
not be punished for a crime that one could not remember. Many people think that
this view is morally repugnant. Parfit admits that he has not yet found a good
resolution to the argument claiming that psychological continuity is what
matters regarding punishment for past crimes. But he is willing to commit
himself to the general claim that the further away in time in which a convict
is connected to a crime, the less
punishment he deserves. Parfit illustrates what he means. Suppose a ninety year
old man who now holds a Nobel Peace Prize confessed that he had beaten a
policeman in a drunken brawl when he was twenty years old. Since he was
psychologically far removed from this crime, however serious the crime, he may
not now deserve to be punished.
Parfit suggests that this is the reason why many countries have Statutes of
Limitations (Reasons 326).
In many
cases, however, these statutes are written for practical, rather than moral,
reasons. This may be inferred by the fact that in many legal systems there is
no such limitation for the crime of murder. Parfits reasoning, however, taken
to its logical conclusion, seems to suggest that a criminal who can hide well
from justiceone who distances himself from his crime with enough timedoes not
deserve punishment, while one who is caught early after the crime, does deserve
punishment. Lloyd Fields points out yet another major problem with Parfits
claim. Because many experiences can lie
dormant in ones memories, using Parfits criterion, jurors would always be in
a state of doubt about whether a person deserves more punishment than he appears to deserve. A criminal may be in
actuality more psychologically connected to the crime than he appears, but his
blocked, dormant q-memories prevent a
full disclosure of his true connectedness (437). In the current legal system, a
juror needs to be convinced about a defendants guilt based on evidence
presented regardless of what the defendant says or remembers. Under Parfits
view, as previously mentioned, the further away one is psychologically removed
from a crime, the less punishment one deserves. Once again, one can only
imagine the consequential legal quagmire that would ensue if this view were to
be embraced.
Environment
Regarding
environmentalism, Parfit uses an example whereby someone shoots an arrow into a
distant wood, and, sight unseen, it wounds someone else. If he knew that
someone else was there, he would be guilty of gross negligence. Even if he did
not know someone else was there, and even if the woods were far away, he is
still not excused from negligence. Parfit maintains that one should have the
same views about the effects on people who are temporally remote (Reasons 357). Rational egoists would agree with
future-generation altruists in that one should not use, or misuse, natural
resources because of sheer whim or desire, with no rational purpose.
Unity
For the Non-Reductionist, the unity
in one's life is a given (further) fact. Parfits Reductionism is, on the
whole, far more impersonal, giving less importance to the unity of individual
lives and to boundaries between lives, and giving more importance to
experiences per se. He states, "It becomes more plausible to claim that,
just as we are right to ignore whether people come from the same or different
nations, we are right to ignore whether experiences comes within the same or
different lives" (Personal Identity, Rationality 321). Korsgaard points out the circularity in Parfit's theory:
"If you begin with the view that a person is a subject of experiences, and
take away the subject, you are indeed left with nothing but experiences. But
you will begin with that view only if you assume from the start that having
experiences is what life is all about" (338).
On the other hand, for Parfit,
unity seems to be a worthy goal for one to achieve:
On the Reductionist View, the unity of our lives is a matter
of degree, and is something that we can affect. . . . And we can give our lives
greater unity in ways that express or fulfill our particular values and
beliefs. Since the Reductionist View gives more importance to how we choose to
live, and to what distinguishes different people, this is a way in which it is more personal. (Reasons 446)
Instead of the concept of unity, the word meaning or continuity
would fit better in this context. Nevertheless, we can understand this line of
thinking when we consider expressions people commonly use, such as Ive got to
get my act together. Parfit is describing a kind of building block, designer
approach to creating a life. But, since he thinks of persons as being like
nations, this approach can produce unity only if the values and beliefs are
consistent.
Values
and beliefs can, and often do, change over time within individuals. This would
be no threat to a Non-Reductionist unity. Parfit is presupposing that
Non-Reductionists do not place importance on values and beliefs, because unity
is guaranteed. Although unity is a
fundamental axiom with Non-Reductionists, it does not follow that it is not
important how one chooses to live, guided by values and beliefs. In a footnote
added in response to criticism, Parfit expresses regret: "I should not
have claimed that connectedness was more important than continuity."
Nevertheless, in that same footnote he reiterates the kernel of his theory on
personal identity (Personal Identity 178).
Contrast With Other Personal
Identity Theories
One can
further acknowledge the importance of this topic by reviewing some ethical
consequences from other theories about personal identity. This will be a brief
summary of a few of those perspectives. For example, using his consciousness
(memory) criteria, Locke cites human laws whereby a sane man is not punished
for what he did when he was insane: the law, therefore, treats him as two
separate persons. This is substantiated by our common way of speaking, Locke
contends, when we say things like "one is not himself, or is beside
himself" (120). Kolak and Martin point out that a strict
interpretation of this view has a similar consequence as what Parfit advocates:
it would mean that "Smith actually murdered Jones only if he
remembers having done it" (Personal Identity Introduction 164).
