Theo Todman's Web Page - Paper Abstracts

For the meaning of any abbreviations in what follows Click here for Note. My comments in general appear as footnotes at the bottom of the page.

1. Introduction: Rational anticipation of future goods (or ills) appears to presuppose numerical identity¹ (NI). Similarly, self-concern differs in kind from concern for others – Shoemaker gives the usual “being tortured in the morning” example – and again, self-concern seems to presuppose NI. So, we need to try harder to find a criterion, as SC, BC, MC & BBMC have all failed. Most contemporary philosophers support one of the two following:-
   1. The Psychological Criterion² (PC)
   2. The Biological Criterion³ (BioC).
2. The Psychological Criterion⁴
   • PC: X at T1 is the same person as Y at T2 iff Y is uniquely psychologically continuous with X.
   • Motivation: this recognises the advantage of MC, while sorting (if only by stipulation) the duplication⁵ problems. It also correctly widens “memory” to include other psychological attributes This both allows for bouts of amnesia and takes into account the following four relations:-
     1. Present-past: Y’s memories of the acts and experiences of X.
     2. Present-future: X has an intention that Y carries out.
     3. Persistence: X’s beliefs, desires and goals are had by Y.
     4. Resemblance: X and Y have similar characters.
        
   • Continuity: PC refers to psychological continuity, and Shoemaker makes the same distinction between continuity and connectedness⁶ that I’ve noted elsewhere (Click here for Note). If X and Y share the above four relations to some degree, they are psychologically connected to that degree. We can imagine all sorts of degrees of connectedness⁷, including zero. This means that psychological connectedness⁸ is as hopeless a criterion of PID as was memory – because of the failure of transitivity – as in Reid’s Brave Officer case considered under MC1 in "Shoemaker (David) - Personal Identity and Immortality". So, we need overlapping chains of psychological connections₉
   • Strong Connectedness¹⁰: Shoemaker is worried that some psychological connections are too weak to count. He gives the dubious example of a memory-trace transplant¹¹ that we’ve seen in the previous chapter – though his purpose is just to use this as an example of “minimal psychological connectedness”¹². So, how much connectedness¹³ is enough? It’s unclear – 100% is enough, but isn’t necessary. But the epithet Strong Connectedness¹⁴ reflects the achievement of the threshold, whatever it is. He quotes "Parfit (Derek) - Reasons and Persons", p. 206, where Parfit¹⁵ claims that it’s implausible to specify a threshold, but that we might take 50% of the normal day-to-day connections as sufficient. As Shoemaker notes, this is plucked out of the air₁₆.
   • Psychological Continuity¹⁷ : is what is needed – loosely defined as the concatenation of overlapping strongly-connected stages. Strong Connectedness¹⁸ itself is no use as an identity criterion¹⁹, as it is in general non-transitive. This agrees with our intuition that the 80-year-old is identical to the 10-year-old, despite minimal psychological connectedness²⁰, because there is a continuous stream₂₁ of psychology connecting the two.
   • Uniqueness: Shoemaker just notes that the uniqueness clause in PC is a stipulation, introduced as in MC3 to avoid some absurdities. But it itself seems absurd, in that it makes my identity dependent on someone else’s existence, in the duplication²² cases. A radical response is the IDM (Identity Doesn’t Matter) approach, but consideration of this is reserved until the next chapter ("Shoemaker (David) - Personal Identity and Self-Regarding Ethics - Alternative Approaches"). For now Shoemaker thinks we must live with this absurdity as at least it’s better than the SC and BBMC (unmotivated), and less absurd than BC. It’s also well-motivated, as it accounts for RA – for how can I rationally anticipate some future state with which I’m not psychologically continuous₂₃?
   • Wide and Narrow Criteria: of psychological continuity²⁴; depending on the cause of the continuity.
     1. On the Narrow Criterion, we require the normal (brain-based) cause.
     2. On the Wide Criterion, any psychology-preserving cause will do, provided the psychological continuity²⁵ is unique₂₆.
        
