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Personal Identity

Brain Criterion

(Text as at 20/09/2022 11:24:00)

Plug Note¹

• Thesis Text:
  1. The question is whether the brain is the be-all and end-all of the matter of personal identity for human persons².
  2. This view seems to be presupposed by those ethicists who espouse the (whole or part) brain death³ criterion for death⁴. There will be some overlap between this note and that on brain death.
  3. It is acknowledged by most that – conceptually at least – there can be persons⁵ that are not humans (ie. not members of the species homo sapiens) – whether these persons be non-human animals, computers, God, angels, aliens or whatever. Non-animals presumably have no brains, though aliens presumably have a brain-analogue, so brains cannot be identity-criteria for personhood as such (indeed, we might argue that there are no criteria for persons as such₆). But for animal-persons (human or otherwise), the brain seems to occupy a central place, both as the seat of psychology (in the absence of an immaterial soul⁷) and as the regulator of the body.
  4. So, the story would go, X is the same person as Y iff₈ X has the same brain as Y.
  5. The trouble is – even if this claim is along the right lines – we can press matters further, and ask whether the whole brain is strictly necessary. If what impresses us is a brain-based psychological view⁹, when what we imagine is “really the minimal me” is the pair of psychology-bearing cerebral hemispheres, then we might imagine (as some philosophers have) a case of fission¹⁰, where – after equalising the hemispheres in psychological potency, we transplant¹¹ one into another body lacking both hemispheres. Or, without needing anything so radical, we sever the corpus callosum in a commissurotomy¹², thereby (on this view) creating two persons in one body.
  6. However, if we are animalists¹³,¹⁴ wondering what the “minimal animal” is, and it’s the command-and-control functions of the brain that impress us, then the paring-down process might₁₅ be able to do without the cerebral hemispheres (or at least the psychology-bearing parts) altogether. So, brain-based views from different perspectives might come to different conclusions about the importance of the cerebral hemispheres – one view might make them essential, the other irrelevant to questions of identity (if not to “what matters¹⁶”). It is an empirical question whether the brain-stem can be divided, and hence whether a brain-based animalist approach is also subject to worries₁₇ about fission.
  7. Anyway, the appropriateness of the Brain criterion of personal identity depends on what we are¹⁸– in particular whether we are (most fundamentally, or in the sense of numerical identity¹⁹, which is not the same thing) human animals or persons constituted by²⁰ them (or various other things).
  8. Only if we believe that we are (identical to) brains²¹ will we adopt the brain criterion (though see Mark Johnston on Human Beings²²).
• There will naturally be some overlap on this topic with the topics of
  → Brains²³ and
  → Criteria of Identity²⁴.
• For a page of Links²⁵ to this Note, Click here. Slim pickings.
• Works on this topic that I’ve actually read²⁶, include the following:-
  • General:
    1. "Garrett (Brian) - Criteria of Personal Identity", 1998
    2. "Gert (Bernard), Lizza (John), Youngner (Stuart) & Chiong (Winston) - Matters of 'Life' and 'Death'", 2006, Annotations, Internal PDF Link
    3. "Johnston (Mark) - Human Beings", 1987, Write-Up Note²⁷, Annotations, Internal PDF Link, Footnote₂₈
    4. "Manninen (Tuomas) - Review of Alva Noe's 'Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain'", 2009, External Link
    5. "Noonan (Harold) - An Initial Survey", 2003, Annotations
    6. "Parfit (Derek) - Nagel's Brain", 1986
    7. "Snowdon (Paul) - The Self and Personal Identity", 2009, Write-Up Note²⁹
    8. "Thomas (Janice L.) - The bodily criterion", 2000
• A further reading list might start with:-
  • General:
    1. "Cockburn (David) - The Mind, the Brain and the Face", 1985, Internal PDF Link
    2. "Feinberg (Todd) - Our Brains, Our Selves", 2006, Internal PDF Link
    3. "Hershenov (David) - Who Doesn't Have a Problem of Too Many Thinkers?", 2013, External Link, Internal PDF Link, Read = 17%
    4. "Merricks (Trenton) - There Are No Criteria For Identity Over Time", 1998, Internal PDF Link
    5. "Noe (Alva) - Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness", 2009, Book, Read = 8%
    6. "Olson (Eric) - What Are We? Brains", 2007, Internal PDF Link, Read = 33%
    7. "Parfit (Derek) - Persons, Bodies, and Human Beings", 2007, Internal PDF Link, Read = 7%
    8. "Tzinman (Rina) - Against the Brainstem View of the Persistence of Human Animals", 2016, Internal PDF Link, Read = 8%

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• For a list of Works that have been considered, but have missed the cut for inclusion in my Thesis, see the following lists of Works Read / Further items:-
  1. Read:-
  2. Further Reading:-
     
• This is mostly a place-holder³⁰.

