PHL Exam 3

Thus, some have adopted...

Presentism Future-tense facts must be understood as "X will have the property of having been a certain way," since neither the past nor the future exist This doesn't solve eternalism's problem of not being able to account for the passage of time—its perspective is static

Harry Frankfurt

Principle of alternative possibilities & personhood

two senses of identity

Qualitative identity & Numerical identity

Third criterion

Sam: 1. When you wake up in the morning but before you open your eyes, you know who you are. 2. This is a judgment of personal identity without any perception of the body Therefore, 3. The body is not the criterion of personal identity. We can imagine waking up in someone else's body (Kafka's Metamorphosis) A river is the same river as yesterday even though the water molecules that make it up are different water molecules than made it up yesterday "Person-stages" psychological continuity criterion attributed to John Locke "The relation between two person-stages or stretches of consciousness that makes them stages of a single person is just that the later one contains memories of the earlier one."

Exception (weak reasons-responsiveness)

Sometimes we even hold those who are not even weakly reasons- responsive morally responsible for what they do Example: you choose to drink too much alcohol, and you become drunk. Once you are drunk, you are not even weakly reasons- responsive • We hold drunk people morally responsible for what they do while drunk if they chose to become drunk while weakly reasons- responsive

First thought experiment (williams)

Suppose A and B are about to go into a machine that will switch their minds Afterwards either the A-body-person or the B-body-person will be given $100,000, the other will be tortured Before the switch, whose body will A say should get the money after the switch? After the switch, the other body actually gets the money. A says...? What does this indicate about whether A and B really switched bodies?

Roderick Chisholm

The problem of freedom of the will • This is not political or legal freedom• This is metaphysical freedom• Freedom in this sense is opposed to determinism

Why this is relevant (velleman)

The self is usually thought of as enduring (not having temporal parts but existing entirely at every given time of my life) That is, it is the same me at my 5th birthday party as at my 75th birthday party The same 'I' remembers what 'I' did seventy years ago But endurantism says that an object exists wholly at one time, so it can't exist fully as the same person at every time Velleman says this is incoherent • The enduring self is incoherent, but we believe in it anyway• That makes it an illusion (something that keeps seeming to be one thing even when we know it is not that thing) • What would be the consequences of abolishing this illusion and conceiving of ourselves as perduring instead of enduring? • To understand this, we have to understand another illusion that goes along with endurantism

Ethical implications (parfit)

There is no self-interest if there is no future you to benefit from what you do today. If there are many future yous, there isn't a reason to care more about those future yous than present others or future others. But if we weaken egoism, would we also weaken virtuous emotions? Yes

Get rid of both illusions

Velleman says that the illusion of the self gives rise to the illusion of the passage of time The passage of time requires something to get closer to future times and further away from past times. That something seems to be the self Our incoherent endurantist notion of the self plays this role But since the endurantist notion of the self is an illusion, "so is the passage of time." Giving up the endurantist notion of the self would allow us to cease experiencing the passage of time: "Coming to think of myself as perduring should result in my coming to experience different temporal parts of myself at different moments,but [there is] no enduring self past which those moments flow." • At each time a different part of yourself is in existence • No time is special, and no part of yourself is special There wouldn't be one self to pass through time, but many self-parts to extend through time Time would not seem to pass, but I would rather seem to fill time If you are engrossed in an activity, you lose awareness of yourself and lose awareness of the passage of time • Perhaps "an arduous regiment of meditation" could permanently eliminate awareness of yourself and awareness of the passage of time

Williams thoughts (first thought experiment)

We are afraid both of having our memories (or other personal characteristics) tampered with and of being tortured (or going through something else unpleasant) afterward Having our memories (or other personal characteristics) tampered with does not prevent us from being afraid of torture (or going through something else unpleasant) This seems to indicate that we do not think that memory (or some other personal characteristic) is the criterion of personal identity

Williams thoughts (second thought experiment)

We reach contradictory conclusions about the two thought experiments "I am not in the least clear which option it would be wise to take if one were presented with them before the experiment. I find that rather disturbing." • We cannot shake the notion of 'risk'—that it could be, but also might not be me after the transformation! The notion of risk is a major feature of the problem

Variant B

What changes if A consented to the experiment to get away from anxiety and B consented to get away from painful

Variant C

What changes if I were told that I would be tortured but would have different memories when it happened? If you were afraid of this happening, it indicates that I would not believe my personal identity was changed

Variant A

What changes if the machine switches bodies instead of switching minds? Would A and B want to examine the other body before the switch? Would they complain about the new body and demand their old body back?

