PERSONAL IMMORTALITY &

PERSONAL IDENTITY
CHAPTER 4
RENÉ DESCARTES

• 31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650)

• a French philosopher, mathematician and
scientist.
• the father of analytical geometry, the bridge
between algebra and geometry
• laid the foundation for 17th-century continental
rationalism

I THINK, THEREFORE I AM
• the possibility of existence after death and its relation to the issue of personal identity
• examine several criteria of personal identity:
1. the Same Body criterion,
2. the Same Soul criterion
3. the Same Psychological Essence criterion
4. the Continuity of Consciousness criterion
• death
• die in 2090 at the grand old age of 100, and that by 2091, all that's left is bones
• Cease to exist, disappear forever, no more me
• Still exist
• How could I still exist

• who or what I am?

• What is the “me” that exist?
HOW MUCH OF YOU WOULD REMAIN?
• most of us would say that it would still be you, the same person, even though your body has undergone
drastic alterations
• Why would you say that?
• So what's essential to being me?
Someone : I love you.
You : Why?
Someone : Because you’re young, beautiful/handsome, well built, and strong.
You : What else about me do you love?“
Someone : Nothing. That's it.
You : Surely there are other things about me you like or love.
Someone : Oh, yes. You're rich and famous. I love that about you, too.
You : But what about when I grow old and I'm no longer handsome or beautiful? What if I'm also no
longer rich and famous? Will you still love me?
Someone : Of course not."
• Superficial  they only care about our physical appearance or our bodies and ignore or fail to value
what we think of as most central to ourselves, to who or what we are  mental properties
• "outer you“ is far less central to who you are than is the "inner you," that the "inner you" is the "real
you.“
• our mental properties are what's essential to who we are, that our identities as persons are determined
by our mental properties rather than by our physical properties
DEATH AND OTHER HAPPENINGS

• The question of what's essential to our identities as people is relevant to the issue of what happens to
us after our bodies die.
• We'll still exist as the person we once were after our bodies die only if what's essential to us as people
still exists.
• So we have to figure out what that is.
• Joan claims that she'll still exist when her body dies. The "real" her, she says, what is most essential to
her, the person she is, is not her physical properties but her mental properties that are embedded in
her nonphysical mind or soul, so as long as her mind exists and contains her mental properties, she'll
exist, and she'll be wherever her mind or soul is. Her body is not necessary for her continued existence
as a person. Is she right?
• Bonnie suffering from the end stages of Alzheimer Disease
• Bill, lying in a hospital bed in a chronic vegetative state because of profound brain damage.
• Carla claims to be the reincarnation of Cleopatra.
• John says that while his body was anesthetized on the operating table, he went roaming around the
hospital peeking into every nook and cranny.
• Finally, consider a newborn infant. Is it yet a person, or instead should we say that the infant will
become a person as it develops?
WHAT ROLES DO OUR BODY PLAY IN PERSONAL
IDENTITY?
• There are several views we could take, depending on the answers we give to the following three
questions:
1. Are our bodies necessary for personal identity?  you don't exist if your body doesn't exist and you exist only
where your body exists
2. Are our bodies sufficient for personal identity?  your body exists, you exist and you are where it is
3. Are our bodies both necessary and sufficient for personal identity?  you exist if and only if your body exists
and you exist where and only where your body exists
ARE OUR BODIES NECESSARY FOR PERSONAL
IDENTITY

• Bernard Williams, British philosopher, maintained that our bodies is necessary for personal identity.
• Julian  reincarnation of Julius Caesar = Julius
Caesr who onced ruled Rome and was
assassinated in 44 B.C.E
• Speaks perfect latin
• Tells stories about his life and times  experts
afifirm that it’s correct
• Tell tales of life that no one in the world knows
about
• Exhibits all personality and character traits
historians have attributed to Caesr but his body
is not idential to Julius Caesar’s body
• Julian has a character and personality very like Caesar's and that he has acquired knowledge of Caesar's
life and past, including the language he spoke and wrote, in ways we're not familiar with, such as
clairvoyance.
• He can't remember these experiences the way that Caesar could (from the inside, as it were) because
he, Julian, wasn't there.
• Why cann’t we claim that he is Julius Caesar?
• violation of a basic logical rule of identity: It's necessarily true that if A = C and B = C, then A = B.
• Julian  Julius Caesar another person called Gulian  Julius Caesar
• Admit that Julian is Julius and Gulian is Julius dan Julian is Gulian.
• Absurd and logically ipossible
• Avoid such absurdity, according to williams, we should deny both are Julius Caesar
• Neither has a body that is identiacl to Julius Caesar’s body
• How can we make precise this claim of Williams?
• wonder whether the person you saw yesterday in the supermarket is (is identical to) the person who
taught your first grade class.
• police might wonder whether the person they have in custody now is (is identical to) the person who
committed a specific murder last month.
• General form of an identity question is :
• Is x at time t1 the same person as y at time t2?
• Williams
• Person x at t1 is identical to person y at t2 onliy if x’s body at t1 is identical to y’s body at t2.
• Could two dif- ferent individuals in two different bodies in two different places really be the same
person?
• Julian and Gulian were born the very same instant, tj, in two different places and that they claim that at
birth they were each reincarnations of Julius Caesar, who was born in 100 B.C.E.
• Once they were born, we could say that Julian is reincarnation A and Gulian is reincarnation B of Julius
Caesar.
• Through time, reincarnation A has a whole new set of experiences, a new life history to add to the base
of Julius Caesar's history. Similarly, reincarnation B has a new set of expe- riences, a new life history,
that are different from those of A.
• The instant that
• Julius Caesar was reincarnated into two different bodies, he divided into two separate people.
IF THIS MAKES SENSE, THEN WILLIAMS'S ARGUMENT DOES NOT SEEM TO SHOW THAT OUR
BODIES ARE NECESSARY FOR PERSONAL IDENTITY.
ARE OUR BODIES SUFFICIENT FOR PERSONAL
IDENTITY?