PHIL102 Quiz: Parfit on personal identity

• School: University of Alberta
• Department: Philosophy at St Joseph's College
• Course: PHIL102
• Professor: Phil Corkum

Document Summary

Psychology theory captures the good ideas from most past theories such as. Brain theory, locke theory and modified locke theory. Sticks with descartes" view that i am essentially a thinking things. Whatever the answers are, they are important in explicating the reasons one must have responsibility for their past actions and fear for their future. Attacks psychology theory by asking whether any account of remaining numerically identical over time is relevant to the significance of personal identity. Survival is the key factor in determining the persistence of personal identity, Parfit uses imagined cases to show that there are blurred lines when determining what matter for persistence of personal identity when using numerical identity as a determinant. Problem: numerical identity is a one-one relationship: what matters in survival can be one-many. Problem: numerical identity is all or nothing: what matters in survival comes in degrees. Problem: numerical identity is transitive: what matters for survival is not.