Question:
Personal identity.
Your task is to defend one of the three theories of personal identity we encountered in the readings by Perry and Parfit: immaterial soul, bodily identity, and psychological continuity. You will need to explain the theory and then defend it against objections found in the readings and/or objections you come up with on your own.
Personal Identity: Psychological Continuity
What does personal identity mean? Philosophers have been asking and discussing this topic for decades. The issue of personal identity is to determine what circumstances and characteristics are required and desirable for a person to exist at one moment as the same person. Some believe that personal identity is physical in light of the materialistic belief that physical continuity or physicality makes a person assume that physical events produce even mental things. Others adopt a more idealistic perspective, believing that mental continuity is the only element in the development of personal identity since physical objects are just reflections of the mind (Cuypers, 2017). Working along with memory is consciousness; consciousness is the definition of the self; it is the ability of the mind to distinguish between itself and an objective that creates “I” awareness in the process of transformation of body and memory. Consciousness is the core of independent will and free will; it is accountable for a person’s choice (Noonan, 2019). That stated that the definition of personal identity depends on the continuity of the body and the mind. There is certainly plenty of space for criticism in this stance, which I shall now attempt to address with psychological continuity.
To examine the philosophical issue of personal identity in the conversation between Miller and Weirob, numerous interrelated ideas are to be considered, all of which assist address concerns concerning the various facets of this issue. What is the personal identity problem? This is an issue when you contemplate what the same individual should be from time to time. So, what compels us prone to think that we were the exact person five years ago and that five years from now, we’ll be the same person? Nothing could be more evident at the level of our experience than that we are the same people today we are at any time in our life.
Another part of tackling personal identity is analyzing concepts about our viewpoint in the first person. In other words, it’s not just about personal identity issues as they apply to others but also about personal identity as they relate to us. The first person’s viewpoint creates problems that are not typically true when we look at the personality of others (Noonan, 2019). If, for example, we contemplate the identity of others, we may not assume that inquiries regarding their identity must have specific solutions. We may be inclined to declare that we couldn’t tell if someone was or isn’t the same individual from one instance to another. However, this claim seems to be an absurdity when we contemplate our own identity. It appears that we always should be able to answer the question definitively: “Am I the same person that I was, or will I am, at any moment?”
Psychological continuity identity theory is primarily linked to differing interpretations of memories and experiences. Psychological theory concentrates mainly on various types of experiences that explain the reasoning of specific experiences and the sequence of events that may influence the behavior. The theory describes personal identity as a system of psychological links that overlap. These linkages are based on the various types of memories and experiences that identify a particular activity. There are many temporal processes in people’s brains, and they have distinctive thinking linked to different connections inside the brain. A specific idea, feature, or goal in people’s thinking fundamentally defines how personal responses are founded. The arguments about this identity concentrate primarily on obtaining factual data about current attitudes.
There are two conflicting contemplations about the basis of personal identity. It appears that the continuance of the very same person with time involves the continuous presence of the human body on the one side, and the ongoing existence of the same psychological concept, on the other. In the first perspective, people have to be re-identified by re-identifying human bodies; in the latter case, the feeling that the substance-based criteria of identity cannot understand the enormous practical significance attached to decisions of personal identity. The latter approach is reflected in today’s literature by the theory of psychological continuity of personal identity, which takes Locke’s original perspective and comprehensively defines identity criteria. Like any opinions, these perspectives have been exposed to a variety of criticisms. They include the accusation that they cannot understand the realities of enormous practical significance regarding their own identity. This argument is taken exceptionally seriously, yet; strangely, it is not cleared out in the literature that psychological continuity theory is charged with a lack of justification. The issue here is not simply that the idea of psychological continuity is instinctively reasonable in some aspects and unlikely in others; in precisely the same respect, it appears plausible and unlikely actually in the same consideration (Locke, 2020).
Derek Parfit suggests the idea of people’s ontological position, which offers to address fission and personal identity paradoxes. While this page cannot do justice to the intricacies of Parfit’s theory, which since 1970 has been the focus of discussion, its significant aspects should be mentioned. Although Parfit confirms that there are people, its particular ontological position as non-existent substances may be conveyed via the argument that persons must not be individually included in an inventory of what exists. Persons are, in particular, different from their bodies and psychologies. Still, the presence of a person is not the existence of a brain and a body and a sequence of physical and mental experiences linked. These are the fundamental assertions of the absolute determinism of Parfit. Take an analogy: The Venus of Cellini is constructed of bronze. And although bronze lump and the statue itself certainly exist, these things have distinct criteria of persistence: when melted down, Venus does not exist until the bronze lump does not exist. They are thus not identical; instead, the impression is that the metal lump is a statue. The same is true for most people, who are formed by, but not identical with, physiology, psychology, and the occurrence of a linked sequence of causal and cognitive connections.
In summary, Parfit claims psychological continuity with any trustworthy reason is of survival importance. Because personal identity is not just a psychological continuity with any responsible cause, personal identity does not remain important in survival.
