personal identity

• there are three main ideas about personal identity
• 1st view: physicalist

  • personal identity is physical
  • a functioning brain is essential to being a person
  • there are many changes to the body throughout life
  • body identity is about spatio-temporal continuity
• 2nd view: metaphysical

  • personal identity is metaphysical
  • what is real about individuals is their unchanged conscious awareness
• 3rd view: psychological

  • personal identity is psychological
  • thinker: Derek Parfit
  • during our lives there is a connectedness to the past + future, but no deeper + enduring level of 'self'
  • there is genetic + psychological continuity with ancestors
• Bundle Theory was developed by Parfit (psychological)

  • argues against the idea of some core 'self', as identity changes through time - instead it depends on a number of features
  • what matters is psychological connectedness e.g. memory, personality
  • thus, you do not survive death as the 'same person' - you have continuity with your ancestors; and your descendants will be psychologically connected to you, but you do not survive in any deeper sense