Our aim in this entry is to articulate the state of the art in the moral psychology of personal identity. We begin by discussing the major philosophical theories of personal identity, including their shortcomings. We then turn to recent psychological work on personal identity and the self, investigations that often illuminate our person-related normative concerns. We conclude by discussing the implications of this psychological work for some contemporary philosophical theories and suggesting fruitful areas for future work on personal identity.

I illustrate with three classical examples the mistakes arising from using a modal operator admitting multiple interpretations in the same argument; the flaws arise especially easily if no attention is paid to the range of propositional variables. Premisses taken separately might seem convincing and a substitution for a propositional variable in a modal context might seem legitimate. But there is no single interpretation of the modal operators involved under which all the premisses are plausible and the substitution successful.

The question whether I am the same person at different moments has brought many difficulties for a long time. The problem with identity of things through time was already known in the ancient times especially when Plutarch asked whether a ship of Theseus with exchanged elements is still the same ship as before renovation. Today, we continue these considerations asking, for instance, if things, apart from their physical parts, also have temporal parts. The number of the proposed solutions to the (...) problem of identity and identity of persons at different times resembles wandering in a dark room with a scarf on your eyes. As a result, rather than coming closer to the light switch, we find concepts which suggest that personal identity is not important, or what is important is psychological continuity or identity which is only a matter of degree. So I can be the same person as I was in some part, in some degree. It sounds like a constitution person who likes darkness and does not need light anymore. Unfortunately, first of all, we still use successfully the concept of identity in an ordinary language, and what is more, the abandonment of the notion of personal identity results in a greater number of absurdities, so in consequence, we still do not have an idea how to treat personal identity. (shrink)

In this article, I develop and defend a conception of psychological continuity that differs from the 'orthodox' conception in terms of overlapping chains of strongly connected mental states. By recognizing the importance of the (narrative) interrelatedness of qualitatively dissimilar mental contents, as well as the role of the body in psychological continuity, I argue, serious problems confronting the orthodox view can be solved.

Many philosophers have taken there to be an important relation between personal identity and several of our practical concerns (among them moral responsibility, compensation, and self-concern). I articulate four natural methodological assumptions made by those wanting to construct a theory of the relation between identity and practical concerns, and I point out powerful objections to each assumption, objections constituting serious methodological obstacles to the overall project. I then attempt to offer replies to each general objection in a way that leaves (...) the project intact, albeit significantly changed. Perhaps the most important change stems from the recognition that the practical concerns motivating investigation into personal identity turn out to be not univocal, as is typically thought, such that each of the different practical concerns may actually be related to personal identity in very different ways. (shrink)

A popular “Reductionist” account of personal identity unifies person stages into persons in virtue of their psychological continuity with one another. One objection to psychological continuity accounts is that there is more to our personal identity than just mere psychological continuity: there is also an active process of self-interpretation and self-creation. This criticism can be used to motivate a rival account of personal identity that appeals to the notion of a narrative. To the extent that they comment upon the issue, (...) proponents of narrative accounts typically reject Reductionist metaphysics that (ontologically) reduce persons to aggregates of person stages. In contrast to this trend, we seek to develop a narrative account of personal identity from within Reductionist metaphysics: we think person stages are unified into persons in virtue of their narrative continuity with one another. We argue that this Reductionist version of the narrative account avoids some serious problems facing non-Reductionist versions of the narrative account. (shrink)

Our present actions can have effects on future generations - affecting not only the environment they will inherit, but even perhaps their very existence. This raises a number of important moral issues, many of which have only recently received serious philosophical attention. I begin by discussing some contemporary Western philosophical perspectives on the problem of our obligations to future generations, and then go on to consider how these approaches might relate to the classical Indian philosophical tradition. Although the Indian commitment (...) to pre-existence and rebirth precludes the arising of the Non-Identity Problem, this does not mean that there is not still a problem about justifying our obligations to future generations. The Indian Non-Reductionists about personal identity have difficulties with this that are comparable to the difficulties of their Western counterparts, but the Indian Buddhist Reductionists offer some provocative arguments for impartiality and the rationality of altruism. (shrink)