Identity

What counts as being identical to what is a metaphysical question In this case, the question is about the identity of persons Imagine a box of Kleenex is destroyed and one with the same dimensions, mass, and color is found. Is it the same one that was destroyed?

Determinism applies just as much to people as to things

Whether people will act in a certain way is just as determined as the actions of inanimate objects Imagine the person in the jail who has no money and no influential friends He is kept in jail by two things: the walls and bars on the one hand, and the jailer on the other He chooses to dig away at the walls or file away at the bars instead of trying to persuade the jailer to let him go because he considers the walls and bars to be easier to overcome than the will of another human being I don't fear that my wealthy and honest friend will stab me for my silver inkstand I don't fear that my new, solidly built house will suddenly collapse Couldn't your friend go insane or an earthquake shake your house? Yes, this could happen Is your friend going to put his hand into the fire and hold it there until it a blackened stump? Just as if he were to jump out the window and not run into something, he won't remain suspended but will fall If you leave money in a crowded urban place, someone will take it Liberty: the power of acting or not acting according to the determination of the will This is not the power to determine the will (to choose our wants) Liberty can only mean that our motives, inclinations, and circumstances cause our actions If it means that our motives, inclinations, and circumstances don't cause our actions, what then does it mean? Just because it's detrimental to religion and morality doesn't make it false • 'Cause' can mean two things: either • (1) that two things stand in constant conjunction with one another or • (2) that from one thing we infer another • (2) is perfectly compatible with determinism • We call it character or something else, but it is still necessity • We have a false sensation of liberty of indifference (the freedom to determine the will, to choose our wants) • We think it isn't necessary that we do what we do, but it is • We see the necessity in other people, but never in ourselves We blame people for what comes from their character more from what comes from temporary deviations from it In fact, we could only blame people if their actions were determined If determinism is true, then God seems to be responsible for all evil or there is no God Some say that the whole universe is arranged for the best. But this will comfort no one in distress

objection (hume)

You may object that the manners of people differ But all have their deterministic explanation People differ in their characters, prejudices, and opinions both among nations and within nations. This shows only the power of customs and education The different sexes have different characters imposed on them by nature The same person is different when young as compared to when old because of the gradual change of sentiment and inclination with age

Strong reasons-responsiveness

a mechanism that issues in action such that if there were any sufficient reason to do otherwise, one would choose to do otherwise and in fact do otherwise. • Three conditions: The agent must(1) take the reasons to be sufficient, (2) choose in accordance with the sufficient reason, and (3) act in accordance with the choice

Weak reasons-responsiveness

a mechanism that issues in action such that there is at least one sufficient reason to do otherwise that would result in one's choosing to do otherwise and doing otherwise We often know that we have sufficient reason to do something but fail to have a will strong enough to do it. Even if we could not have done otherwise, we are still morally responsible But as long as there were at least some reason that could have resulted in us choosing and acting otherwise, we are still morally responsible

Bernard Williams

a million thought experiments

Principle of Alternate Possibilities

a person is morally responsible for what he has done only if he could have done otherwise; Frankfurt argues this is false using thought experiments

Person-Stages

a stretch of consciousness...i am aware of a flow of thoughts and feelings that are mine...a person is just a whole composed of such stretches as parts, not some substance that underlies them

first order volition

a wills to do x

second order volition

a wills to will to do x

Immanent causation

an agent causes an event

Reasons-responsiveness

an agent is responsive to reason if and only if the person acts according to reasons "An agent is morally responsible for performing an action insofar as the mechanism that actually issues in the action is reasons- responsive."

wanton

being with no second-order volitions

Perry's Dialogue Character Sam

chaplain

Perry's Dialogue Character Dave

former student of Gretchen's

open-ended dialogues

invites to continue back and forth

Semicompatibilism

moral responsibility is compatible with causal determinism, even if causal determinism is incompatible with freedom to do otherwise An action that is causally determined can still be reasons-responsive, whereas one caused by the manipulation of an intelligent being isn't if you did it only because you were manipulated

Indeterminism

not all events are necessary; events are not determined but instead happen for no reason or not always for the same reason

