Metaphysics of the Self (2)

2023-2 Metaphysics of the Self

 

Segment 2

 

1. State the metaphysical problem of personal identity. Are philosophers after the numerical or qualitative identity of persons through time? Make sure to briefly explain the difference between these two concepts.

Generally, identity is conceptually distinguished into (1) Qualitative identity (i.e., identity of properties) and (2) Numerical identity (i.e., identity of one and the same thing). While the former refers to the sameness of two things sharing the same qualities, properties, or characteristics (e.g., two exactly resembling billiard balls), the latter refers to the identity of one and the same thing with its possible changes of properties (e.g., Socrates is identical with himself). 

Philosophers are after the numerical identity of persons through time. Thus, they seek the necessary and sufficient conditions for the diachronic numerical identity of persons. This task can be reframed as a question: “what are the criteria for person at t1 is as numerically same as person at t2.” 

It is also worth noting that such criteria are metaphysical, rather than evidential. For the task is to present the nature of personal identity, not answering a question of what actually counts as evidence for personal identity. Thus, giving the criteria for the diachronic numerical identity of persons belongs to the metaphysical problem of personal identity.

 

2. What are the two main approaches to personal identity that we find in the philosophical literature? Which approach are you inclined to endorse?

The two main approaches to personal identity are (1) the attempts to suggest the physical criterion of personal identity and (2) the attempts to suggest the psychological criterion of personal identity. The defenders of the former claim that personal identity is as fundamentally same as the identity of material objects in general. However, there is disagreement about what kind of material objects in our bodies are essential for maintaining personal identity. While some scholars have argued that P1 at t1 is the same person as P2 at t2 if and only if P1 and P2 share most of the same organs (Bodily Criterion), others have argued that P1 at t1 is the same person as P2 at t2 if and only if P1 and P2 have most of the same living brain (Brain Criterion). 

On the other hand, the defenders of the psychological criterion hold that P1 at t1 is the same person as P2 at t2 if and only if P1 and P2 are psychologically continuous. Again, there is disagreement about what kind of psychological features and states in our mind are indispensable for sustaining personal identity. John Locke, for instance, claimed that memory is only involved in our awareness of personal identity over time. His view is thus often called the memory criterion. On the contrary, a modern and sophisticated view emphasizes that other psychological features and states such as personality, traits, beliefs, desires, and intentions also should be considered.

I espouse the psychological criterion rather than the bodily criterion. I believe that personal identity possesses a unique and qualitative characteristic that cannot be physically reduced, similar to qualia. Like the relationship between eyes and color perceptions, there is no evidence for assuming that the brain is the sufficient condition of personal identity even if it might be the necessary condition of it. Therefore, it is more reasonable to assume that their relationship can be properly explained through supervenience.

 

3. Which approach to personal identity does Parfit take? State the four main theses that he wants to argue for in his part III of Reasons and Persons.                                

Derek Parfit is one of the most influential defenders of the psychological approach to personal identity. He suggests four main theses in Reasons and Persons as follows: (1) Reductionism about persons, (2) Indeterminacy, (3) Impersonal/Non-Circular Descriptions of facts about Synchronic and Diachronic Psychological Unity, and (4) Personal Identity is Not What Matters. 

First, Parfit holds that persons are not separately existing entities, apart from our brains and bodies, and various interrelated physical and mental events. In other words, the existence of persons is nothing but existing body, brain, and a series of interrelated physical and mental events. There is no Cartesian mental substance, and our existence thus can be fully reduced to certain facts, according to Parfit.  

Second, he claims that a certain type of questions concerning personal identity belongs to an empty question. Criticizing Williams’ psychological spectrum thought experiment, he maintains that it is impossible to determine at which point in the spectrum one’s personal identity is maintained or lost. Questions such as “Am I about to die?” or “Will it be me after surgery?” are similar to asking how many grains of sand must be present to call it a sandpile. The reductionists would reply that such questions have no answers, although we know all of the facts about what will happen. In a nutshell, they are not a real question.

Third, Parfit suggests that we can fully describe the relations between numerous different experience which are related to person’s brain, without claiming that these experiences are had by a person. The objective of his argument is to elude the circularity objection to the psychological criterion. Parfit understands such an objection as follows: “It is part of our concept of memory that we can remember only our own experiences. The continuity of memory therefore presupposes personal identity.” To avoid this circular argument, Parfit introduces the concept of Q-memories and argues that we can explain Relation R constituting personal identity without any reference to the diachronic self.