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In-Page Footnotes:

Footnote 6:

1. Hasn’t someone said this? Who? Wiggins?
2. This is not to be confused with there being no criteria for identity – ie. for the relation itself – which is due to Merricks (eg. in "Merricks (Trenton) - There Are No Criteria For Identity Over Time").

Footnote 8:

1. And, of course, “X and Y are both persons”, to cover the case where the brain is insufficient to support the property of personhood.

Footnote 15:

1. Much of this discussion has empirical aspects to it, and depends on the capabilities of real brains – though we might get into the choppy waters of more intricate TEs, and wonder what might be the case if the biology went differently – but then we would most likely not be talking about our identity criteria, but of some other being.

Footnote 17:

1. These worries about fission are essentially set to rest by adopting a perdurantist account of persistence.
2. But, some consider the costs (mainly semantic, I think) of adopting this approach are too great.

Footnote 28:

• Johnston thinks we are human beings, but – when push comes to shove – we would survive as brains, so the criteria of our identity are – for Johnston – brain based.

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Table of the Previous 7 Versions of this Note:

Date	Length	Title
11/04/2022 00:01:26	5532	Brain Criterion
07/02/2021 19:46:34	5339	Brain Criterion
04/12/2019 23:36:58	4896	Brain Criterion
14/03/2018 10:07:41	5786	Brain Criterion
03/02/2018 18:44:38	5454	Brain Criterion
14/07/2013 23:02:24	3802	Brain Criterion
25/05/2010 14:58:34	84	Brain Criterion

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Note last updated	Reading List for this Topic	Parent Topic
20/09/2022 11:24:00	Brain Criterion	Logic of Identity

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Summary of Notes Referenced by This Note

Animalism	Animalists	Awaiting Attention (Personal Identity)	Brain	Brain Death
Brain Transplants	Commissurotomy	Constitution	Criteria of Identity	Death
Fission	Human Beings	Human Persons	Johnston - Human Beings	Note Links Explanation
Numerical Identity	Perdurantism	Person	Plug Note Apologia	Psychological View
Snowdon - The Self and Personal Identity	Souls	Thought Experiments	What are We?	What Matters
Wiggins	Works Read - Explanation

To access information, click on one of the links in the table above.

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Summary of Notes Citing This Note

Baker - Personal Identity Over Time	Brain	Brain Death	General Surveys	PID Note, Book & Paper Usage, 2, 3
Snowdon - The Self and Personal Identity	Thesis - Chapter 01 (Introduction)	Thesis - Chapter 02 (What are We?), 2, 3, 4, 5, 6	Thesis - Chapter 07 (The Constitution View and Arguments for It)	Thesis - Current Stance
Website Generator Documentation - Functors, 2, 3, 4, 5

To access information, click on one of the links in the table above.

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Authors, Books & Papers Citing this Note

Author	Title	Medium	Extra Links	Read?
Baker (Lynne Rudder)	Personal Identity Over Time	Paper		Yes
Clark (Andy) & Kuhn (Robert Lawrence)	Aeon: Video - Andy Clark - Virtual immortality	Paper		Yes
Garrett (Brian)	Criteria of Personal Identity	Paper	2, 3	Yes
Gert (Bernard), Lizza (John), Youngner (Stuart) & Chiong (Winston)	Matters of 'Life' and 'Death'	Paper		Yes
Hershenov (David)	Who Doesn't Have a Problem of Too Many Thinkers?	Paper
Noonan (Harold)	An Initial Survey	Paper		Yes
Olson (Eric)	Animalism and the Remnant-Person Problem	Paper		Yes
Olson (Eric)	Psychology and Personal Identity	Paper		Yes
Olson (Eric)	Why We Need Not Accept the Psychological Approach	Paper		Yes
Parfit (Derek)	Persons, Bodies, and Human Beings	Paper
Potts (Michael)	A Requiem for Whole Brain Death: A Response to D. Alan Shewmon's ‘The Brain and Somatic Integration’	Paper
Snowdon (Paul)	Persons, Animals, Ourselves: Introduction	Paper		Yes
Snowdon (Paul)	The Self and Personal Identity	Paper		Yes
Thomas (Janice L.)	The bodily criterion	Paper	2, 3, 4	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Brain	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Brain Death	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Chapter 01 (Introduction)	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Chapter 02 (What Are We?)	Paper	2, 3, 4, 5, 6	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Chapter 07 (The Constitution View and Arguments for It)	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Current Position	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - General Surveys	Paper		Yes