Jeff McMahan's impressive recent defence of the embodied mind theory of personal identity in his highly acclaimed work The Ethics of Killing has undoubtedly reawakened belief that physical continuity is a necessary component of the relation that matters in our self-interested concern for the future. My aim in this paper is to resist this belief in a somewhat roundabout way. I want to address this belief in a somewhat roundabout way by revisiting a classic defence of the belief that enormous (...) changes in the contents of a person's psychology does not preclude justified fear of future pain. I have in mind Bernard Williams' The Self and the Future (1970) in which he argues, against the psychological view, that physical continuity is necessary for survival. I examine Williams' second thought experiment which ostensibly supports that intuition and afterwards defend two related claims. First, I argue that a close examination of the second thought experiment reveals that one's prior commitments to a particular criterion of personal identity can influence one's response to that thought experiment. Second, I argue that Williams' second thought experiment is set out in questionbegging terms. I do not claim, however, that the intuition under consideration lacks justification; I only claim that Williams' second thought experiment does not provide the needed support. (shrink)

Questions of identity over time are often hard to answer. A long tradition has it that such questions are somehow soft: they have no unique, determinate answer, and disagreements about them are merely verbal. I argue that this claim is not the truism it is taken to be. Depending on how it is understood, it turns out either to be false or to presuppose a highly contentious metaphysical claim.

Substance dualism says that all thinking beings are immaterial. This sits awkwardly with the fact that thinking requires an intact brain. Many dualists say that bodily activity is causally necessary for thinking. But if a material thing can cause thinking, why can’t it think? No argument for dualism, however convincing, answers this question, leaving dualists with more to explain than their opponents.

That grass is green, that pigs don’t fly, and that you are now awake are all hard facts. But there is often said to be something soft about matters of identity over time. Is today’s village church the very church that was first built here, despite centuries of repairs and alterations? How many parts of my bicycle do I need to replace before I get a numerically different bike? If a club disbands and years later some of the original members (...) start a similar club with the same name, have we got two clubs, or one club with a discontinuous history? It is tempting to say that there are no hard answers to these questions laid up in heaven. There is no determinate fact of the matter. Those who disagree about such things are arguing about words, not facts. We are free to say what we like. (shrink)

Compatibilists disagree over whether there are historical conditions on moral responsibility. Historicists claim there are, whilst structuralists deny this. Historicists motivate their position by claiming to avoid the counter-intuitive implications of structuralism. I do two things in this paper. First, I argue that historicism has just as counter-intuitive implications as structuralism when faced with thought experiments inspired by those found in the personal identity literature. Hence, historicism is not automatically preferable to structuralism. Second, I argue that structuralism is much more (...) plausible once we accept that personal identity is irrelevant to moral responsibility. This paves the way for a new structuralist account that makes clear what it takes to be the diachronic ownership condition (which is normally taken to be personal identity) and the locus of moral responsibility (which is normally taken to be ‘whole’ person), and helps to alleviate the intuitive unease many have with respect to structuralism. (shrink)

From fertilization to approximately the sixteenth day of development, human embryonic cells are said to have the capacities of totipotency and monozygotic twinning, both of which are problematic to a theory of ensoulment at fertilization. In this article I will address the problems which these capacities pose to such a theory and present an interpretation of the biological data which renders ensoulment at fertilization more plausible. I will then argue that not only is an ensoulment theory consistent with current biological (...) data on the human embryo, but it may offer an explanation for the phenomencon of monozygotic twinning. (shrink)

It is well known that, according to some, philosophical reflection on zombies (i.e., bodies without minds) poses a problem for physicalism. But what about ghosts, i.e., minds without bodies? Does philosophical reflection on them pose a problem for physicalism? Descartes, of course, thought so, and lately rumours have been surfacing that has was right after all, that ghosts pose a problem for both a priori and a posteriori physicalism, and for any kind of physicalism in between. This paper argues that (...) physicalists have nothing to fear from ghosts, since the central consideration employed to motivate ghostly arguments against physicalism--viz., that ghosts are conceivable--is false: ghosts aren't conceivable. (shrink)