Transeunt causation

one event causes another

Perry's Dialogue Character Gretchen

philosophy professor

Gretchen's Objection to third criterion

seeming to remember is not the same as actually remembering normally we determine whether or not an apparent memory is genuine by making a judgement about the identity of the people involved but here memory is the criterion of personal identity, so we cannot use identity to decide the question of whether an apparent memory is false or genuine if i die and a being is created that seems to remember everything that i remembered before i died, would that being have genuine memories? if i die and two beings are created that seems to remember everything that i remembered before i died, would both of those beings be me? either i survive as two people or i do not survive. Sam picks the latter option Gretchen objects that now memory is not the sole criterion of personal identity (lack of competition: uniqueness) "suppose God created this Heavenly person before I died. Then He in effect kills me;" "If he has already created her, then you really are not talking to whom you think, but someone new, created by Gretchen Weirob's strange death moments ago." "or suppose he first creates one being in heaven, who is me. then he creates another. does the first cease to be me?" "if God can create such beings in heaven, surely he can do so in Albuquerque. and there is nothing on your theory to favor this body before you as Gretchen Weirob's, over the one belonging to the person created in Albuquerque." "There would be here, in my place, a new person with false memories of having been Gretchen Weirob, who has just died of competition- a strange death if there ever was one." sam gives up on this criterion

Liberty

the power of acting or not acting according to the determination of the will

Perry's dialogue time

three nights

Objection to eternalism

time passes, but eternalism cannot describe time this way (it cannot make sense of a moving 'now')

Qualitative identity

two things with the same qualities are identical

Numerical identity

two things with the same qualities are not identical

Desire ≠ volition

we do not always act on our desires first-order volition Second-order volition: A wants his desire to do X to be effective (to be his will) • Only those who can have second-order volitions are persons • Wanton: being with no second-order volitions Wantons always act on their first-order desires if there is an opportunity to do so and first- order desires do not conflict Examples: small children, drug addicts who are far gone, LSU fans Wantons always act on their first-order desires if there is an opportunity to do so and first- order desires do not conflict Examples: small children, drug addicts who are far gone, LSU fans

fourth criterion

who is Julia? is a 1972 novel and in 1986 made for TV movie julia saved a child, but was severely injured in doing so Mary frances, the mother of the child had a stroke watching the scene julias brain was transplanted into mary frances's body everyone agrees the resulting person is Julia (except Mary frances's husband) "julia" still looked just like Mary frances, but she had all of julia's memories dave says this case shows that personal identity is not the same as bodily identity gretchen objects that "julia's" memories are false memories what if a court of law decides that the new person is Julia? hume thought that personal identity was a matter of convention but conventions change. if the case overturned on appeal, is "Julia" not Julia any more? Dave: courts of law exist to help us apply old concepts to new problems dave's solution forces us to choose between the body as the criterion of personal identity and psychological continuity as the criterion of personal identity Gretchen reveals that she has declined a body swap because she doesnt believe the survivor will be she which makes more sense: drastic psychological changes with the same body (phineas gage), or drastic bodily changes with the same mind? (Julia) Gretchen maintains that after the body swap operation, there would be psychological continuity ("Gretchen" would have the same memories as Gretchen), but "Gretchen" would have false memories dave replies that they would be true memories because the events apparently remembered really happened to her brain but gretchen asks what if her memories had been transferred to a new brain? dave says then the new person would not be Gretchen but such a person would have psychological continuity with Gretchen and if the hospital lost track of what happened, the new person would not know if she were really Gretchen Dave does not think it matters if the new person thinks she is Gretchen, but is wrong

Frankfurt's thesis (personhood)

• "It is only because a person has volitions ofthe second order that he is capable both ofenjoying and of lacking freedom of the will." • Only for such a being would having or not having freedom of the will be a problem • The unwilling drug addict does not have the will he wants to have, so he does not have freedom of the will. His lack of freedom of the will is a problem for him • The wanton who is a drug addict does not want to have any particular will, so he also lacks freedom of the will. His lack of freedom of the will is not a problem for him

Personhood

• 'Person' here refers to a being capable of having freedom of the will • Only those who can have second-order desires can be persons • First-order desire & Second-order desire

non wanton

• A drug addict has the first-order desire to take the drug and a second-order desire not to take the drug. The first-order desire is stronger than the second-order desire. The addict takes the drug but hates himself for it • This is a person

Jones4

• An evil scientist will do to Jones4 whatever the evil scientist needs to do make Jones4 do X. That might be just slight influence, a threat of force, hypnosis, telepathy, direct manipulation of the brain by a magnetic field, etc. Jones4 ends up doing X without the evil scientist needing to lift a finger Jones4 will bear all of the moral responsibility for doing X, and the evil scientist will not be morally responsible for X being done This is the case despite the fact that Jones4 could not have done otherwise