With this
next example one can see how Jaak Panksepp draws a moral conclusion based on a
minimal theory about the self. He theorizes that the emotional power of music may be the result of sound waves resonating
with some kind of neural infrastructure of the self. This, in turn, produces
bodily effects such as chills. One would be able to make empirical predictions
based on this kind of possibility. He then makes this moral leap: "The
recognition that such processes may be
central components of human development (Panksepp, 1999a) may also encourage us
to consider undertaking positive forms of social engineering . . ." (126).
Martin
proposes a self-improvement engineering project whereby there would be some
type of procedure by which one could
choose all the ways one wanted to change physically and psychologically. I call
this the "sell-your-soul" view. Martin posits that most people would
opt for this kind of radical change via some type of operation even if it meant
that one would lose one's identity, because one would lose all of one's
memories to obtain those benefits. He presents a convincing argument with the
stunning conclusion that many people wish to be fulfilled more than they want to be who they currently are. Clearly, loss of identity under this
scenario does not seem to be as bad as death (294-5). However, one wonders what
kind of a human society there would be if everyone, or nearly everyone, opted
for such a procedure. It seems that maintaining any kind of personal
relationship would be meaningless, if not impossible, whereby someone in the
relationship could so abruptly and radically change. However, this qualm about
such a possibility does not present a philosophical argument against Martin's supposition.
Nevertheless, note that this is another instance of using imaginary thought
experiments to explore the nature of persons.
For
a final example, Pickering questions
the implications of his theory: "What then might be at stake, ethically
speaking, when deciding whether to consider the self as a thing or as a
process? My judgement is that it is an engagement with environmental
issues." A process view of the nature of persons and personal identity
involves an extension of self-interest, according to
Although
there are additional moral and ethical implications based upon other personal
identity views, enough examples have been provided to demonstrate the profound
impact that personal identity views have on moral and ethical theory. One has
grasped that Parfit's Reductionist view of personal identity has far reaching
implications and that other thinkers views entail sweeping changes to the
moral order of society. Parfit advocates for a move away from Self-Interest and
toward an impersonal altruistic code of ethics. Locke's memory criterion for
personal identity presents challenges for a justice system. Panksepp wants us
to consider the need for social engineering based upon a theory about a
possible neural infrastructure of the self. Lastly, Martin questions ones
attachment to ones own identity when it seems that one would gladly trade
ones identity for a chance to become fulfilled.
CHAPTER 7
QUESTIONING THE USE OF
SCIENCE FICTION
THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS
The
prevailing non-reductionist "common sense" view of personal identity,
i.e., that we are each enduring individuals, is the basis for our current legal
systems and for the Self -Interest view of morality. If philosophers come to
have a different view of personal identity, or if they think survival can be separated
from identity and that survivial is more important, then it follows naturally
that they would call for the moral and legal systems to also be swept aside.
Because of this consequence, I next examine whether some philosophers
methodological approach is appropriate for the concepts they are investigating.
A case is made against relying heavily on the science fiction type of thought
experiments for drawing conclusions about the questions of personal identity,
and their resulting implications.
Why Thought Experiments Are Used
Arguments
against some conclusions drawn within some specific thought experiments have
already been presented. This section examines why thought experiments are used, and how they are used to explore the questions of personal identity.
After reviewing these defenses for and objections against using this method,
one should be convinced that thought experiments are of a very limited value in
determining the nature of persons and personal identity. This method should be
considered as only one tool in a toolbox full of other analytical methods from
which to derive important conclusions and resulting implications about our
subject questions. One could argue for tossing this tool out of the
philosophical toolbox altogether when analyzing certain concepts, especially
concepts surrounding the questions of personal identity.
Kolak and
Martin explain that this method is used in an attempt to determine whether the
continuity of physical structures or of psychological structures, or some
combination of both, constitutes necessary criteria for personal identity. With
such cases, one can posit that either the physical structures are preserved
while the psychological ones are disrupted, or vice versa, and then determine
whether or not personal identity is preserved or not as a result of the
experiment. Thought experiments are often used to separate and put pressure on
these elements, because in life they "are always conjoined" (Personal
Identity Introduction 169). Immediately, a red flag is raised. If these basic
elements are always conjoined in real
life for human persons, and we
are investigating the metaphysical nature
of the identity of this concept, they
why is it legitimate to separate these elements? A possible answer to this
objection may be that if both kinds
of structures are necessary for
personal identity, then we could more easily come to this conclusion by trying to separate them. It is also
legitimate to separate them using thought experiments in order to test the
necessity or sufficiency of each criterion.
Parfit
thinks that our current false beliefs
about what persons are can be best
brought to light through the use of imaginary cases. He acknowledges that
Ludwig Wittgenstein believes that we can learn little from such stories, and that
Willard Quine questions whether the limits of this method are properly heeded.
Quine suggests that extreme thought experiments "suggest that words have
some logical force beyond what our past needs have invested with them"
(qtd. in Parfit, Psychological View 228).