This paper examines three proposals on the difference between the complex and the simple view about personal identity: Parfit’s original introduction of the distinction, Gasser and Stefan’s definition, and Noonan’s recent proposal. I argue that the first two classify the paradigm cases of simplicity as complex, while Noonan’s proposal makes simplicity and complexity turn on features whose relevance for the distinction is questionable. Given these difficulties, I examine why we should be interested in whether a position is complex or simple. (...) I describe two purposes of having a distinction, and show that extant accounts of the complex versus simple distinction fail to serve these. I argue that unless we find a satisfying account of the difference between complex and simple positions, we should not frame discourses on personal identity in these terms. (shrink)

This paper examines three proposals on the difference between the complex and the simple view about personal identity: Parfit’s original introduction of the distinction, Gasser and Stefan’s definition, and Noonan’s recent proposal. I argue that the first two classify the paradigm cases of simplicity as complex, while Noonan’s proposal makes simplicity and complexity turn on features whose relevance for the distinction is questionable. Given these difficulties, I examine why we should be interested in whether a position is complex or simple. (...) I describe two purposes of having a distinction, and show that extant accounts of the complex versus simple distinction fail to serve these. I argue that unless we find a satisfying account of the difference between complex and simple positions, we should not frame discourses on personal identity in these terms. (shrink)

In this paper I will argue against a view that I call foundationalism about persistence-conditions. The core of this view is that composite physical objects have their specific persistence-conditions in virtue of these conditions being fulfilled by the object’s physical constituents at various times. I will provide two arguments – the argument from the possibility of instantaneous objects and the argument from the presence of persistence-conditions – which show that this view is untenable. These arguments will also point towards a (...) more adequate understanding of what it means for an object to have certain persistence-conditions. I will expound this understanding and suggest, on its basis, an unorthodox, hylomorphist account of the persistence-conditions of objects. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss the nature of the “I” (or “self”) and whether it is presupposed by the very existence of conscious experiences (as that which “has” them) or whether it is, instead, in some way constituted by them. I argue for the former view and try to show that the very nature of experience implies a non-constituted synchronic and diachronic transcendence of the experiencing “I” with regard to its experiences, an “I” which defies any objective characterization. Finally I (...) suggest that the self, though irreducible to inter-experiential relations, is not a “separately existing entity”, but should be conceived of as a dimension , namely the dimension of first-personal manifestation of the experiences. (shrink)

Wie ist es wohl, eine Fledermaus zu sein? Wäre ein rein physikalisches Duplikat von mir nur ein empfindungsloser Zombie? Muss man sich seinem Schicksal ergeben, wenn man sich unfreiwillig als lebensnotwendige Blutwaschanlage eines weltberühmten Violinisten wieder findet? Kann man sich wünschen, der König von China zu sein? Bin ich vielleicht nur ein Gehirn in einem Tank mit Nährflüssigkeit, das die Welt von einer Computersimulation vorgegaukelt bekommt? Worauf beziehen sich die Menschen auf der Zwillingserde mit ihrem Wort 'Wasser', wenn es bei (...) ihnen gar kein H2O gibt? -/- Diese und weitere seltsame Fragen sind das tägliche Brot vieler professioneller Philosophen. Die abstrusen Umstände, die dabei geschildert werden, nennt man "Gedankenexperimente". -/- Was soll die Erörterung dieser Szenarien, die sich so weit von unserem alltäglichen Leben, z.T. außerhalb der Grenzen unserer Wirklichkeit abspielen? Welche Rolle spielen diese "Gedankenexperimente" in der philosophischen Methodologie? Ist diese Rolle überhaupt berechtigt? -/- Das vorliegende Buch gibt Antworten auf diese Fragen. Es stellt sich heraus, dass diese seltsamen Gedankenexperimente nicht nur berechtigte, sondern überaus wichtige Instrumente philosophischen Forschens darstellen. (shrink)