3. Advantages of the PC
   • Rational Anticipation: is accommodated well (as is self-concern). Without psychological connection to a future person, why should I care about his fate? The PC – by tying identity to psychology – has it that the future person is both me, and has my psychology, so it makes good sense for me to be prudentially concerned with his welfare.
   • Resurrection: makes sense on the Wide Criterion of the PC. You, on the PC account, would survive the death of your body if psychological continuity²⁷ is uniquely preserved.
   • Self-identification: is performed using psychological criteria²⁸. We don’t check we have woken up in the same body, or have the same soul. Shoemaker notes that people can be deluded as to their identities (in “Napoleon”, or duplication²⁹ cases), but in general the PC is a reliable indicator.
4. Disadvantages of the PC
   • The Method of Cases Problem – Intuition Reliability: our intuitions in the various TEs that try to prise apart body and psychology are that “we go where our psychologies go” But, we’re asked to imagine cases that could not happen (based on our current knowledge and skill). So, how are we to trust our intuitions? And things are no better if we try to imagine these cases happening for beings for which they could happen. In neither case can we draw “enlightening and stable” philosophical conclusions. Shoemaker thinks this response overblown. We (presumably) share concepts and values with those to whom the TEs are actual, so what’s the problem? They only differ in technology, and would have the same rational anticipation as we do.
   • The Method of Cases Problem – Contradictory Intuitions: Shoemaker rehearses the well-known case in "Williams (Bernard) - The Self and the Future" where different descriptions of what is exactly the same situation give contradictory intuitions. Does this invalidate all TEs? Shoemaker thinks not, as the Williams case may be a one-off, or nearly so. But, he also suggests that even if we can’t rely on TEs₃₀, the PC doesn’t depend just on TEs, but has other advantages₃₁.
   • The Essence Problem: Shoemaker considers this – the most troublesome problem facing the PC. It starts from the question What are we³²?. This leads on to kinds, in particular to …
   • Basic Kinds: we belong to lots of kinds … from parents to human animals³³ to philosophers to persons to … but the question is what we are³⁴ essentially, and this is our basic kind₃₅, which defines our necessary identity conditions (Click here for Note on persistence criteria, a related term). Shoemaker rehearses the different persistence criteria³⁶ of statues³⁷ and lumps of bronze (though does not draw the conclusion that there’s such a thing as contingent identity as does the well-known statue/clay³⁸ paper "Gibbard (Allan) - Contingent Identity").
   • So, what are we³⁹? The answer given by supporters of the PC is that we are essentially persons and our persistence criteria⁴⁰ are psychological. Shoemaker quotes the famous Lockean definition. Shoemaker notes that this Lockean use of the term person is as something of a term of art, in that it pulls apart the notions of “person” and “human being”, which are often conflated in popular diction. In Locke’s terms, a human being might not be a person if the appropriate psychological factors fail. But this leads to problems:-
   • The Fetus₄₁ Problem: Since (early term) fetuses don’t have the appropriate psychology, I couldn’t have been one if I’m essentially a person. But,
     1. doesn’t it make sense to say – looking at an old sonogram – “that’s me”?
     2. if you had fetal alcohol syndrome, wouldn’t it make sense to say that you had been damaged in utero?. So,
     3. “just as … I existed prior to being an adult, so … I existed prior to being a person₄₂.”.
        
   • The PVS⁴³ Problem: If I suffer a brain-injury and enter a PVS, then according to the PC, I would cease to exist – since I’m essentially a person, and those in PVSs⁴⁴, lacking any psychology, are not persons. But wouldn’t my hospital visitors be visiting me? The being in the PVS⁴⁵ would seem to be the same human animal⁴⁶ as me, at any rate.
   • The Person / Animal Problem: The human animal⁴⁷ and the person are not temporally co-extensive, and this leads to two problems, effectively a dilemma:-
     1. On the assumption that there’s only one substance present at a time, what happens to the non-person at the temporal termini of the person? Shoemaker (for good reason) denies that it dies or disappears when the person arises, or that it’s born or pops into existence when the person ceases. Birth and death don’t work that way (they are biological terms) and things just don’t pop in and out of existence (as far as we know).
     2. The alternative is that there are two partially temporally and spatially overlapping substances. Then, during the period of existence of the person, there are two co-located things present. Shoemaker contents himself with saying that this seems a little odd₄₈.
5. The Biological Criterion⁴⁹: We are essentially human animals⁵⁰, and personhood is (like adulthood) a stage certain special animals go through. So:-
   • BioC: if X is a person at T1, and Y exists at T2, then X=Y iff Y’s biological organism is identical to X’s biological organism.
     Notes₅₁.
6. Three Points: Shoemaker points out three aspects of the BioC:-
   • Non-persons: It’s no longer assumed that both X and Y are persons. This represents a departure from the previous attempts at developing identity criteria⁵² for persons₅₃.
   • Biological Continuity₅₄: the BioC cashes out as continuity of biological organisms, which in turn (says Shoemaker) cashes out in terms of inheritance of life-sustaining functions or, alternatively, of tracking a biological organism uniquely through space-time.
   • Organisms, not Bodies: the BioC is not at all the same as the BC. Following Olson (in "Olson (Eric) - The Human Animal - Personal Identity Without Psychology", no page reference), Shoemaker sees two objections to bodies as such. Just what is meant by a human body?
     1. It is what we can feel and directly move.
     2. It is that to which any of your temporal or spatial attributes really apply.
        