Nevertheless, Parfit thinks this criticism would be warranted only if we had no
reactions to the stories. He proclaims justification for their use because
"these cases arouse in most of us strong beliefs," and that it is
through their use that we discover the nature of personal identity (Psychological
View 228). It seems odd that in an era of analytical philosophy in the western
world, a philosopher would advocate a method based upon the emotional effects
produced. One can argue that religious sermons and stories also produce among
listeners strong reactions and beliefs about our human naturebeliefs that
usually subscribe to some form of the transcendental, or ego, view of personal
identity.
Martin
defends the use of such experiments, especially in trying to determine the importance of identity. If one can
separate identity per se from other
characteristics that normally coexist with it in real life, then one has the
opportunity to choose whether
identity or some other factor is more important, i.e., survival or some aspect
of survival. Without these kinds of stories, Martin claims, it would be
difficult to evoke these preferences (292-3).
How Thought Experiments Are Used
Gendler
describes the general strategy involved with personal identity thought
experiments. In many such cases put forward we can make sense of the scenario.
For example, in principle it may be
possible that A's brain could be transplanted into B's body. Since we can make
sense out of a case, we should then be able to make factual or value judgments
about the personal identity criteria involved. Then, based on those results, we
could return to actual cases with
what we have learned from the imaginary examples. There are two general types
of objections to this method, as Gendler points out. The first type, substantive disputes, involves
questioning the validity of fundamental aspects of particular cases. For
example, one may question whether brain transplants could ever be possible. The
second general objection is to question whether our concepts should, or even
could, "support all of the implications of our beliefs concerning what is
practically, physically, or conceptually possible" (448-9).
Thomas
Nagel gives us a good example of a substantive dispute in discussing a version
of the My Division case. "It is
therefore hard to internalize a conception of myself as identical with my
brain: if I am told that my brain is about to be split, and that the left half
will be miserable and the right half euphoric, there is no form that my
subjective expectations can take, because my idea of myself doesn't allow for
divisibilitynor do the emotions of expectation, fear, and hope" (185-86).
Another example comes from Andrew Brook in trying to comprehend the Fission case. "I have no difficulty
with imagining myself lying down . . . moving into the fissioning machine . . .
and then what? I cannot go any further. I cannot imagine myself, i.e., me as I
am aware of myself from the inside, becoming two selves . . ." (44).
In spite of
these kinds of objections, Gendler maintains that there is nothing
"categorically wrong" with such thought experiments even if they
concern technical, biological, or physically impossible scenarios. He points
out that these kinds of experiments play legitimate roles "in legal
reasoning, linguistic theorizing, scientific inquiry and ordinary
conversation." What Gendler objects to, however, is when a case is
ill-conceived in light of the particular structure of the concept that the
experiment is intended to clarify. When one structures the concept of personal
identity around a set of necessary and sufficient conditions, and those
conditions are used to determine what candidates are selected as comprising
that concept, then imaginary cases may
assist in separating essential from accidental criteria (449). Parfit seems to
agree with Gendler. He admits that most of his cases are either merely technically impossible or that
they contravene the laws of nature and are therefore deeply impossible. He claims that this does not matter if the
question or what one is trying to show is structured properly. "But,"
Parfit cautions, "we should bear in mind that, depending on our question,
impossibility may make some thought-experiment irrelevant" (Psychological
View 235).
There are
exceptional cases in the real world
that enable philosophers to speculate about personal identity where a single
body seems to be able to contain more than one aggregation of psychological
attributes. These would be cases, for example, of people with Multiple Personality
Disorder and of those with other kinds of dissociation. However, as Gendler
points out, there are no actual cases
where a single set of psychological attributes exist in more than one body
(450-1).
Gendler
recounts that Locke was the first philosopher to use imaginary cases for our
subject questions. He refers back to Locke's emperor and cobbler case, in which
the personalities of the emperor and cobbler switched bodies. That was the
model for subsequent personal identity thought experiments. This story depends
on three things: "(1) that we can make sense of a story in which two
personalities 'switch bodies', (2) that we can describe a mechanism by which
such a switch might take place, and (3) that that mechanism involves some
transfer of substance." However,
Gendler questions whether one should make judgments based on stories where it
is described how the world might come
to be other than how it currently is configured. Furthermore, Gendler presents
an argument that as the stories have become more and more complex, even though
we are still able to make sense out
of them, the increasing complexity "wreaks havoc with our ability to make
reliable judgments." We come to
"see that the initial illusion of certainty about the simple case was only
that: an illusion" (454).
Einsteins Example
Some
problems with Parfit's My Division
case have been noted above. He avers that we can make a reliable judgment from
this experiment even though it will probably remain impossible. He declares
that this is not grounds for dismissing this case: "There seems to be no
similar connection between a particular view about what we really are and the
impossibility of dividing and successfully transplanting the two halves of the
lower brain." Parfit intends to bolster his claim that it is productive to
consider impossible thought experiments by citing the fact that Einstein used
thought experiments (Psychological View 252). However, Einstein's thought
experiments were productive because they pointed the way in which scientists
could later devise instruments and mechanisms to test his theories.