Most theists believe that they will survive death. Indeed, they believe that any given person will survive death and persist into an afterlife while remaining the very same person. In light of this belief, one might ask: how—or, in virtue of what—do people survive death? Perhaps the most natural way to answer this question is by appealing to some general account of personal identity through time. That way one can say that people persist through the time of their death in (...) the same way that people persist through time in general. Then the obvious question is: how—or, in virtue of what—do people persist through time in general? Many different answers to this question have been proposed. Some philosophers think that personal identity through time consists in something, such as psychological or biological continuity. They think that there are informative necessary and sufficient conditions—i.e., criteria—for personal identity through time. These philosophers are criterialists. Other philosophers are anti-criterialists. Anti-criterialists believe that people persist through time, but they deny that there are any informative criteria for personal identity through time. In this paper I develop a challenge to anti-criterialism. I begin by spelling out the commitments of anti-criterialism. Then I argue that there are good reasons for anyone to reject anti-criterialism. And then I argue that theists have special reasons to reject anti-criterialism (This is particularly important and noteworthy because a substantial portion of those who defend anti-criterialism are theists. Examples include [but may not be limited to] Trenton Merricks, Richard Swinburne, Joseph Butler, and Thomas Reid). I conclude that there is an informative criterion for personal identity through time and death, even if we haven’t heard of it yet. (shrink)

In their paper, ‘When are thought experiments poor ones?’ (Peijnenburg and David Atkinson, 2003, Journal of General Philosophy of Science 34, 305-322.), Jeanne Peijnenburg and David Atkinson argue that most, if not all, philosophical thought experiments are “poor” ones with “disastrous consequences” and that they share the property of being poor with some (but not all) scientific thought experiments. Noting that unlike philosophy, the sciences have the resources to avoid the disastrous consequences, Peijnenburg and Atkinson come to the conclusion that (...) the use of thought experiments in science is in general more successful than in philosophy and that instead of concocting more “recherché” thought experiments, philosophy should try to be more empirical. In this comment I will argue that Peijnenburg’s and Atkinson’s view on thought experiments is based on a misleading characterization of both, the dialectical situation in philosophy as well as the history of physics. By giving an adequate account of what the discussion in contemporary philosophy is about, we will arrive at a considerably different evaluation of philosophical thought experiments. For I am convinced that we now find ourselves at an altogether decisive turning point in philosophy, and that we are objectively justified in considering that an end has come to the fruitless conflict of systems. We are already at the present time, in my opinion, in possession of methods which make any such conflict in principle unnecessary. What is now required is their resolute application. (Schlick, ‘The Turning Point in Philosophy’, 1930/1959, p. 54). (shrink)

Two problems related to the biological identity of living beings are faced: the who-problem (which are the biological properties making that living being unique and different from the others?); the persistence-problem (what does it take for a living being to persist from a time to another?). They are discussed inside a molecular biology framework, which shows how epigenetics can be a good ground to provide plausible answers. That is, we propose an empirical solution to the who-problem and to the persistence-problem (...) on the basis of the new perspectives opened by a molecular understanding of epigenetic processes. In particular, concerning the former, we argue that any living being is the result of the epigenetic processes that have regulated the expression of its genome; concerning the latter, we defend the idea that the criterion for the persistence of its identity is to be indicated in the continuity of those epigenetic processes. We also counteract possible objections, in particular (1) whether our approach has something to say at a metaphysical level; (2) how it could account for the passage from the two phenotypes of the parental gametes to the single phenotype of the zygote; (3) how it could account for the identity of derivatives of one living being that continue to live disjoined from that original living being; (4) how it could account for higher mental functions. (shrink)

In the paper, after clarifying terms such as ‘identity’, ‘self’ and ‘personhood’, I propose an empirical account of identity based on the notion of “whole phenotype”. This move allows one to claim the persistence of the individuals before and after their being affected by dementia. Furthermore, I show how this account permits us to address significant questions related to demented individuals’ loss of the capacity of moral decisions.

How should we count people who have two cerebral hemispheres that cooperate to support one mental life at the level required for personhood even though each hemisphere can be disconnected from the other and support its "own" divergent mental life at that level? On the standard method of counting people, there is only one person sitting in your chair and thinking your thoughts even if you have two cerebral hemispheres of this kind. Is this method accurate? In this paper, I (...) argue that it is not, and I advocate an alternative I call the Multiple Person View. (shrink)

