Abstract

Contemporary philosophical discussion about persons has focused on three alternative, metaphysical views. The first view, associated with Thomas Reid, J. M. E. McTaggart and Geoffrey Madell, holds that an unanalyzable, subjective, first-person perspective essentially constitutes personhood and personal identity over time. The second view, associated with John Locke, David Hume and Derek Parfit, holds that persons are interrelations of mental events and that psychological continuity is the criterion of personal identity or, in Parfit's case, personal survival. The third view, associated with Aristotle and Bernard Williams, holds that persons are living human bodies and that bodily continuity is the criterion of personal identity. ;I reject these views because they ignore a factor that determines in part the concept of person, namely, the cultural context in which persons appear. Through an analysis of actual and hypothetical cases, including amnesia, brain death, individuals in persistent vegetative states and Parfit's hypothetical cases involving replication, I demonstrate that the concept of person is culturally relativistic and that therefore any purely metaphysical account of persons, personal identity or survival is incomplete. ;While I hold that the concept of person is determined by metaphysical considerations as well as cultural factors, I argue that some issues about persons and personal identity are settled by appeal to metaphysical considerations, whereas others, by appeal to cultural factors. For example, issues of personal identity raised by cases of multiple personality are resolved by neurophysiological, biological and psychological theories rather than social, legal or other cultural factors. In contrast, issues of personal identity raised by hypothetical cases of total amnesia and Parfit's "teletransportation" are resolved by cultural factors rather than metaphysical ones. ;The dissertation also explores how evaluations of medical-ethical issues, such as the status of individuals in persistent vegetative states and anencephalics, presuppose theories about the nature of persons and criteria of individuation and identification. While I examine the interrelationship of various metaphysical and practical views, I argue that persons supervene on and are constituted by living human bodies, and that persons have a single, metaphysically and culturally determined life-history. This theory is then applied to resolve certain issues in medical ethics