For
example, Peter Galison reports that Einstein theorized that there was only one
kind of magnetism and that it was caused by electrons racing around atomic
nuclei in an aligned orientation to behave like tiny magnets. Einstein wondered
how one could test this idea. "Suppose that you are standing on a lazy
Susan with a gyroscope in each hand, each with its axis pointing away from you
and spinning clockwise from your point of view." Thus is the beginning of
this thought experiment scenario. He then imagined the whole scenario taking
place inside an iron bar. At a later time, Einstein, with a collaborator, built
a delicate device to virtually carry out such a scenario, and they were successful
in obtaining results to prove his theory. However, it was discovered later that
the result from this testing was off by a factor of two in the measurement of
magnetism per unit of angular momentum. So, although his commitment to a
particular model gave him the impetus about how to conduct the experiment, the
results were easy to accept "when blackboard calculation and laboratory
results agreed." Galison reminds us of one of Einstein's famous quotes:
"No one but a theorist believes his theory; everyone puts faith in a
laboratory result but the experimenter himself" (68-9).
Even though
this particular concrete experiment did not produce the final answer for the topic at hand, the thought experiment went a
long way to guide scientists along correct paths of inquiry. There are other
thought experiments inherited from Einstein that proved fruitful in this
regard. Wilkes explains that in order for thought experiments to be of any
value, whether being used in analyzing scientific or philosophical theories, then
it must be clear what aspects of reality remain constant in the imaginary
scenario, and what aspects are altered in thought (2). The armchair philosopher
must be bound by as stringent constraints as is the laboratory researcher. The
philosopher must provide any relevant background conditions against which a
thought experiment is set in order to show what difference some particular factor may make: these background
conditions must remain constant (6-7).
More Problems With Personal
Identity
Thought Experiments
Thought
experiments that Parfit and others like him put forth to test personal identity
concepts have not been so productive. They do not lead us to devise ways to
test the theories they are purporting to prove. They only leave us with our
imagination, and in many cases the imagination is stretched too far. Therefore,
the experiments shed little or no light on the concepts that are being
presented. Wilkes judges that most philosophical thought experiments fail "because of the ambiguous
uncertainty concerning the relevant background conditions, leaving it unclear
whether we have indeed 'established a phenomenon'." In these kinds of cases we must use further
imagination to imagine the possible world in which an experiment is placed (8).
For
example, in a fission type of case
where one may split like an amoeba, in order to draw any kind of conclusion, we
need to know background information such as: Is this an optional procedure? Is
it predictable? Does the society in which such reproduction takes place have
institutions like marriage? How would that work? Wilkes demonstrates that
"the entire background here is
incomprehensible. When we ask what we
would say if this happened, who, now, are 'we'?" (11). She points out
another problem that seems to be at the heart of why personal identity thought
experiments are so lacking in solid background information. It is because most
of these philosophers know very little, or care little, about biology and
physiology (19).
The My Division case provides for a good example
of a substantive dispute. Parfit posits that before the operation, one could
quasi-intend that one of the resulting persons travels the world and that the
other one remains at home. Unless they changed their inherited minds, these new
persons would carry out one's intentions (Psychological View 255). One wonders how one could go
about quasi-intending, or any other quasi-relating, to specific halves of one's
brain, to ensure that each resultant person only receives one of the opposing
intentions or other psychological relationships that one is trying to convey.
One is unable to imagine this from the inside.
Another
substantive dispute about this case has to do with the logic of assuming that
all aspects of Relation R that
contribute to character and other aspects of one's psychology, things that one
does not need to, or want to, differentiate between the two resultant persons,
would be distributed in duplicate and identically between the two halves of the
brain. Otherwise, there would be differences between these two halves, possibly
important differences that would not carry Relation
R to each of the resultant persons. Just because one can supposedly survive
with one half of the brain destroyed, or non-functioning, does not mean that
one can split a whole functioning brain in half and end up with two
qualitatively identical resultant persons. It could be the case that if one
loses the function of one half of one's brain, then one becomes psychologically different because of
that defect.
Shoemaker
makes an observation about the judgments made from branch line cases (that
result in two or more supposedly identical persons). These cases purport to
demonstrate that the psychological continuity or connectedness involved in
survival is more important than identity that normally constitutes that continuity when there is no branching. He tells us
that this is the opposite from pre-analytic intuition: "One's initial
inclination is to say that if one cares especially about the future person who
will be psychologically continuous with one, this is because one believes that
that person will be oneself. What reflection on the fission case suggests is
that it is just the other way around . . ." (272).
Within the
growing complexity of these cases, Gendler mentions those kinds of cases where
Locke's third principle for conducting personal identity thought experiments is
traversed: where it is imagined that the transfer of information takes place instead of transferring some substance. Examples are the Teletransportation cases and ones where
independent replications, or one or more exact duplicates, of human beings are
created. These transfers take place as a result of "some causally
independent process" (455-6).