People are organisms of a characteristic shape, with individual personalities, abilities and memories. Each of these features varies through time, but does not normally change very abruptly before death. Because these changes are only gradual, we are able to pick out one and the same individual through time, and refer to him, her or it by use of a proper name, just as we are able to refer to one and the same planet, animal or building. In particular, organisms change (...) shape only gradually, and we have every reason to believe in the possibility of our continuing to watch the spatiotemporally continuous life-history of one and the same organism. (shrink)

This seminal contribution to Kant studies, originally published in 1982, was the first to present a thorough survey and evaluation of Kant's theory of mind. Ameriks focuses on Kant's discussion of the Paralogisms in the Critique of Pure Reason, and examines how the themes raised there are treated in the rest of Kant's writings. Ameriks demonstrates that Kant developed a theory of mind that is much more rationalistic and defensible than most interpreters have allowed.

It is often argued that associations are intelligent organisms with minds and intentional states of their own. It is also argued that groups are merely a plurality of individuals who are related or associated only in a specific and limited sense. This paper draws on both classical and contemporary scholarship to develop an ontological account of persons which has real-world legal and ethical implications.

It is argued here that it is part of our concept of a ‘person’ that persons should be, by its nature, able to endure in time. In no conception of persons as ‘perduring’ entities with different temporal parts for different times, or as sequences of stages in the relation of ‘being a survival of ’ between them, it is possible to make sense of some of our normative intuitions about persons. It is argued also that the traditional psychological theory of (...) personal identity is untenable. Psychological continuity appears to be neither sufficient nor necessary for personal identity. A reasonable conception of persons seems to be either a form of ‘animalism’ where persons are biological organisms, or a theory in which persons are primitive substances, with primitive conditions of identity. (shrink)

How does the modern scientific conception of time constrain the project of assigning the mind its proper place in nature? On the scientific conception, it makes no sense to speak of the duration of a pain, or the simultaneity of sensations occurring in different parts of the brain. Such considerations led Henri Poincaré, one of the founders of the modern conception, to conclude that consciousness does not exist in spacetime, but serves as the basic material out of which we must (...) create the physical world. The central claim of Sensorama is that Poincaré was substantially correct. The best way to reconcile the scientific conception of time with the evidence of introspection is through a phenomenalist metaphysic according to which consciousness exists in neither time nor space, but serves as a basis for the logical construction of spacetime and its contents. (shrink)

Panpsychism is the view that consciousness is everywhere. Panpsychism has significant theoretical implications with respect to the mind–body problem, as well as the question of the intrinsic nature of the physical world. This paper considers one of its potential practical or ethical implications; specifically, whether, if panpsychism is true, it follows that “we are all one”, in a sense that implies that egoism (understood as bias towards what we normally, but falsely, take to constitute the self or ego) is not (...) only immoral but fundamentally irrational (or imprudent). (shrink)

In this paper, I first argue that sometimes freely and knowingly manipulating oneself does not fully preserve moral responsibility – namely, in cases of practically distinct self-manipulation. However, I argue that practically distinct self-manipulation preserves moral responsibility to some extent because such a self-manipulated person is more morally responsibility than an other-manipulated person. This is an important result: manipulating oneself doesn’t always fully preserve one’s moral responsibility for one’s actions. But in what sense is the self-manipulated person more morally responsible? (...) I argue the self-manipulated person is not a fitting target of the reactive attitudes but continues to have wrongdoing-incurred reparative obligations. This explains the intuitive judgement about the self-manipulated person, provides a better explanation of “tracing” cases, and reveals important requirements for a plausible theory of moral responsibility. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on AI-based cognitive and perceptual enhancements. AI-based brain enhancements are already under development, and they may become commonplace over the next 30–50 years. We raise doubts concerning whether radical AI-based enhancements transhumanists advocate will accomplish the transhumanists goals of longevity, human flourishing, and intelligence enhancement. We urge that even if the technologies are medically safe and are not used as tools by surveillance capitalism or an authoritarian dictatorship, these enhancements may still fail to do their job for (...) philosophical reasons. In what follows, we explore one such concern, a problem that involves the nature of the self. We illustrate that the so called transhumanist efforts to “merge oneself with AI” could lead to perverse realizations of AI technology, such as the demise of the person who sought enhancement. And, in a positive vein, we offer ways to avoid this, at least within the context of one theory of the nature of personhood. (shrink)