     Both of these proposals are open to objections and counter-examples:-
     1. At least three objections:-
        → Paralysed people have bodies;
        → We cannot move internal organs, which are still body-parts;
        → We directly move implements and prosthetics.
     2. The objection is that this proposal assumes (says Shoemaker) what is in question – that I am my body – because it assigns all my physical and spatio-temporal attributes to my body. But (says Shoemaker) some deny that I am my body – in which case we have two possessors of these attributes – me and my body. By denying this, the second attempt to clarify what is meant by “body” fails as well.
        
     Note₅₅
7. Three advantages₅₆ of the BioC over the PC:
   • Provides a more plausible account of our essence: Because I and “my” animal are one and the same thing, the BioC makes good sense of saying that I – whose current phase is a person – was once a fetus⁵⁷ and may be in a PVS⁵⁸.
   • Provides a tight and direct connection between the metaphysical and epistemological criteria of identity: I can’t see psychologies₅₉ or souls, but I can see the human animal⁶⁰.
   • Is broader, in that it provides PCs for human non-persons: Shoemaker’s example is that of an anencephalic infant – which he describes in a footnote as “ … lacking a major portion of the brain … The lack of a forebrain means that the child will be permanently without any conscious functions”. Now, I dare say this is debatable – are no animals without forebrains conscious? Just where is conscious experience “generated₆₁”? Either way, isn’t the issue that it’s not phenomenal consciousness that’s definitive of the person, but self-consciousness⁶² – and this is probably lacking from perfectly normal infants. So, the BioC allows me to say that I was once an infant, which is not really open to the supporter of the PC (though it is to the supporter of the SC).
8. Problems for the BioC:
   • The Conjoined⁶³ Twins⁶⁴ Case: Shoemaker thinks it’s obvious that in the Hensel dicephalus case that we have two persons in one body – and, more to the point here – one human organism₆₅. DeGrazia’s view (in "DeGrazia (David) - Human Identity and Bioethics"), says Shoemaker, is that we have two overlapping organisms as they mostly have separate organs. Shoemaker’s view is that all this is too quick. He admits that there are cases of conjoined⁶⁶ twins⁶⁷ – eg. the original Siamese Twins⁶⁸ (Eng and Chang Bunker – see Wikipedia: Chang and Eng Bunker) – where it is natural to think that we do have two human animals⁶⁹ joined by a band of flesh. But, in the case of the dicephalus⁷⁰, the twins⁷¹ have a single skin, various shared vital organs, and if one were to die, the death of the other would shortly follow₇₂. Shoemaker takes this fact to imply that they are a single organism.
     Shoemaker presses this thought by considering (hypothetical) cases even more conjoined⁷³ than the Hensel twins⁷⁴, eg.
     1. Where there is one body and two heads: in this case, taking separate cardio-pulmonary systems as individuative of organisms (which works for the Hensels) would fail and
     2. Shared body and brain-stem, but two cerebra and faces: there would be a single autonomic control centre, but two streams of consciousness.
        
