Personal identity
the teletransporter as bad as death, whereas a proponent of psychological continuity and connectedness would see it as good as ordinary survival. 21 I argue this is an advantage of this view, not a defect. John Perry proposes that the reason we are inclined to view it as death, is because brain continuity is what usually all ows for the carrying out of ‘private projects’, which, I argue, are characterized by psychological connections. 22 Williams’ argument, on the other hand, seems weaker, particularly because it rests on the premise that personal identity must be determinate. In The Self and the Future (1970), he argues against the psychological criterion on the charge that it can yield indeterminate results. Parfit first rejects this objection because the same structure of argument can be used against Williams’ physical crite rion. He then uses the ‘Combined Spectrum’ to undermine the underlying assumption that personal identity must be determinate. 23 This argument can also be used against the brain criterion. I find no reason to prefer the bodily criterion over the brain criterion. 24 Thus, I propose, like Parfit, we define what it means to be the same person over time as the continued existence of what matters in survival, which I have argued to be psychological continuity and connectedness. On this definition, you are only the same person today that you were when you were ten insofar as you hold these relations. I have suggested that connectedness is more important than continuity, and so, considering particularly how much a person changes through puberty (the years after the age of ten), you probably are not very much the same person today as you were when you were ten.
21 This section of Parfi t’s discussion is particularly informed by Nagel’s argument for the brain as the basis of personal identity and what matters. Originally sent to Parfit as an ‘unpublished rough draft’ (see Appendix D of Parfit 1984), Nagel clarifies in ‘Mind and Body’ in Nagel 1986. 22 The term ‘private projects’, is Perry’s. It refers to future ‘projects’ which only you can carry out. See ‘The Importance of Being Identical’ in Rorty 1976. 23 The ‘Combined Spectrum’ details a case in which your cells and psychological traits are gradually replaced with those of Greta Garbo’s at age 30. Parfit’s argument is that there is no point along the spectrum at which we can adequately say that you are no longer you – if we choose a point, it must be arbitrary. While at either end of the spectrum it is easy to identify whether you are Greta Garbo or not, there are cases along the middle of the spectrum where it is indeterminate. See ‘How We Are Not What We Believe’ in Parfit 1984. 24 For a thesis I have found helpful in clarifying Williams ’ views on some matters, see Lim Wai -man 2002.
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