The overall discussion of psychological continuity is often shattered by differences that may be significant in other situations. These distinctions are recognized in passing, and an explanation will be provided when required as to why they are not relevant to the current topic. This, however, gives an insight into the general nature and evolution of the theories of psychological continuity. The argument for psychological continuity is that individuals’ identity as psychological subjects is primordial and more substantial than their connection with themselves (Weaver and Turri, 2018). The notion is, in words like “I want to survive” or “I love John,” “I,” and “John,” that the individual does not mainly relate to a body or perhaps an immaterial soul but to a topic. Here, the intuitions are robust and highly profound. They manifest themselves because the irrecoverable loss of consciousness for most individuals is a genuine kind of death. There seems to be an essential feeling of “surviving” an accident in a profound unconsciousness from which one does not awaken. And therefore, it does not at all survive in the understanding that counts. These intuitions are also reflected in the conventional explanations of what is entailed in the death of an individual, religion, and other things. Regardless of not one considers in this survival is widely acknowledged, it would be a way of surviving if the psychic existence continued beyond the body. There is thus broad consensus that the continuance of conscious psychological existence without the human body is enough to survive. These are the intuitions on which individuals who provide psychological identity explanations are based. Starting with Locke2 and continuing with work by current theorists, arguments have almost exclusively been made for a psychologically-based description of identity by using hypothesized instances that act as experiments in thinking. In these circumstances, one is invited to envision situations when the psychological subject is detached from the physique in review.
Psychological continuity theorists have accepted the natural feeling of this interpretation of sameness of awareness. You do not have the rudimentary perspective given in the paragraph above, but consider it a beginning point. They point out that there are no psychological states exclusively that are part of someone’s psychological composition and essential characteristics and provisions. Moreover, they argue that the type of resemblance needed for continuity is not a fixed psychological constancy but a smooth traffic psychological life that gradually, naturally, and direction changes. Completely developed modern conceptions of psychological continuity are not just qualitative perspectives (Sokić, 2020). Instead, they believe that personal identity is appropriately produced by an ancestral relationship of broad psychological connections.
Views of what is a relevant cause vary from Parfit’s point of view that any reason will satisfy the criterion of Shoemaker that continuity is the result of the same human brain. (Parfit called the ‘west version’ of psychological continuity theory and the ‘narrow version’ accordingly.) These perspectives share, particularly with Reid and Butler, the assumption that a person’s psychological existence cannot endure literally but comprises discrete periods of awareness that come and go. On the appearance, this perspective is not an immediately unattractive interpretation of what involves personal identity through time. Of course, some people’s worries for their survival are that their personalities don’t change too much. Individuals identify with their beliefs, objectives, and characteristics and believe their stability is essential to being the same person in a certain way. However, the original puzzle instances do not demonstrate an accurate representation of the nature of psychological continuity to account for the personal identity. This may best be understood in examining how the initial reasons for the idea of psychological continuity become an explanation against it (Sokić, 2020).
The argument, entitled “The Extreme Claim” by Parfit, is very much alive throughout the current debate and expressed, among other things, by Wiggins, Madell, and Swinburne. It is profoundly significant that the criticism in this objection is substantially the same as the argument made by Lockeans against identity theories based on the same content. The fundamental outlines of the radical allegation reasoning are simple to grasp. It is focused on the well-founded notion that certain attitudes and behaviors are acceptable only if a single psychological topic persists all the time and there is an insufficient resemblance between subjects (Sokić, 2020). There’s a particular kind of worry, for example, based on the anticipation that you can only feel for yourself. A person may be unfortunate for tomorrow’s suffering, but she should not expect to experience the agony of that person. The degree of resemblance with her may influence how much she cares, but she cannot more accurately predict the other person’s pain than the suffering of a sibling spirit.
The argument is that psychological continuity theories collapse the difference between person B and person B. Valid doesn’t offer a clear qualitative identification perspective, but they convey that a person has no more profound link. And there’s oneself in the future as between one individual today and others who are psychologically so much like them. In this sense, the psychological subject to plot the malicious crime or spend more hours does not suffer in jail or enjoy your holidays with an additional cost. This is a predictable outcome of the notion that awareness cannot endure. That continuity of consciousness exists in only some outward similarities across periods of attention that indeed are unique.
In this respect, for the very individual committing the crime, or for the same person who worked extra to enjoy the holiday, only for the momentary awareness which suffers from the penalty or absorbs the sun that the overlaying chain of resemblance and the instantaneous understanding which organized the crime or worked for additional hours. Consequently, the resemblance is not a good relationship to the underlying liability or remuneration. It is vital to recognize that this criticism pertains to all variants of the theory of psychological continuity, even the restricted one, which demands the psychological continuation of the same working brain. This version offers something enduring individual human brain that is there, for example, for overworking and for holidays or the preparation and punishment of criminality, so this might seem that it can.
The argument of Parfit is, therefore, that in typical scenarios. The criteria of personal identity may be psychological continuity. If we reject this, based on a notion of identity that is all or nothing, then Parfit believes we must give up identity language. We would talk in a new way about our new descriptors as having the same meaning as identity. He argues that we can achieve this by substituting ‘personal identity with ‘survival.’ However, Perry does not believe that Parfit’s new thinking style is possible. He keeps it that we will forsake one method of communication in favor of or another but that amid the new things, there will still be identity: “As long as you have preached, you will have an identity (Sokić, 2020). In this way, I believe Perry must agree as I perceive no difference in the logical tone of queries such as, “Will I truly live in a future State from my present state? “And “will I be identical to the person I am now in 20 years? “The two inquiries aim to address the same fundamental goal – Will there be someone who genuinely is me anytime in the future?
Bibliography
Cuypers, S.E., 2017. Self-identity and personal autonomy: analytical anthropology. Routledge.
Locke, J., 2020. Eric Olsen, “Personal Identity,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,(2019). 2.
Noonan, H.W., 2019. Personal identity. Routledge.
Sokić, M., 2020. Personal identity and the psychological continuity theory. Theoria, Beograd, 63(3), pp.87-104.
Ubuntu, C., 2020. Personal Identity as Precondition for Personal Immortality and Moral Responsibility. West African Journal Of Philosophical Studies, 17.
Weaver, S. and Turri, J., 2018. Personal identity and persisting as many. Oxford studies in experimental philosophy, 2, pp.213-242.
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