With age comes wisdom

• As we age, we understand human nature better• We are not as easily deceived• We stop expecting that people not be selfish• This is only possible if people act in a recognizably uniform manner

Objection (frankfurt; alternative possibilities)

• Even if Jones3 had not had his own reasons for deciding to X, he would have caved in to the threat But this doesn't mean that he couldn't have done otherwise. Rather, he could have accepted the penalty Just because no reasonable person would do this doesn't mean that Jones3 had no other choice Frankfurt isn't sure about the force of this objection. He thinks the objection can be rendered moot if we consider the following case:

Principle of alternative possibilities2

• Given what we have said, we may think that we can save the principle of alternative possibilities by reformulating it Principle of alternative possibilities2: a person is not morally responsible only if he did what he did because he could not have done otherwise. (It was causally determined that he should do what he did). However, this is because we assume that he had decided to do something else. We assume that he had not already decided to do what he was forced to do. We assume that he did not want to do what he was forced to do. • So Frankfurt does not think this is an acceptable revision of the principle of alternative possibilities.

The difference

• Having a first-order desire to do X does not mean one has a second-order desire to do X • Example: a drug addict wants to take the drug but does not want to want to take the drug • Having a second-order desire to do X does not mean one has a first-order desire to do X • Example: someone who has fallen out of love wants to want to make her boyfriend happy, but she does not want to make her boyfriend happy • Example: Odysseus and the sirens

Objections to endurantism:

• How can an object be wholly present at one moment in time? If it were, at other times it would be something else • An object extends across space. Why say it can only be at one time but can be across spaces? • Velleman doesn't think endurantism makes sense Just because we seem to remember something does not mean you are the same person that experienced the original event That you are still the same person is assumed, but we do not have adequate reason to make this judgment This unjustified belief leads to the illusion of the self

Memory

• I q-remember if• (1) I have a belief about a past experience which seems to be a memory, • (2) Someone had this experience, • (3) my belief depends on the experience in the same way that memories depend on experiences that depend on them If the divided brains in two different bodies are two people (B and C) that both have the memories of the parent person A, then B and C have q-memories of A's life But they don't have memories of A's life, since neither of them is A All memories are q-memories, but not all q-memories are memories Likewise there are q-intentions, q-recognition, q-witnessing, q- ambitions, q-promises, q-responsibilities, etc. We tend to describe these relations in a way that presupposes identity, but we don't have to

Principle of alternative possibilities3

• Instead, Frankfurt prefers the following formulation: • Principle of alternative possibilities3: A person is not morally responsible for what he has done if he did it only because he could not have done otherwise (He did not want to do it) • It might seem that we are making a big deal of "only" one word. But only is a pretty important word, and it's one that is often implied in everyday contexts • "I love [only] you"

Jones1

• Jones1 is threatened with punishment if he does not do X • Jones1 is the kind of man who is uninfluenced by threats. Indeed, once he has made up his mind, no circumstance could possibly dissaude him Before Jones1 was threatened, he had already made up his mind to do X We would still hold Jones1 morally responsible for doing X, even though he could not have done otherwise.

Jones2

• Jones2 is threatened with punishment if he does not do X • Jones2 had already decided to do X But Jones2 is so terrified by the threat, he completely forgot what he originally wanted to do X We would not hold him responsible for doing X, but we would hold him responsible for the decision he made to do X before he was threatened

Determinism and human action

• Just like natural events, human actions are uniform and predictable • "It is universally acknowledged that there is a great uniformity among the actions of men, in all nations and ages, and that human nature remains still the same, in its principles and operations." • "Would you know the sentiments, inclinations, and course of life of the [ancient] Greeks and Romans? Study well the temper and actions of the [contemporary] French and English: You cannot be much mistaken in transferring to the former most of the observations which you have made..."

