Personal identity
To defend this criterion, Shoemaker, in his famous ‘brain transplant’ thought experiment, 12 states that, since brain transplants are logically possible, if a man named Brown were to have his brain transplanted to the empty body of a man named Robinson, we should identify the resulting person (who we are encouraged to call Brownson) with Brown. I t is important to distinguish Shoemaker’s argument from the ‘brain’ argument: it is not purely because Brownson has the same brain as Brown that we make the connection; it is because Brownson is directly psychologically connected, and therefore continuous, that personal identity holds. The brain only happens to be the source of such psychological connections. While this seems an intuitive argument (how could you identify Brownson with anyone else?), a problem is that it allows for ‘branching’ psychological continuity. 13 The argument, outlined by Wiggins, declares that since it is possible to survive with only half a brain, and one can survive the bridge between the two hemispheres being cut, a brain transplant with each half being placed in a separate body is also feasible. This is a problem since it implies that the relation of psychological continuity can be one- many, which is not consistent with the conditions of personal identity. 14 A neo-Lockean reply to this objection is to state that while psychological continuity is not logically one-one, it is enough if it is in fact one-one. 15 It is hard to consider this satisfactory, since it leaves open the possibility of the ‘fission’ case. A Parfitian response would be to suggest that psychological continuity ‘ is a ground for speaking of identity when it is one-one ’ 1616 but since it is not logically one-one, personal identity is not what matters. Psychological continuity and connectedness can take a branching form, as in Wiggins’ case, and the two resulting people will hold these relations that matter with the original person. Parfit argues that, because of this, one shouldn’t see fission as death. Nonetheless, it is rational to care less about the resulting people since they both hold drastically fewer psychological connections to the original and will go on separate experience-paths. 17 If we apply this concept to the title question, we can deduce the answer based on how many psychological connections hold between present you, and ten-year-old ‘you’. Since brain transplantation is not possible with current technology, one could argue that because psychological continuity holds as a sufficient condition of personal identity when it is a one-one relation, we should use that as an indicator of whether you are the same person or not. This objection is a result of the underestimation of the importance of psychological connectedness. It can be
12 Shoemaker 1963. 13 Wiggins 1967. 14 Williams also argues agains t the psychological criterion on this charge. See his ‘Guy Fawkes’ argument in
Williams 1956-1957. 15 Shorter 1961-1962. 16 Parfit 1971.
17 To clarify, by ‘care less’, I exploit the intuition that many act upon, that what happens to other people is less important than what happens to oneself. The resulting people in the ‘fission’ case will go on to have separate experiences and lose psychological connections with the original, making them closer to separate individuals in the relation that matters (which I go on to specify). This justifies treating them in one’s considerations as different people. Thus, one cares less.
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