Deck 17: Who Am I the Problem of Personal Identity

Question 1

David Hume argued against the view that the "I"is nothing more than a bundle of perceptions.

Answer 1

False

Question 2

The body criterion could be criticized based on the fact that almost all cells in our body change every seven years.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

Derik Parfit says that personal identity is different from the survival of the person.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

Derik Parfit's thought experiments are all attempts to preserve and defend the notion of personal identity.

Question 5

The problem of Theseus's ship is that two ships were manufactured to look alike and Theseus could not tell them apart.

Question 6

When the corpus callosum is cut, two different centers of consciousness can be created.

Question 7

An outcome of Parfit's view is that the person I am at eighteen will not be the same person as the successor self who dies at seventy-eight.

Question 8

David Hume claimed that the self was very likely

A) a nonphysical substance.
B) an enduring identity rooted in the brain.
C) a fiction.
D) something that exists parallel to the body, but is not affected by it.

Question 9

The story of the ship of Theseus raises the question:

A) Were we, like the ship, created to serve a purpose?
B) What does it mean for something to have a continuous identity over time?
C) Can we ever know what is going on inside a person
D) What guidelines do we use to navigate through life?

Question 10

John Locke rooted the notion of personal identity in

A) the continuity of memories.
B) the continuity of the physical body.
C) the brain.
D) all of the above

Question 11

Thomas Reid used the transitivity of memories as a basis to

A) support reincarnation.
B) support Locke's theory.
C) criticize Locke's theory.
D) argue against the body criterion.

Question 12

Which of the following considerations can be used to criticize the psychological states criterion?

A) the fact that our memories are not continuous
B) the phenomenon of multiple personalities.
C) the possibility that different souls could have the same memories
D) all of the above

Question 13

Derik Parfit says that the six-year old you once were could be said to be

A) identical to you, since there is physical continuity between your bodies.
B) a totally different person from you, since you have had experiences that the six-year old never had.
C) your ancestor self, from whom you have emerged.
D) merely a moment in a passing flow of experiences in which there are no persons or selves.

Question 14

If each half of your brain were transplanted into different bodies such that each one is psychologically continuous with the original "you" Derik Parfit would say about your personal identity that

A) you would not be identified with either person and, hence, your personal identity would be lost.
B) your identity would be more continuous with only one of those persons.
C) your personal identity would be transplanted into both persons.
D) there is no true answer, for personal identity is a faulty notion.

Question 15

What is the psychological states criterion? What objections can be raised against it?

Question 16

How might the psychological states criterion be used by a defense attorney to plead her client's innocence for a crime he committed thirty years ago? How might the prosecutor usethe body or brain criteria to argue for the defendant's guilt?

Question 17

What is Derik Parfit's view of the difference between personal identity and personal survival? Which notion does Parfit prefer? Why?

Question 18

What would Parfit say about your relationship to your six-year old self, your self one year ago, and your self one hour ago? In what sense, if any, and to what degree are you identical to each one?