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References & Reading List

Author	Title	Medium	Source	Read?
Cockburn (David)	The Mind, the Brain and the Face	Paper - Cited	Philosophy, Vol. 60, No. 234 (Oct., 1985), pp. 477-493	No
Feinberg (Todd)	Our Brains, Our Selves	Paper - Cited	Daedalus, Vol. 135, No. 4, On Identity (Fall, 2006), pp. 72-80	No
Garrett (Brian)	Criteria of Personal Identity	Paper - Cited	Garrett - Personal Identity and Self-consciousness, 1998, Chapter 3	Yes
Garrett (Brian)	Personal Identity and Self-consciousness	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	Yes
Gert (Bernard), Lizza (John), Youngner (Stuart) & Chiong (Winston)	Matters of 'Life' and 'Death'	Paper - Cited	The Hastings Center Report, Vol. 36, No. 3 (May - Jun., 2006), pp. 4-6	Yes
Hershenov (David)	Who Doesn't Have a Problem of Too Many Thinkers?	Paper - Cited	American Philosophical Quarterly, 50:2, April 2013, 203-208	17%
Johnston (Mark)	Human Beings	Paper - Cited	Journal of Philosophy, Volume 84, Issue 2 (Feb 1987), 59-83	Yes
Manninen (Tuomas)	Review of Alva Noe's 'Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain'	Paper - Cited	Metapsychology Online Reviews, Sep 15th 2009 (Volume 13, Issue 38)	Yes
Merricks (Trenton)	There Are No Criteria For Identity Over Time	Paper - Cited	Noûs, Vol. 32, No. 1 (Mar., 1998), pp. 106-124	No
Noe (Alva)	Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness	Book - Cited	Noe (Alva) - Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness	8%
Noonan (Harold)	An Initial Survey	Paper - Cited	Noonan - Personal Identity, 2003, Chapter 1	Yes
Noonan (Harold)	Personal Identity	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	Yes
Olson (Eric)	Psychology and Personal Identity	Paper - Referencing	The Human Animal, September 1999, Chapter 1, pp. 7-21	Yes
Olson (Eric)	The Human Animal - Personal Identity Without Psychology	Book - Referencing (via Paper Referencing)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	Yes
Olson (Eric)	What are We? A Study of Personal Ontology	Book - By Subtopic (via Paper By Subtopic)	Olson (Eric) - What are We? A Study of Personal Ontology	68%
Olson (Eric)	What Are We? Brains	Paper - By Subtopic	What Are We? A Study in Personal Ontology, Chapter 4 (November 2007: Oxford University Press.)	33%
Olson (Eric)	Why We Need Not Accept the Psychological Approach	Paper - Referencing	The Human Animal, September 1999, Chapter 3, pp. 42-72	Yes
Parfit (Derek)	Nagel's Brain	Paper - Cited	Parfit - Reasons and Persons, Appendix D	Yes
Parfit (Derek)	Reasons and Persons	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	Yes
Shand (John)	Central Issues of Philosophy	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	35%
Snowdon (Paul)	Persons, Animals, Ourselves	Book - Referencing (via Paper Referencing)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	21%
Snowdon (Paul)	Persons, Animals, Ourselves: Introduction	Paper - Referencing	Snowdon (Paul) - Persons, Animals, Ourselves - Introduction	Yes
Snowdon (Paul)	The Self and Personal Identity	Paper - Cited	Shand (John) - Central Issues of Philosophy, Chapter 9	Yes
Thomas (Janice L.)	Mind and Person in the Philosophy of Religion	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	Yes
Thomas (Janice L.)	The bodily criterion	Paper - Cited	Thomas (Janice L.) - Mind and Person in the Philosophy of Religion	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Brain Criterion	Paper - By Subtopic		Yes

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1. Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2022

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