When talking about identity we separate between two kinds of identity: qualitative identity and numerical identity. Concerning personal identity we are only considering numerical identity, because this sort of identity is the only type regarding the singularity of a person.
This essay first gives an overview about both the personality view and the body view concerning personal identity in the sense of persistence across time. Afterwards it compares them to each other and defines an own position that across time, it is not possible to change your personal identity.
Personal Identity
In this essay I will first give a summery about the aspects of the personality view and the body view concerning personal identity in the sense of peristance across time. Afterwards I will compare them to each other and define my own position which one of the views is the most suitable and applicable for reality. To help the reader follow my essay as good as possible I am going to use a gedankenexperiment I came up with on my own to show the progress from comparing the views to each other to finding the best solution in combiningthem.
(Note: The field of personal identity and it's views is way too big to expound it in an essay like this. I want to underline that my conclusions may not include all of the information we've spoken about in class, but definetly express my own view on this topic.)
1. Different Views on Personal Identity
1.1 Personal Identity
Beforehand I start discussing about different views on personal identity I'd like to give you a brief introduction in this topic. The term 'personal identity' describes the most unique attribute of a human being and gives us certainty, that a person stays the same in core, nevermind how much it changes - at least this is what people are trying to prove or disprove. When talking about identity we separate between two kinds of identity: qualitative idenitity and numerical identity. Something is qualitative identical if it is similar to something else, for example twins. Twins may look pretty much the same, but they aren't, because they are different persons. Concerning personal identity we are only considering numerical identity, because this sort of identity is the only type regarding the singularity of a person. An expample for numerical identity is me yesterday and me today - I remain numerical identical.
1.2 BodyViewand Personality view
There are different theories about personal identity and how we can prove that someone stays numerical identical in the sense of persistence across time: The Soul View, the Body View and the Personality View. In this essay I won't go further into detail about the Soul View because I agree with Professor Shelly Kagan from Yale University (Connecticut), who stated in one of his lectures about Personal Identity, that "the difficulty with that approach (the Soul View), even if we bracket the question whether or not there are souls, was that it seems as though the soul could constantly be changing while the personality [...] stays the same."1
In the following we will only focus on the Body Theory and the Personality Theory. Assuming that we are inquisitive philosophers we now want to find out how to identify someone as him- or herself in another tense - regardless if it's the past or the future. Let's give an example: Dr. P. was a very ill-mannered boy in his childhood. He spend all of his teenage years as a punk and an anarchist, he made one of the worst graduations in High School. Now he's Christian, part of a democratic party and is also one ofthe most distinguished Doctors in his hometown. Is this man still the same as he has been 20 years ago? Considering the Body View Dr. P. is still the same man because his body didn't change. He may have changed his looks over time, but his DNA i.e. couldn't have been modified. The brute physical view implies that persistence is based - and only based - on the biological organism.2 1 will come back to this view later on in the gedankenexperiment.
According to the Personality View the evaluation whether or not Dr. P. is numerical identical to himself from 20 years ago, the solution to this example isn't as obvious as considering the Body View. The foundation ofthe Personality Theory are memories, beliefs, desires, goals, ambitions and fears. Some may add character traits or experiences or maybe leave out ambitions and fears - but roughly, this is what the Personality View is based on. Comparing the 'old' Dr. P. to the 'new' Dr. P. shows that at first sight we would definetly be sure about the change of his mindset, his ideas and his behaviours. These three points could be enough evidence to state that the personality of Dr. P. does not remain numerical identical - he has changed too much to count as the same man as he has been before. But does a change of mindset, ideas and behaviours support the creation of a new personality in only one lifetime of a man? That would mean that we are creating more and more personalities over time, maybe not even forgetting the old ones afterwards - short conclusion: we would all have a multiple personality disorder.
A personality is just as unique as a body. Other people may have the same features - mentally or/and physically - but both could never be copied and only stay qualitative identical to other personalities and bodies.
