Abstract

In this paper several meanings of ‘personal identity’ are distinguished. It is argued that the ontological questions of unity and persistence should not be analysed using the notion of a person but using the notion of a human organism. The notions of personhood and personality are used to describe the evaluative and normative aspects of being a person. Based on these conceptual distinctions the classical philosophical problem of personal identity is dissolved into four sets of problems. Then it is argued that the ethical problems of intervening in the psyche of human beings should be discussed using the notions of personhood and personality, not unity or persistence. Finally, those ethical problems of interventions in the psyche of human beings directly related to personhood or personality are distinguished from more general ethical problems raised by these interventions