Concept of Personal Identity

The Ordinary Concept of Personal Identity

What is required for an individual A at an earlier time to be the same person as an individual B at a later time? The philosophical literature on personal identity is rich, but here I present experimental evidence demonstrating that the ordinary concept of personal identity differs from that assumed by many of these philosophical discussions. Specifically, I challenge three common assumptions a...

Of Personal Identity

There are some philosophers who imagine we are every moment intimately conscious of what we call our self; that we feel its existence and its continuance in existence; and are certain, beyond the evidence of a demonstration, both of its perfect identity and simplicity. The strongest sensation, the most violent passion, say they, instead of distracting us from this view, only fix it the more int...

Personal Identity and Uploading

Objections to uploading may be parsed into substrate issues, dealing with the computer platform of upload and personal identity. This paper argues that the personal identity issues of uploading are no more or less challenging than those of bodily transfer often discussed in the philosophical literature. It is argued that what is important in personal identity involves both token and type identi...

Inferences About Personal Identity

We investigate the features people use in making inferences about continuity of individual persons. Using a transformation paradigm, we show that people weigh both continuity of the brain and continuity of mental content. Across experiments, we document instances in which participants are more likely to assert individual continuity than continuity of personhood. We discuss these results in term...

Utilitarianism and Personal Identity