Personal Identity (Blackwell Readings in Philosophy)

401 Pages·2002·3.54 MB·English

by  John Barresi, Raymond Martin

Personal Identity
Edited by
Raymond Martin
and
John Barresi
äjk Blackwel
Publishing
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To
David Lewis (1941-2001)
and
Robert Nozick (1938-2002)
in recognition of their contributions
to personal identity theory
Contents
Contributors ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: Personal Identity and What Matters in Survival :
An Histor ical Overv iew 1
Raymond Martin and John Barresi
1 The Self and the Future 75
Bernard Williams
2 Personal Identity through Time 92
Robert Nozick
3 W h y O u r Identity Is N o t What Matters 115
Derek Parfit
4 Surviva l and Identity 144
David Lewis
5 Personal Identity and the U n i t y of Agency:
A Kant ian Response to Parfit 168
Christine M. Korsgaard
6 Fission and the Focus of One's Life 184
Peter linger
7 Surv iv ing Matters 199
Ernest Sosa
v i i i Contents
8 Fision Rejuvenation 216
Raymond Martin
9 Empathie Access: The Mis s ing Ingredient in
Personal Identity 238
Marya Schechtman
10 H u m a n Concerns without Superlative Selves 260
Mark Johnston
1 The Unimportance of Identity 292
Derek Parfit
12 An Argument for A n i m a l i s m 318
Eric T. Olson
13 The Self 35
Galen Strawson
Boks on Personal Identity since 1970 378
Index 382
Contributors
John Barresi is Professor of Psychology at Dalhousie University. He has
written in the areas of personology, social cognition, philosophical psych-
ology and the history of psychology. Wi th Raymond Martin, he authored
Naturalization of the Soul: Self and Personal Identity in the Eighteenth Century
(2000).
Mark Johnston is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Philosophy
Department at Princeton University. He is the author of a number of
influential articles in ethics, philosophy of mind, metaphysics, philosoph-
ical logic, and personal identity theory.
Christine M. Korsgaard is the Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of
Philosophy at Harvard University. Her books include Creating the
Kingdom of Ends (1996) and The Sources of Normativity (1996). She is
also a co-editor of Reclaiming the History of Ethics: Essays for John Rawls
(1997).
David Lewis, recently deceased, taught for most of his career at Prince-
ton University. His books include Convention (1969), Counterfactuals
(1973), On the Plurality of Worlds (1986), and Parts of Classes (1991).
Many of his more important papers are collected in Philosophical Papers
(1986).
Raymond Martin taught at the University of Maryland before becoming
Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the department at Union College.
His books include The Past within Us (1989) and Self-Concern: An Experien-
tial Approach to What Matters in Survival (1998).
Robert Nozick, recently deceased, was Pellegrino University Professor at
Harvard University. His books include Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974),
Philosophical Explanations (1981), The Examined Life (1989), The Nature of
X Contributors
Rationality (1993), and Invariances: The Structure of the Objective World
(2001).
Eric T. Olson is a fellow at Churchi l l College, Cambridge University. He
is the author of a number of influential articles in metaphysics and the
philosophy of mind, and also the author of The Human Animal: Personal
Identity without Psychology (1997).
Derek Parfit is a Senior Research Fellow of A l l Souls, Oxford University.
He is also a Fellow of the British Academy and of the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences. In addition to Oxford, he has taught at Harvard
University and N e w York University. His Reasons and Persons (1984) is
perhaps the most influential book of the twentieth century on personal
identity theory.
Marya Schechtman is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Univer-
sity of Illinois, Chicago. She is the author of a number of influential
articles in personal identity theory and the philosophy of mind, and
also the author of The Constitution of Selves (1996).
Ernest Sosa is Romeo Elton Professor of Natural Theology and Professor
of Philosophy at Brown University and Distinguished Visit ing Professor at
Rutgers University. He is the author of numerous influential articles in the
areas of epistemology, metaphysics, and moral epistemology.
Galen Strawson taught at Jesus College, Oxford University, before
moving to the University of Reading, where he is Professor of Philoso-
phy. His books include Freedom and Belief (1986), The Secret Connexion:
Realism, Causation, and David Hume (1989), and Mental Reality (1994).
Currently he is working on a book on the self.
Peter Unger is Professor of Philosophy at N e w York University. His
books include Ignorance: A Case for Scepticism (1975), Philosophical Relativ-
ity (1984), Identity, Consciousness and Value (1990), and Living High and
Letting Die: Our Illusion of Innocence (1996).
Bernard Williams is Emeritus Professor of Mora l Philosophy and Fellow
of A l l Souls, Oxford University. In 1999, he was knighted for his contri-
butions to philosophy. His books include Descartes: The Project of Pure
Inquiry (1979), Moral Luck (1981), and Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy
(1985). Many of his most important essays on personal identity are
collected in his Problems of the Self (1973).
Preface
Each of us assumes that we remain who we are, through various changes,
from moment to moment, hour to hour, day to day, and so on. We persist
until we cease, perhaps at bodily death. Each of us also assumes that one
of our most fundamental egoistic desires is to persist. As we say, we want
to live. But what accounts for the fact, if it is a fact, that we remain the
same persons over time and through various changes? That question is
the philosophical problem of personal identity. A n d when, in ordinary cir-
cumstances, we want to persist, what is it that we really want - that is,
that each of us wants most fundamentally? That question is the philosoph-
ical problem of what matters primarily in survival. It is commonly assumed
that when people want to persist, what they really want is simply to
persist - that is, that their desire to persist cannot be derived from any
more fundamental desire. That answer is the thesis that identity is primarily
what matters in survival.
A l l of the readings in the present anthology are devoted either to
answering the philosophical problem of personal identity or to testing
the claim that identity is primarily what matters in survival, or both.
Inserted into the introductory essay are some classic readings by Locke
and Reid. Otherwise all of the readings included have been published
since 1970, which is about the time that personal identity theory made a
new beginning. The present anthology represents the issues that have
emerged in the wake of this new beginning.
The introductory essay, "Personal Identity and What Matters in Sur-
vival: An Historical Overview," is a substantial development of material
some of which has been previously published in Raymond Martin, "Per-
sonal Identity from Plato to Parfit," in D. Kolak and R. Martin, eds. The
Experience of Philosophy, 4th edn (1999) and 5th edn. (2001), and some in
Raymond Mart in and John Barresi, Naturalization of the Soul: Self and
Personal Identity in the Eighteenth Century (Routledge, 2000). We have
xii Preface
also drawn material for our introductory essay from Raymond Mart in
and John Barresi, The Rise and Fall of Soul and Self (forthcoming).
The chapter by Eric Olson and the "Postscript" by Galen Strawson
were written especially for this volume. We are very grateful for these
original contributions, which are published here with the kind permis-
sion of their authors.
Acknowledgments
The editor and publisher gratefully acknowledge the permission granted
to reproduce the copyright material in this book:
Chapter 1
Bernard Will iams, "The Self and the Future," pp. 161-80 from Philosoph-
ical Review 79 (1970). Copyright © 1970 Cornell University. Reprinted by
permission of the publisher.
Chapter 2
Robert Nozick, "Personal Identity through Time," reprinted by permis-
sion of the publisher from Philosophical Explanations by Robert Nozick, pp.
29-48,50-1,58-61, and 69. Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press, imprint
of Harvard University Press, 1981. Copyright © 1981 by Robert Nozick.
Chapter 3
Derek Parfit, " W h y Our Identity Is Not What Matters," pp. 199-201, 209-
10, 245-69, and 271 from Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1984 (repr. 1987)
Chapter 4
David Lewis, "Survival and Identity" and "Postscript," pp. 55-70 and
73-7 from Philosophical Papers, vol . 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1983. Copyright © by David Lewis.
Chapter 5
Christine M. Korsgaard, "Personal Identity and the Unity of Agency: A
Kantian Response to Parfit," from Philosophy and Public Affairs 18:2 (1989),
pp. 109-23, © The Johns Hopkins University Press. Reprinted by permis-
sion of the Johns Hopkins University Press.