     Note₇₅.
     Shoemaker says that DeGrazia – an animalist⁷⁶ – claims this latter case (ii) is an analogue of MPD⁷⁷ – ie. there is a single organism but two streams of consciousness. Shoemaker rejects this response, on the grounds that in MPD the streams of consciousness are cut off from one another. But whatever our view on this score, his main objection is that the motivation for saying that the Hensel twins⁷⁸ are two individuals – that they disagree about things and are otherwise independent – would (ex hypothesi) be true in the case of case (2); so, if DeGrazia is willing to agree that the Hensel twins⁷⁹ are two persons and two individuals (human animals⁸⁰) he should have the same view in case (2) – but it is hard to argue that the extreme case of conjoint twins⁸¹ really does represent two almost overlapping animals (which is why DeGrazia tries to wriggle out of the problem by introducing the MPD⁸² analogy).
   • The Corpse⁸³ Problem: There’s physical continuity⁸⁴ between me and my dead body – but what is my relationship to it? There are three alternatives, says Shoemaker:-
     1. I will be that corpse⁸⁵: Shoemaker thinks this “wildly implausible” – though admits that some have held this view. His reason is that, at death, the presumption is that “we are no more”, and that this is what mourning is all about. He sees incoherence₈₆ if we were still there, as a corpse⁸⁷.
     2. My “corpse-to-be”⁸⁸ has existed all the while alongside me: Shoemaker thinks this is both “creepy” and that it undermines the main motivation for animalism⁸⁹ – on not having two things of different kinds co-located (ie. persons and animals – or in this case, animals and “corpses-to-be”)⁹⁰. So, does Baker – and Olson, though Olson gets out of the bind by denying that this is a sensible option, instead preferring …
     3. My corpse⁹¹ comes into existence at my death: This is Shoemaker’s “best bet” (and rightly so) – because the persistence conditions⁹² of a human animal⁹³ and a corpse⁹⁴ are so different, why are they not different things? But he’s worried by the vagueness of death – just when do I cease to exist and my corpse⁹⁵ start to exist? He’s worried₉₆ by this for two reasons:
        1. it’s worrying that we can’t tell the demarcation between two such distinct entities and
        2. if we’re reduced to a stipulation, how can this have an ontological impact?
           
   • The Transplant⁹⁷ Intuition: Animalism⁹⁸ seems to give the wrong₉₉ answer – in that the recipient of the cerebrum transplant¹⁰⁰ is (said to be) the same animal as prior to the graft – but now confused as to its identity.
   • The Prudential Concerns Problem: The assumption has been that identity is a necessary condition for rational anticipation and prudential self-concern (and I agree) – but is it a sufficient condition? Not for the animalist¹⁰¹, for though I am identical to the unfortunate in the PVS¹⁰², there’s nothing to anticipate. The animalist¹⁰³ can respond by simply denying the sufficiency condition – but we still have a distinction between what is rationally required and what is permissible. I’m permitted₁₀₄ to anticipate the experiences of my senile old self, but not required₁₀₅ to do so (says Shoemaker); but it’s not permitted for me to anticipate anything from a PVS¹⁰⁶.
9. Summary: PC vs BioC
   
   

   Criterion / Considerations	Psychological	Biological
   Pro	1. “Intuition pump” science fiction cases 2. Self-identification 3. Rational Anticipation	1. Our Essence 2. Third-person identification 3. Identity conditions of human non-persons
   Con	1. Method of Cases problem 2. The Essence Problem:- → Fetus107, → PVS108, → Person/Animal	1. Dicephalus109 2. Corpse110 Problem 3. Transplant111 Intuition 4. Rational Anticipation

10. Who wins?:
    • Shoemaker thinks the game is undecided. We can’t count bullets and declare the PC the winner, as the Essence Problem is the most serious issue. BC’s failure on the issue of Rational Anticipation might be deemed irrelevant if we’re more interested in metaphysics than practical concerns.
    • So, it’s pretty much a draw, and it’s unclear how to make progress. Shoemaker seems three possibilities:-
      1. Look in detail at the defences each side provides to counter the objections. Since each side has lots of smart advocates, we can’t expect a resolution any time soon₁₁₂.
      2. See how the rival theories perform when stressed by various moral concerns, such as abortion¹¹³, advance directives, moral responsibility and compensation – a job for Part 2 of the book.
      3. See if there are radical alternatives – the job of the next chapter ("Shoemaker (David) - Personal Identity and Self-Regarding Ethics - Alternative Approaches").
11. Works Cited:-
    • "DeGrazia (David) - Human Identity and Bioethics"
    • "Johnston (Mark) - Human Beings"
    • "Johnston (Mark) - Reasons and Reductionism"
    • "Locke (John) - Of Identity and Diversity"
    • "Olson (Eric) - The Human Animal - Personal Identity Without Psychology"
    • "Wilkes (Kathleen) - Real People: Personal Identity Without Thought Experiments"
    • "Williams (Bernard) - The Self and the Future"
12. Outstanding Tasks¹¹⁴:
    • Complete an analysis of "Wilson (Jack) - Biological Individuality - The identity and Persistence of Living Entities",
    • Follow up on Olson’s and others accounts of bodies
    • Re-read "Blatti (Stephan) - Animalism, Dicephalus, and Borderline Cases" and decide what the import of the dicephalus¹¹⁵ is for animalism¹¹⁶.
    • Investigate the “vague transition” argument against animalism¹¹⁷ (part of the “corpse¹¹⁸ problem”).