Ungers Experiments
Unger, who
ascribes to the physical criterion view of personal identity, challenges the
notion that the physical approach has been refuted because one would survive a
process whereby one ceases to exist moments before one's replica is created out
of entirely new matter. He argues along similar lines as does Wilkes. Unger
asserts:
In the
first place, unless there is reason to think that the case has some basis in
reality, it cannot begin to pose a threat to the physical approach. For this
approach, it will be remembered, is offered as adequate only relative to the
general truth of our world view. And perhaps this case is not, in any relevant
way, a realistically possible example. If not, then citing it may provide no
real challenge. (203)
Nevertheless,
Unger takes up the challenge. He posits that one may retain physical continuity
in a case like this if one thinks beyond the ordinary physical view of space
and time. With Unger's wide physical
continuity view, there could be other physical dimensions that would
provide for a "more exotic continuity" for matter. So, this transfer
example could be specified such that the original matter will exist throughout
the episode because it "may go on a trip into some further physical
dimensions." In this manner, the person will exist throughout, because,
according to Unger, a person is constituted of matter. With other scenario
specifications, for example, "an absolute physical miracle," where ex nihilo new matter replaces old matter
that ceased to exist a few moments ago, then one would not survive the episode
(203).
It is
interesting to note that between Unger's reformulations, he favors the more exotic physics version. However, a much
more common world view, albeit a religious one, includes a "Rapture"
concept whereby one's bodily matter here on Earth instantly ceases to exist and
then is instantly recreated in Heaven. Even though one can make more sense out
of the second specification, Unger's view of the physical criteria for personal
identity is clear in his preference for an explanation due to some possible laws of physics.
On the
other hand, one could argue that one can make more sense out of the exotic
physics example Unger has proposed. Stairs provides us with the "many worlds interpretation" of
physics that claims that the universe has
literally branched. He claims that if this is true, then one's consciousness has split and therefore quantum
mechanics has enormous implications regarding our concepts of personal
identity. The objections that have been raised regarding fission thought
experiments on the grounds that we cannot imagine experiencing such fissioning of our selves is just misguided.
According to Stairs, within such a scheme, our experience of the world would be
just as it actually is now. "The reason we are not aware of a fissioning
of our consciousness is that the branches don't coexist in one space-time.
Under normal circumstances, the branches don't interfere with one another"
(460-61).
Unger goes
on to present a more bizarre case that seems quite far removed from any general truth of our world view that we could believe. He questions the
importance of one's very capacity for life
while making a judgment about survival. He posits a bionic, integrated,
inorganic, and complex structure as a replacement for someone's brain. This new
brain will (somehow) carry on this person's psychology. This so-called brain
could then be removed from the body and kept functioning in some way. The person will be killed, and
then the brain is given a bionic body. Unger asserts that the original person clearly survives this whole process, and
that if one were fatally ill, one should have no qualms about undergoing such a
procedure: it is determinately true that one would continue to exist (209-10).
Unger
thinks that this case supports a physical view of our survival where there only
needs to be physically continuous realization of one's mental facilities. There
is not a necessary criterion for "any (logically independent) capacity to
be alive" (211). It is clear that Unger has not heeded his own advice. He
should not have offered this case because it is not adequate to any general
truth about one's world view: there is no challenge here. Also, in a case like
this, a whole person cannot equal the sum of his [its] parts, especially when
biological parts are substituted with non-biological partsparts that
hypothetically function the same.
Korsgaard On Outside Influence and Pain
Korsgaard objects to imaginary cases that involve
intervention from outside. For example, Williams suggests a case where A and B
will have a body exchange procedure. Before the operation, each person was told
that one resulting person will be given a large sum of money, but the other
person will be tortured, and they are each asked to make a choice about which
treatment should be given to which resultant person. Williams assumes that each person before going
into the procedure will want the other-body-person to get the reward. This
shows that one does not necessarily care about what happens to one's current body when caring about what
happens in the future. He thinks that he has refuted the notion that bodily
continuity is a necessary condition for personal identity, and that this
mirrors, in some sense, Descartes' phrase, I and my body are "really
distinct" (Williams 182-3).
One could stipulate that Williams assumption is
correct about a persons choice before going forward with such a body-switch
procedure. However, Korsgaard's objection to these kinds of mad surgeon stories
is that a person is being changed by intervention,
from outside (332). Philosophers would serve their purposes better in order to
evoke the kinds of reactions they are seeking if one could imagine changes
being initiated by the persons themselves, and as a result of their choices.
It is also significant to Korsgaard that these cases
often focus on future pain. "The impersonal
character of pain is part of what makes it seem so intrusive." She
suggests that Williams' pain examples demonstrate not just that one strongly
identifies with one's body, but that one identifies with the animal side of
one's human nature. "One might say, a little extravagantly, that the
growing human animal is disciplined, frustrated, beaten, and shaped until it
becomes a personand then the person is faced with the task of reintegrating
the animal and its needs back into the human life." Korsgaard considers
that humans are not very good at this reintegration based on the evidence from
psychoanalytic theory, and from the long human history of ambivalence with
regard to the animal nature of the species. She muses, "Pain examples
serve to show us how vulnerable our animal identity can make our human
identity" (332).