Wanton Example

• Someone has a first-order desire to take the drug (for pleasure) but also has a first-order desire not to take the drug (because of the painful side effects). No second-order desires. The stronger desire prevails (either to gain pleasure or to avoid pain)

Preliminary considerations (williams)

• Suppose two people, A and B, switch bodies• There are two limitations on our ability to imagine this: 1. A and B have to be sufficiently similar that A's character and mannerisms are not rendered unrecognizable by B's body E.g. Athletic/obese, singer/no vocal chords, artist/blind, aloof bachelor/nurturing mother of six, etc. 2. To say that A and B switched bodies requires that the memories of each after switching be true and not false. But this requires that apparent remembered event happened to your body, not someone else's

Higher-order desires

• There is no reason to say we cannot have third-order or fourth-order desires • But it does have to stop somewhere • It does not stop arbitrarily, but it stops when you identify yourself with one of those desires (hence wanting it to be effective, to be your will)

Compatibilism

• This concept of free will has nothing to do with determinism • So, this concept of free will is compatible with determinism • It may be determined that your will is free, and it may be determined that your will is not free • No contradictions here

Free will as something to worry about

• To persons free will is something to worry about, because we might have it and we might not • To wantons, free will is not something to worry about because they both cannot have it (and therefore do not care about it) • If there are beings that are necessarily free, their freedom would not be something to worry about

What Jones1-4 have taught us

• Unlike the case of Jones3, there is absolutely no sense in which Jones4 could do otherwise. And yet we still hold Jones4 morally responsible for what he did! That someone could not have avoided doing what he did is not a sufficient reason by itself for avoiding moral responsibility The circumstances that prevented him from doing otherwise could be subtracted, and the same thing would happen. It simply is not relevant—it does not help us understand why the person did what he did • This is why the principle of alternate possibilities1 is mistaken • We often excuse people who say they could not have done otherwise, but that is because we assume that it is a sufficient explanation for what they have done. We assume they acted as they did because they could not have done otherwise. In other words, we assume that if they could have done otherwise, they would not have done what they did. That is why we do not hold them morally responsible

Is determinism a problem

• We could mean a number of different things by "freedom of the will": • You do what you want to do? • No, we cannot always do what we want to do • You choose what you do? • Yes, but what if what you want is determined? • You choose what you want to do?• That is the right question to ask. That choice is either determined or not incompatibilism & Compatibilism

Incompatibilist solutions

• We might adopt indeterminism instead • events are not determined but instead happen for no reason or not always for the same reason • This solution is worse than the problem We might say that people are special. They stand outside of nature and can cause events without ever being caused to act themselves Transeunt causation & Immanent causation But a person causing something to happen can be explained in terms of a chain of natural events (e.g. brain states) How do you cause brain events, anyway? Some philosophers even say that immanent causation is easier to explain than transeunt causation Raise your arm. You willed to move your arm, and your arm obeyed. This is sometimes taken to be proof of immanent causation Other instances of cause and effect not involving your will are actually harder to explain

The point (frankfurt; alternative possibilities)

• You can want to do something and do it. You did it only because you could not have done otherwise (your desire played no role in what you actually did). So, we don't hold you morally responsible You can want to do something and do it. You did it because you wanted to do it, not because you couldn't have done otherwise. In that case, we will hold you morally responsible So, the principle of alternative possibilites1 is false. It is not the case that if you could not have done otherwise, you are not morally responsible • Frankfurt believes he has proven that moral responsibility is compatible with determinism It very well could be the case that none of us can ever do otherwise than we do. This is the case if determinism is true Frankfurt doesn't want to throw moral responsibility out the window, because that would turn the world upside down

Responsibility

• You can't be good without being free and responsible • But you also can't be good if you do nothing but good. A person might be considered to be good involuntarily, due to his or her constitution • So on this view, determinism is true, it is incompatible with free will, and there can be no moral responsibility (i.e. there can be no good people or bad people) a. He or she could have done otherwise. This is supposed to mean b. If he or she had chosen to do otherwise, then he or she would have done otherwise (he or she has free will) But this only matters to the question of freedom if c. He or she could have chosen to do otherwise Determinism denies (c), but it is compatiable with (a) and (b). If we are determinists, what we want is to find reasons for affirming (b) despite our rejecting (c)

Endurantism

"The object [is] wholly present at a single point in time." That is, objects do not have temporal parts but do have spatial parts.

Perdurantism

"The object fills time by having one temporal part after another, just as it fills space by having one spatial part next to another."

volition

(aka: act of willing) a desire we act on

Thought experiments (parfit)