Finally, he argues that personal identity is actually not what matters; what matters is the holding of Relation R because it is the right criterion of person’s persistence through time. We have to discard the traditional notion of personal identity and substitute it with psychological continuity with the right kind of cause. To view our survival as the maintenance of Relation R helps us reduce the fear of aging and death, which is based on groundless beliefs.

 

4. State the Circularity Objection to the psychological criterion of personal identity.  

The Circularity Objection states that the continuity of psychological features and states already presupposes the notion of personal identity. For instance, memories cannot be connected or disconnected with each other in the first place unless they are possessed by one and the same person. 

We usually say that memory is the product of one’s past experience. And if this is the meaning of memory, personal identity, which is to be explained, is already contained in the concept of memory. Thus, it cannot be the proper creation of personal identity. 

 

5. How do Parfit and Shoemaker define q-memories? In what way are q-memories supposed to help avert the circularity objection?                         

According to Parfit and Shoemaker, a memory of a past experience is Q-memory if and only if

(1) One has an apparent memory of a past experience.

(2) Someone did in fact have that experience.

(3) The apparent memory is causally dependent, in the light kind of way, on that past experience.

For (1) and (3) are also the conditions of our ordinary notion of memory, and (2) contains an existential quantifier ((∃x)Fx), our ordinary notion of memory (i.e., memory of my past experience) is defined as a subset of Q-memories (which is often called I-memory).

 Parfit and Shoemaker want to purge any reference to the diachronic self when describing memories. (2) performs this task because it creates a gap between the one who remembers and the one who experiences. Plus, (3) is necessary to distinguish Q-memories from fictitious memories and illusions. By doing so, Parfit argues that it is possible to obtain pure descriptions of Relation R without presupposing personal identity.

 

6. Do you think that the notion of q-memory is a coherent one? Briefly explain your view.

As Schechtman points out, Parfit and Shoemaker’s attempts are not successful because they neglect the surrounding contexts of psychological features and states. Remembering an experience, especially when it is a qualitative one, is distinctly different from remembering propositional knowledge; the former exists within the context of its associations with other memories, beliefs, and feelings. In Parfit’s scenario, however, Jane would not have any comparable memories to evoke a feeling of familiarity in her Q-memories, while Paul would have experienced familiarity because he has visited Venice many times. Therefore, Q-memories that Jane acquired from Paul would be fragmentary in that it lacks certain aspect of Paul’s I-memory, and the concept of Q-memory is highly likely to be reduced to the mere recollection of certain propositional knowledge (I remember that P). This is true when Parfit and Shoemaker even appeal to the notions of Q-intentions, Q-beliefs, and Q-desires; these are stated in the form of “I believe that P,” “I intend that P,” and so on. Consequently, such a defect eventually makes Q-memories delusional, as Schechtman has argued.

 

7. In what way does Parfit argue for his Indeterminacy Thesis about personal identity? Do you agree with him that in some cases the question “will it be me?” just does not have an answer? Briefly explain your view.              

Parfit discusses Williams’ thought experiment about the psychological spectrum. The psychological spectrum establishes two extremes. On one end of the spectrum, I do not lose any previous psychological connections, and thereby would maintain my personal identity. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I lose all of my psychological connections, and would no longer maintain my personal identity. It raises a serious question about our survival: Is there a certain point in the spectrum that decides whether one’s personal identity is maintained or lost? In other words, “at a certain point in the psychological spectrum, will it be still me?”

According to Parfit, there are three answers to this question: first, we could believe that there is a sharp borderline somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. Second, we could believe that, in all of these cases on the spectrum, the resulting person would still be me. Finally, we could reject above two answers by saying that the question “Am I about to die?” is not a genuine question, but an empty question. Parfit espouses the last answer, namely “Indeterminacy Thesis.”

Parfit’s Indeterminacy Thesis is thus to consider the question of the psychological spectrum as a pseudo-problem; we call a collection of sand a “sandpile” with conventional and arbitrary criteria. Therefore, asking the question of how much sand should be removed from a sandpile for it to no longer be considered a sandpile is just irrational. Parfit points out that this is analogous to the case of the psychological spectrum.