Drawing Conclusions From Experiments
Gendler
recounts a series of related cases that Williams put forth. These are cases
that have different combinations of amnesia and transfers of information from
the brain of one person to another. Williams concludes that, in this series of
cases, the body is the correct criterion of personal identity. Those who
advocate that a psychological criterion connotes personal identity come to the
opposite conclusion when interpreting the results of this same series of
imaginary cases. They claim that in the very first case, "what matters for
prudential concern has been lost," and, the Lockean person is thus eliminated.
Others think that they can make sense out of the series whereby one could claim
that both the physical and psychological criteria are important for personal
identity. This reinforces Gendler's claim "that our ability to make sense of imaginary scenarios in which
features that coincide in nearly all actual cases are recombined in novel ways
far outruns our ability to make judgments
about them" (458-9).
Jonathan
Shear expresses a similar concern. He states that imaginary cases "can be
multiplied without end." However, no matter which position one wants to
argue, e.g., to argue for the priority of physical criteria, or for the
priority of psychological criteria, "there will be examples that show its
inadequacy." By looking through the lens of these thought experiments, one
can agree with Shear that we then begin to adopt Hume's skeptical despair over
coming to any adequate account of the self and personal identity (410).
Real Life Puzzle Cases
Thought-experiments and imaginary
cases can be instrumental in
discussing the philosophical issue of personal identity. For example, it used
to be considered controversial for surgeons to perform heart transplants, or to
use artificial hearts in cases where a patient would die otherwise. This was
probably disturbing for those who hold to the Physical Criterion of identity,
or for those who thought that the further
fact about one's identity was seated in the heart. Now, the medical world
is struggling over the moral issues of using baboon hearts for this purpose. What
about genetic engineering of test tube babies? What if brain cells could be
synthetically produced? What if human cloning is realized? One could go on,
perhaps ad infinitum, with imagination in this arena, and imagination has a
purpose here. But notice that, in these examples, one can set up thought
experiments within the background of this
world where all relevant background
constants can be adequately described.
There is a heated debate in America
over the issues involved in abortion and the use of embryonic stem cells for
research. Because human beings come into existence at the time of conception,
it is argued that since it is prima facie immoral to kill human beings, it is
therefore immoral to kill embryos. An interesting objection to this argument,
as David Shoemaker describes, comes from identity philosophy in examining the
real live version of fission, namely, twinning. If a human being comes into
existence at the moment of conception, one asks: what happened to the original
embryo-human? Does it survive as one of, or both, twins, or not at all, or is
the original human a shared stage of the resulting twins? If it dies, then
death has somehow occurred with no earthly remains. However, this is what
occurs when amoebas split (D. Shoemaker).
At the other end of ones life,
identity issues come into play with advanced directives. Shoemaker poses the
puzzle case of a woman who, when in early stages of Alzheimers disease,
creates a directive stating that no life-saving measures are to be used should
she come into a stage of the disease when she would no longer be competent to
make informed decisions about her health. After she becomes demented, she
develops pneumonia and she would die without life-saving measures. She is quite
content in her state of mind at this time. When asked, she states that she
wants to live. Should her directive take precedence, or her current wishes?
Those with differing identity views will answer this question differently (D.
Shoemaker).
In addition, there are many other
rich actual puzzle cases from which
to draw upon for this subject, such as those with these conditions: having
amnesia, having Alzheimers disease, being comatose, being identical twins,
being Siamese twins, having multiple personalities, sex change operation patients,
being severely deformed, being severely mentally retarded, and so forth. There
is one particular type of an actual case, albeit extremely rare, that clearly
stretches the limits of any view of personal identity. In February, 2005,
doctors removed one of the heads from a ten-month-old baby born with two heads:
a rare condition called craniopagus parasiticus. This condition occurs with
conjoined twins when one of the twins fails to develop fully in the womb, but
its head and brain does develop. The other fully developed twin is compromised
because its heart must serve to pump blood for both heads and brains. There
have been only eight known cases like this. This has been the only successful
operation of its kind. Before removal and subsequent death of the parasitic
head, its eyes blinked and it looked like it could respond and smile.[5]
Father Robert Auman, a Catholic Priest, responded to a question posed in an
internet forum regarding this case: "In my view, if the second head showed
signs of understanding, I would consider it a person. If considered a person,
it would not be lawful to deliberately kill it. Even if it would eventually
cause the death of the other person, it cannot be considered an unjust
aggressor" (Auman). This case stretches the norm of only one brain for one
body.
Wilkes considers that "a
plethora of here and now actual puzzle-cases" serve the same function that
science fiction thought experiments are supposed to effect. But they do so in a
more fruitful manner because all of the relevant background information and
facts are given. These kind of real life cases "are ready to handwaiting
only to be dug out of the psychological, neurophysiological, medical,
psychoanalytic, and anthropological literature." Perhaps one could view
these real cases as more interesting
than the kind of thought experiments we have been considering, because, as
Wilkes muses, the everyday proverb that truth is stranger than fiction seems
correct in this venue. So, in order to stretch the limits of the concept of a
person, she discusses such cases as fetuses, insanity, fugues, hypnosis,
multiple personality, and others (48-49 ff.).
