Introductory Notes on Personal Identity

1. It is common sense that each person has the same single self that persists through various
nonfatal changes in body and mind. But what makes you ten years ago the same person as
you now, and what will make you now the same person as you ten years from now?
Reflection on this question will get you to ponder about just what it is that constitutes
sameness of a person over time. Perhaps it will even lead you to challenge the commonsense
assumption that you ten years ago = you now.

2. I will sort some of the answers that philosophers have given into two types, (1) substance
views and (2) relational views.

Substance Views

3. Let’s first consider views which claim that the sameness of a person over time consists in the
sameness of some bodily or mental substance existing continuously over time.

(a) Perhaps it is sameness of body that makes you ten years ago the same as you now? That
doesn’t seem right, because your body replaces all of its cells every eight years (except
the nerve cells that remain with you from birth to death, but you do lose nerve cells over
time, and the matter of these cells is constantly changing too!). So if sameness of the
body constitutes sameness of the person, you ten years ago won’t be the same as you
now.

To drive the point home, let me mention an ancient Greek comedy in which a man who
lent some money to his friend receives the following argument instead of his money:

The Debtor’s Argument:

As we all know, a human being is just a collection of particles. But, as we

also know, if you add particles to or subtract particles from a collection of
particles, you get a new collection. Now, this debt was contracted several
weeks ago, and many of the particles that composed the person who
contracted the debt have long since passed into the environment. So I am
a different collection of particles from the one that contracted the debt.
Thus, I am a different human being from the one who contracted the debt.
Therefore, I do not owe you any money! (Michael Rea, World without
Design, p.78)

Unfortunately the creditor doesn’t appreciate this neat philosophical argument, and
refutes it with his fist. And we too would react in pretty much the same way. We tend
not to identify ourselves with our bodies, but to think of ourselves as owning our bodies.

1
 (b) Perhaps, then, it is sameness of mental substance that makes you persist as the same
person over time. Descartes identified the self with an immaterial, thinking substance, as
opposed to physical substance or body. You remain the same over time because you
have the same mental substance over time. Now there is a big question whether such an
immaterial, thinking substance actually exists: we cannot verify its existence using
scientific methods, and introspection only tells us that we are conscious, and not whether
it is our mental substances or our brains that are conscious.

The problems afflicting this view are discussed in Perry, A Dialogue on Personal Identity
and Immortality, The First Night.

Relational Views

4. According to relational views, personal identity does not consist in the sameness of
something existing continuously over time, but in various relations among changing
elements. These relations could be physical or psychological, or a combination of both. The
general features of a relational view (as distinct from substance views) are very well
explained in Perry (see from middle of p.22 to end of p.25).

5. The most famous psychological account is given by John Locke (17th century English
philosopher), according to which you ten years ago are the same person as you now, if you
have conscious memories now of what you experienced ten years ago. Let’s call the various
different versions of this psychological account the memory theory. This theory is introduced
in Perry, p.26.

6. Reid’s Objection: There is a devastating criticism of Locke’s original account due to Thomas
Reid (18th century Scottish philosopher). Take three events from the life of a person: the boy
stealing an apple, the middle-aged general engaged in battle, and the old man writing his
memoir. The general remembers himself as a boy stealing an apple, and the old man
recounts his brave exploits as a general, but the old man has forgotten that he had stolen an
apple as a boy. So, according to Locke’s account, the general is the same person as the boy,
and the old man is the same person as the general, but the old man is not the same person as
the boy! (This is as absurd as saying: 2+2 = 4 and 4 = 3+1, but 2+2  3+1.)

7. Reid’s objection can easily be circumvented. Instead of saying:

You ten years ago are the same person as you now iff you now remember what you
experienced ten years ago.
Let us say:
You ten years ago are the same person as you now iff you now are able (in the sense in
which others are not able) to remember what you experienced ten years ago.
Then we can say that, though the old man has forgotten that he has stolen the apple as a boy,
he has the potential to remember it in a sense in which others cannot. Namely, the
experience of stealing the apple has left some memory traces which may still be found in the
old man’s brain, though he cannot consciously access it. Thus, on this revised version of the
memory theory, we can say that the old man is the same person as the young boy, because he

2
 has the unique ability to remember the young boy’s experiences, even though he doesn’t
actually remember some of them. (This is why Perry adds this qualification, at the bottom of
p.26: “To remember—or more plausibly, to be able to remember—the thoughts and feelings
of a person who was conscious in the past is just what it is to be that person.)

8. But Butler’s objection applies even against the revised version of the memory theory. For
this objection, see Perry, from the middle of p.28 to p.30.

Fission Cases and Duplication Arguments

9. Let me now present two cases of fission, where objects or persons start out as one but branch
out as two. These cases present special difficulties for relational views of identity over time.

The Ship of Theseus:

Take the Ship of Theseus when it is brand new, and call it Ship1. Ship1 is made
of wooden planks, but the original planks are gradually replaced by new ones over
time, so that in ten years the ship has none of the original planks, but the same
crew and captain. Let’s call this Ship2. Now we can accept that Ship2 = Ship1,
because we accept that a physical object can survive gradual replacement of parts,
just as our body can survive gradual replacement of cells.

But now suppose that someone with nothing better to do collected all the original
planks of Ship1 that were discarded. He builds a new ship, call it Ship3, out of
these planks, which has exactly the same shape and design as Ship1. Now we can
also accept that Ship3 = Ship1, because we accept that a physical object can
survive disassembly and then reassembly, just as a watch can survive our
disassembling it into parts and then putting the parts back together. The watch
reassembled is the same watch as the one before it was disassembled, and in the
same way Ship3 is the same ship as Ship1.

But let’s review what we’ve accepted. Here’s a diagram:

ten years ago: Ship1

|
/\
/ \
/ \
now: Ship2 Ship3

We’ve accepted Ship2 = Ship1 and Ship1 = Ship3. So, Ship3 = Ship2 (just like: if
2+2 = 4 and 4 = 3+1, then 2+2 = 3+1). But we can see clearly that Ship 3 
Ship2. We are stuck in a contradiction.

3
Teletransportation:

Suppose that there are teletransporters, like the ones you find in Star Trek, which
afford transportation between Earth and Mars in a matter of seconds. A
teletransporter does this by scanning all the physical and psychological
information about you on Earth, destroying your original body, and then beaming
that information to Mars, where another teletransporter produces an exact
duplicate of you out of new matter. This duplicate has a body that looks exactly
same as your old one, and has the same thoughts, memories and character traits.

You see other people taking trips through teletransporters without any trouble.
So, being assured of its safety, you teletransport yourself to Mars. But now a
Martian engineer comes to you and tells you that there was a glitch in the
teletransportation process and that you are going to die in a few minutes. That’s
the bad news, but here’s the good news. The engineer informs you that due to the
same glitch you were not destroyed back on Earth. So although the Mars “you” is
going to die, the Earth “you” will continue living.

So here’s the fission diagram again:

a few minutes ago: Old You

|
/\
/ \
/ \
now: Mars You Earth You

This has the same problem as the Ship of Theseus. The Mars You is the same
person as the Old You, and the Old You is the same person as the Earth You. So
the Mars You should be the same as the Earth You, but clearly that’s false (e.g.,
the Mars You will die, but the Earth You will not).