However, it is still questionable whether we can consider the psychological spectrum case as a type of the paradox of heap. The psychological spectrum case cannot be dissolved by the matter of stipulation because it evidently includes our death, an irreversible transition. On the other hand, Parfit’s explanation does not decisively exclude other two options. Olson, for instance, might reply to Parfit by arguing that it will be still me regardless of any points in the spectrum and what matters is the living organism at all.

 

8. Parfit argues that relation R, rather than identity, is what matters for survival. What are the differences between these two relations and which arguments does he present in favor of relation R over identity? Do you find this argument to be compelling?

The difference between Relation R and Identity is revealed in the various scenarios Parfit presents, where I am divided into multiple individuals. Let me consider one scenario where I am being transported to Mars. Due to an unexpected flaw in the teleportation device, an exact replica of me with all my psychological traits and states has been created on Mars, and I have been told that I am going to cease to exist. According to the psychological criterion, this man is the same person as me because my replica and I are psychologically continuous.

Parfit claims that there will be psychological continuants of me with all Q-memories, Q-beliefs, Q-intentions of my past life, and that’s the only thing that matters for Parfit. Regardless of whether the resulting person will be me or not, “my relation to each of the resulting people contains everything that would be needed for me to survive as that person.” Parfit diagnoses that people’s fear of duplication arises from an insistence on identity and a belief that the outcome in division cases is equivalent to their own death. 

Parfit suggests that our traditional notion of identity should be superseded by his novel definition of personal identity (Relation R with uniqueness condition/no competitors clause). While identity is one-one relation and can just be all or nothing, relation R is one-many relations and can come in degrees. Parfit argues that this alternative alleviates our baseless fear of death because everything important for survival can be established within such one-many relations.

Parfit’s argument is compelling insofar as his notion of Q-memory is well-grounded. However, Q-memories can lead to a dilemma where they become delusions or result in a circular argument due to an individual’s unique qualitative features (one’s memories always exist within the surrounding contexts of psychological features and states). Therefore, I think that Parfit’s argument leads to a nihilistic conclusion that our existence is inherently meaningless rather than reducing the fear of death.

 

9. According to Olson, what would happen to us if we were to find ourselves in a persistent vegetative state? And what would happen to us in the cerebrum transplant case? How would the proponent of the Psychological Approach respond to the two cases? 

A persistent vegetative state is a situation where my brain is damaged and thereby my higher mental functions are irretrievably lost without losing functions such as respiration, circulation, digestion, and metabolism. Olson claims that humans in such situations are a “human animal,” in that they are as same as ordinary humans and just lack a mind (i.e., all cognitive functions).

The cerebrum transplant case is like the persistent vegetative state case. It is a situation where my cerebrum is removed from my head and implanted into another head. The resulting person would be as psychologically same as me (memory, intention, and personality), but physically very different from me. In my remaining body is also a human animal.

Olson points out that we are, in one central respect, a human animal; the matter is whether our life-sustaining functions still work, and whether our biological life still subsists. Therefore, Olson claims that what it takes for us to persist through time is biological continuity. According to this criterion, humans in the cerebrum transplant case and the persistent vegetative state case are still maintain their identity.

On the contrary, the proponents of Psychological Approach will respond that the human animals in both cases do not maintain their personal identity and original person has just died. Especially, they will argue that in the cerebrum transplant case, the resulting person who is transplanted my cerebrum is me because that person satisfies the psychological criterion.

 

10. State Olson’s Biological Criterion of Personal identity. What do you take to be the biggest difficulty for this criterion?

According to the Biological Approach, personal identity is as fundamentally same as the identity of human living organisms, which have a lot of functions (metabolism, teleology, organized complexity) to sustain their life. Therefore, the biological criterion of personal identity is that a past or future being is me just in case it has my biological life, i.e., it has a continuity of vital functions to sustain living organisms.

One of the challenges concerning this criterion is that it leads to counterintuitive conclusions when applied to cases of brain transplantation. Take, for example, a scenario where A’s cerebrum is transplanted into B’s body (B was in a persistent vegetative state). Who is the person that wakes up after the transplantation surgery? Intuitively, we may conclude that it will be A. On the contrary, Olson would claim that the person who wakes up is B, which contradicts our common intuitions.

 

Reading Lists

H. Noonan, "An Initial Survey", ch.1 of Personal Identity

D.Parfit, ch.10-12 of Reasons and Persons

E. Olson, ch.1 and 6 of Human Animal