CHAPTER 8
CONCLUSION
Parfit and other Reductionists give
these actual cases little or no mention. Although Parfit's imaginary cases are thought provoking, his method is
flawed because of his reliance on impossible
cases, especially in regard to reproduction, in order to define the nature of humans. While he demands
empirical evidence to support a Cartesian Ego, or Further Fact Non-Reductionist
view, he expects one to accept his logical conclusions based on science
fiction. The far-reaching implications of Parfits views on personal identity
and survival have been noted. Granting Parfits position, one should move away
from practices according to Self-Interest and Common-Sense Morality, and move
toward practices of impersonal altruism.
According
to Parfit, Nagel claimed that it is psychologically impossible for us to
believe the Reductionist View of personal identity even if it is true. After a
thoughtful review of his logic, Parfit cites Buddha as reinforcement for the
claim that "it is indeed possible to believe this [Relation R view of personal identity]" (Psychological View
258). It is interesting to note, as
Andrew May informs, that early on, others recognized the parallels between
Parfits views and early Buddhist philosophy. May reports in a book review, that Mark Siderits has
recently written Personal Identity and Buddhist Philosophy, a book that
compares and contrasts Parfitian reductionism with early and later Buddhist
writings. Siderits uses arguments from the later Buddhist writings against the
Parfitian view (May). Parfit admits that even though he has intellectually
accepted his own view, he still has a problem: "But at some
lower level I would still be inclined to believe that there must always be a
real difference between some future person's being me, and his being someone
else" (Psychological View 258-9).
Reflecting
back on this survey of thought experiments, one must agree with Wittgenstein
and Quine, and proclaim that one has not learned much from this use of one's
imagination. One must reject Parfits analyses, and wait for other vehicles to
take one along other paths of reasoning about personal identity. Parfit depends
too heavily on his thesis that the division of a persons consciousness is in
fact possible. He attempts to eliminate the circularity problem, and to show
that personal identity is not what matters, but one sees that his presentation
of the My Division case does not
adequately meet the challenges. Although he quotes Rawls in saying that the nature of a thing determines its
correct regulative principle, Parfit goes to great lengths to propose whole different kinds of natures for human
beings, based on imaginary reproduction processes. By doing so, he expects one
to get rid of one's unhealthy attachment
to the importance of one's identity.
Parfit
muddies the waters with his extreme science fiction cases. He wants one to
adopt language that would make one think in terms of collective living, and
eliminate the personal in one's
identification. I, for one, will
continue along my self-satisfying, individual
path, continuing to strive to fulfill my
desires and ambitions. Along the way, I will find satisfaction and pleasure
among my connections with other
persons. The strong connections will
be of my choosing, however, and they will not be based on Relation R. Nevertheless, I may come to realize that I am making
choices from a deliberative standpoint, as Korsgaard has described. I will
still wonder, and be fascinated by the metaphysical problem of personal
identity. The final answers to the questions posed by personal identity cannot
be found in these kinds of thought experiments. Nevertheless, Parfit and others
that have provided creative thought experiments have added many provocative
ideas to this conversation.
WORKS CITED
American Heritage Dictionary, The. 1992 ed. Software by Writing Tools Group, Inc. 1992.
Auman, Robert. "Baby Born with two heads." Catholic Online Forum Discussion Area: The ASK FATHER Question Box. 25 Feb. 2005. 20 Oct. 2005 <http://oldforum.catholic.org/discussion/messages/41/844447.html?1109338199>
Bergmann, Frithjof. "Freedom and the Self." Kolak and Martin 407-421.
Bermϊdez, Josι Luis. "Reduction and the Self." Gallagher and Shear 431-439.
"Commissurotomy." The American Heritage Dictionary.
Dennett,
Daniel C. Consciousness Explained.
Descartes, Rene. Meditations. Descartes: Philosophical Writings. trans. Elizabeth Anscombe and Peter T. Geach. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1971.
Fields, Lloyd. Parfit on Personal Identity and Desert. The Philosophical Quarterly 37 (Oct. 1987): 432-440.
Galison, Peter. "Einstein's Compass." Scientific American Spec. issue Sep. 2004: 66-69.
Gallagher, Shaun and Jonathan Shear, eds. Models of The Self. Thorverton: Imprint Academic, 1999.
Gendler, Tamar Szabσ. "Exceptional Persons: On the Limits of Imaginary Cases." Gallagher and Shear 447-465.
Gergen, Kenneth J. "The Social Construction of Self-Knowledge. Kolak and Martin 372-385.
Gilead, Amihud. Spinozas Principium Individuationis and Personal Identity. International Studies in Philosophy 15 (1983). 6 Aug. 2007 <http://caute.2084.ru/spinoza/aln/prindiv.htm>
Hobbes, Thomas. "Of Identity and Diversity." Hoy and Oaklander 110-12.
Hoy,
Ronald C., and L. Nathan Oaklander, eds. Metaphysics: Classic and
Contemporarry Readings.
Hume, David. "On Identity and Personal Identity." Hoy and Oaklander 130-37.
Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. trans. Norman Kemp Smith. New York: St. Martins Press, 1965.
Kolak,
Daniel, and Raymond Martin. Self & Identity.