2. Gedankenexperiment
As I have mentioned in the part above both views are justifiable. In my research I noticed that combining these views does not only increase the plausibility of the outcoming conclusion -there is (at least) one aspect overlapping on both of these views that makes them inseparable from each other. I devided the gedankenexperiment into two stages. Stage 1 and stage 2 have the same background story: The current situation of the world wide spreading coronavirus inducing the disease COVID-19.
2.1 Gedankenexperiment stage 1
Imagine you are affected by the newly disease COVID-19. You have a recovery chance of 100%, there is no risk that you will die or have any health effects afterwards. On the day you get tested positive on COVID-19 you have to fill out a document at the hospital whether you want to recover 100% from the disease or if you want to die immeadiatly. Because there is no risk of dying or anything and you know that you will fully recover, you mark the box with a cross saying that you want to recover. What you don't know is that your recovery is connected to who was tested positive right after you.
On the first day you start feeling better the treatment is completed: The cure against the disease was the exchange of your emotions and feelings to the one who has been tested positive right before you against the emotions and feelings from the person that had been tested right after you. You will stay numerical identical with the same body and the same personality. You still have the same fears, desires, goals and ambitions - but you don't feel the same about your memories anymore, because your feelings about them are gone.
Because noone knows what has happened during recovery including you, noone will ever know what has happened to all people being healed from the disease, but it wasn't a change of your personal identity, because in consideration ofthe personality and body view you didn't undergo a change.
2.2 Gedankenexperiment stage 2
Imagine you are affected by the newly disease COVID-19. You have a recovery chance of 100%, there is no risk that you will die or have any health effects afterwards. On the day you get tested positive on COVID-19 you have to decide whether you want to recover 100% from the disease or if you want to die immeadiatly. Because there is no risk of dying you chose to take the path of recovery. You're getting the information, that recovery is only possible if you get brain surgery - to be exact: a brain transplant. The brain for the transplantation is from someone who also wants to be cured from this disease and the brainswap is the only way to recover. You agree on the brainsurgery but only to the condition, that the new brain you'll get is as close to yours as possible. Your new brain is from a person at the same age and with the same sex as you, same interests, hobbies, rationality, goals, fears, ambitions, desires. The only thing that will not remain are your memories. So, differently to gedankenexperiment stage 1 you have a new personal identity, because your new brain is only qualitative identical to the old one and your memories are missing. But it's not only that - what I wanted to show with those two mind experiments is that the brain is the connecting point of the personality and the body theory because one cannot be true without the other.
3. Conclusion
"As physicalists we can [...] say that the basis of personality is that there are bodies that arefunctioning in certain ways."-a quote from Shelly Kagan.3
The Body View is way more complex than just having the same DNA or fingerprints. To be completely convinced of this view you have to consider that you cannot just "change" something about the typical functionality of your body and when I say "body" what I actually mean is "brain". The most important partof a human concerning his personal identity is his brain, as well as for the Personality Theory as also for the Body Theory. In my opinion the personal identity has changed in both mind experiments based on the body AND the personality view. In both scenariosthere has been an unnatural interferrence into the living of a person. This cannot be compared to a liver transplantation or anything like that: The transformation ofthe brain - regardless if it was a physical change like the brainswap or a psychological change like the swap of the feelings - affects both theories the same way.
To end this essay I want to state that a real change of personal identity can only happen if there is an interferrence with the brain, maybe also because of amnesia, irrevocable brainwash or any brain disease. Across time it is not possible to change your personal identity. We may change our looks, we will grow, we will learn, we will fall down and get up again - but that doesn't change who we are, it doesn't change our personal identity.
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1 "Lecture 11 - Personal Identity, Part II: The Body Theory and the Personality Theory" - https://oyc.yale.edu/philosophy/phil-176/lecture-ll
2 "3. Accounts ofOur Persistence" - https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identitv-personal/
3 https://oyc.yale.edu/philosophy/phil-176/lecture-ll
- Citation du texte
- Veronika Strauch (Auteur), 2020, Personal Identity. Why the Body and Personality Theory relate to each other, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/1309740