Philosophy 1050: Introduction to Philosophy

1
Philosophy 1050 Introduction to Philosophy

• Week 3 Personal Identity II

2
Personal Identity Perry

• Weirobs Criterion (p. 3) Survival means that
  some time in the future, there will be someone
  who will experience, who will see and touch and
  smell or at the very least, think and reason
  and remember. And this person will be me.

3
Personal Identity Perry

• Criterion for Personal ldentity (p. 3) This
  person will be related to me in such a way that
  it is correct for me to anticipate, to look
  forward to, those future experiences. And I am
  related to her in such a way that it will be
  right for her to remember what I have thought and
  done, to feel remorse for what I have done wrong,
  and pride in what I have done right.

4
Personal Identity The Soul

• Weirobs Question (p. 8) If we cannot observe
  (see, hear or sense) the soul, then how can we
  know that the same soul exists over time in the
  body which we do observe? How do we know this
  even in our own case?

5
Personal Identity The teleportation case

• When I step into the machine, it will scan the
  exact pattern of molecules that make up my body
  and brain
• The person who steps out of the machine on the
  other end will be an exact replica of me. This
  person will look, think, and behave exactly as I
  do.

6
Personal Identity The teleportation case

• But will this person be me?

7
Personal Identity Memory and person-stages

• One response (Miller, p. 25) Perhaps we dont
  need to find one thing that stays the same over
  time, but only stages that are connected in the
  right way. We might speak of person stages
  that are different over time, but are connected
  in the right way to constitute a person.
• A question What is the right way?

8
Personal Identity Memory and person-stages

• Millers answer (p. 26) For a person at one time
  to be the same as a person at an earlier time, is
  just for the later person to remember having been
  the earlier one.
• An objection (p. 27) What about false memories?

9
Personal Identity The Brain/Body Transplant

• (p. 38) The BRAIN of Julia North is transplanted
  into the BODY of Mary Frances Beaudine.
• Who is the survivor? Is it North, whose
  attitudes, beliefs, and judgments remain? Or is
  it Beaudine, whose body remains?
• Who decides?

10
Summary

• We have assessed various ways of answering the
  question what makes me, me, over time?
• Body
• Immaterial Soul
• Psychological continuity (continuity of memory)
• Brain

11
Summary

• None of these answers to the question of personal
  identity is clearly correct. Each one has
  possible objections and responses
• But by thinking about these answers and the
  responses, we are getting clearer on what we
  ourselves think and why we think so (the
  reasoning and thought behind our everyday
  assumptions and beliefs).

12
Thinking through opinions and reasons

• In philosophy, we often begin with opinions, what
  our views or positions are on different
  questions. But we dont end there. The idea is
  to start with what we think, and then reflect
  about the reasons for why we think so. In doing
  this, we come to a better understanding of
  complex issues, and also of who we, ourselves are.

13

• Sometimes it is helpful to use thought-experiment
  s or different scenarios to better understand
  our reasons for more general views or positions.
  Here are a few such thought-experiments or
  scenarios that weve already discussed relating
  to personal identity. Lets see how we can
  connect what we might think about them to more
  general philosophical views.

14

• For each thought-experiment, fill out each blank.
  You may use both internal evidence (look at
  the text) and external evidence (thinking for
  yourself about what the characters think and why).