---. Unity of Consciousness: Introduction. Kolak and Martin 3-15.
---. "Personal Identity: Introduction." Kolak and Martin 163-180.
Korsgaard, Christine M. "Personal Identity and the Unity of Agency: A Kantian Response to Parfit." Kolak and Martin 323-338.
Leibniz, G. W. Monadology. Trans. Robert Latta and Donald Rutherford. 1 Oct. 1999. 6 Aug. 2007 <http://philosophy2.ucsd.edu/~rutherford/Leibniz/modad.htm>
Lin, Martin. Memory and Personal Identity in Spinoza. 6 Aug. 2007. <http://individual.utoronto.ca/mtlin/identity.pdf>
Locke, John. "Of Identity and Diversity." Hoy and Oaklander 113-23.
Mandik, Pete (May 11, 2004). "Supervenience" in Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind. Ed. C. Eliasmith. Oct. 15, 2005 <http://philosophy.uwaterloo.ca/MindDict/supervenience.html>
Martin, Raymond. "Identity, Transformation, and What Matters in Survival." Kolak and Martin 289-301.
May, Andrew. Rev. of Personal Identity and Buddhist Philosophy by Mark Siderits. May 2004. 5 Aug. 2007 <http://andrew-may.com/siderits.htm>
Midgley, Mary. "Being Scientific About Our Selves." Gallagher and Shear 467-480.
Nagel, Thomas. "The Self as Private Object." Hoy and Oaklander 179-187.
Oaklander, Nathan. Parfit, Circularity, and the Unity of Consciousness. Mind 384 (Oct. 1987): 525-529.
Olson, Eric T. Personal Identity. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2007 Edition). Ed. Edward N. Zalta. 5 July 2007. <http://plato.standord.edu/archives/spr2007/entries/identity-personal/>
Panksepp, Jaak. "The Periconscious Substrates of Consciousness: Affective States and the Evolutionary Origins of the Self." Gallagher and Shear 113-130.
Parfit, Derek. "Divided Minds and the Nature of Persons." Kolak and Martin 82-88.
---. "The Psychological View." Kolak and Martin 227-266.
---. "Personal Identity, Rationality, and Morality." Kolak and Martin 301-322.
---. "Personal Identity." Hoy and Oaklander 166-178.
---. Reasons and Persons. New York: Clarendon Press Oxford, 1984.
Pickering, John. "The Self Is a Semiotic Process." Gallagher and Shear 63-79.
Radden, Jennifer. "Pathologically Divided Minds Synchronic Unity and Models of Self." Gallagher and Shear 343-358.
Rand, Ayn. Atlas Shrugged. New York: Random House, 1957.
Reid, Thomas. "Of Identity and On Mr. Locke's Theory of Personal Identity." Hoy and Oaklander 124-129.
Robinson, John, Personal Identity and Survival, Journal of Philosophy LXXXV.6 (June, 1988): 319-328.
Sass, Louis A. "Schizophrenia, Self-consciousness, and the Modern Mind." Gallagher and Shear 319-341.
Shear, Jonathan. "Experiential Clarification of the Problem of Self." Gallagher and Shear 407-420.
Shoemaker, David. Personal Identity and Ethics. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2007 Edition). Ed. Edward N. Zalta. 5 July 2007. <http://plato.standord.edu/archives/spr2007/entries/identity-ethics/>
Shoemaker, Sydney. "Survival and the Importance of Identity." Kolak and Martin 267-272.
"Sorites." The American Heritage Dictionary.
Sperry, R. W. "Hemisphere Deconnection and Unity in Conscious Awareness." Kolak and Martin 55-68.
Stairs, Allen. "Quantum Mechanics, Mind, and Self." Kolak and Martin 453-472.
Unger, Peter. "The Physical View." Kolak and Martin 192-212.
Wilkes,
Kathleen. Real People: Personal Identity Without Thought Experiments.
Williams, Bernard. "The Self and the Future." Kolak and Martin 181-192.
[1] commissurotomy - The surgical incision of a
commissure of the brain, sometimes used in the treatment of certain psychiatric
disorders. commissure 2.a A tract
of nerve fibers passing from one side to the other of the spinal cord or brain.
(American Heritage)
[2] supervenience - A set of properties or facts
M supervenes on a set of properties or facts P if and only if there can be no
changes or differences in M without there being changes or differences in P.
"The fact that supervening properties need not be identical to their
subvening properties is the source of the great appeal of supervenience to
contemporary philosophers of mind who have come to think that the mental cannot
be identical to the physical (largely due to considerations of multiple
realizability) yet want to be physicalists and thus hold on to the notion that
the mental is nonetheless determined by the physical. Thus they subscribe to
the thesis of psychophysical supervenience, AKA, the supervenience thesis"
(Mandik)
[3]
"The Secret Life of the Brain" is a four part series that aired on
[4] An understanding of Rands Trader Principle, Rational Egoism, and metaphysical principles are concretely demonstrated throughout her novel Atlas Shrugged.
[5] Baby Born With Two Heads aired on the
Discovery Channel in