1. A person divides like an amoeba, resulting in two qualitatively identical people. • Does the original person survive? Most say "yes"2. A person's brain is transplanted into another body, maintaining continuity of memory and character. • Most say "yes" 3. The different hemispheres of a person's brain are transferred to two different bodies. Memory and character remain continuous Either (1) I do not survive, (2) I survive as one of the two, or (3) I survive as both Against (1): People have survived with half their brain destroyed. So why not if half is in another body? Against (2): Let's say each half of the brain is exactly similar. What reason could one give for surviving as the one half but not as the other? Do I die if each hemisphere is successfully transplanted, but survive if one transplant succeeds and one transplant fails? • Against (3): Makes no sense if survival implies identity • It's not absurd to say I survive as both. Consider... 4. I can, by thinking about it, connect or disconnect the corpus callosum. Doing so divides my consciousness into two streams, each controlling one half of the body and getting information through one eye, etc. • One person or two? • Reasons for saying "one": one body, minds quickly re-united• If the halves remained permanently disassociated, it would seem more like two people over time • Provided they are different people, do I survive as one, none, or both? • We could say that I survive as both. But doing so would change the concept of a person (hint, hint)

Determinism

1. All events are caused 2. Like causes produce like effects Therefore, 3. All events are necessary (they could not have been otherwise). • (3) is the definition of determinism. (1-2) give the reasons for accepting determinism.

More thought experiments (parfit)

5. Two people fuse Memories shared. Compatible desires co-exist, incompatible desires cancel out, with stronger ones surviving diminished If A and B fuse to become C, are A and B dead? No, each survives to a degree We can imagine people choosing this • 6. Fission with psychological continuity, repeated• There would be psychological continuity between all direct descendants • A1 would be psychologically continuous with A30, but they would not be psychologically connected • There would be a higher degree of survival if psychologically connected to descendent

John Perry

A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality

Philosophical dialogues

A dialogue is a conversation There is a long tradition of writing fictitious dialogues to showcase various philosophical arguments Sometimes dialogues are obviously herding you in one direction Perry's dialogue is open-ended: he is not trying to show you what he thinks is the right answer It's about the journey, not the destination

first order desire

A wants to do X

Second-order desire

A wants to want to do X

Eternalism

All temporal facts are nothing but relations between events. All temporal facts are equally real—there is no privileging those that correspond with 'now'

Second thought experiment (williams)

Before A is tortured, one of the following will happen. In which of these variations does A have reason to be afraid 1. A loses his memories 2. A loses his memories, his character is changed 3. A's character is changed and fictitious memories are introduced 4. A's character and memories are erased and replaced by what seem to be B's character and memories 5. A's character and memories are erased and replaced by B's actual character and actual memories 6. A and B swap character and memories A has reason to fear (1-5) No reason can be given for fearing one over the other But in (6) A would not be afraid because now the torture is happening to someone else But it doesn't make sense, since (5) and (6) are more alike than (4) and (5) or (3) and (4) in (6), it is not just that someone else is being tortured, but that one now can affix an identity to that other person but the tortured person has the same character and memories as the person in (5), which we considered to be the same person as A But if we admit that A is not the person being tortured in (5), but he certainly is in (1) and (2), we are left deciding about (3) and (4) saying it's borderline case and we just can't say anymore with the concepts we have, but A wont know what to fear or not to fear

Rethinking personal identity

But with our normal concept of personal identity, this question is unanswerable Questions about the nature of personal identity assume there is a true answer. If there isn't one, these thought experiments don't pose problems for us Questions about the nature of personal identity assume that the question matters But maybe it doesn't, so we can answer it however we want Identity is a one-to-one relation Since there are multiple kinds of psychological states, psychological continuity poses problems for personal identity If psychological identity were one-to-one, then psychological identity would be possible But if psychological continuity permits branching, then we have a more permissive view of survival E.g., two people could have psychological continuity, despite the fact that their psychological states are not identical • If psychological continuity entails survival, then survival does not entail identity • So survival, instead of being all-or-nothing, admits of degree

What is time?

Eternalism & Objection to eternalism

Gretchen's challenge

Gretchen challenges Sam to convince her that it is possible that she will survive death Assumed: if something is possible, then it is conceivable (thinkable) 'Survival' in this context means persistence (continued existence) as the same person This is the topic of the dialogue: is it conceivable that someone who dies could continue to be the same person? In what sense is the post-death person me?

First criterion

Gretchen is an atheist who believes that she will not survive death Her criterion of personal identity is that a person is only his or her body So, if you have the same body, you are the same person This is the default position that Sam is challenging because on this criterion, Gretchen will not survive her death

Perry's Dialogue Setting

Gretchen's hospital room

incompatibilism

If determinism is true, then there is no freedom of the will. If there is freedom of the will, then determinism is false. One rules out the other.

Compatibilism

If determinism is true, there could be freedom of the will. If there is freedom of the will, then determinism could be true. Neither rules out the other.

A thought experiment (hume)

Imagine someone who told you he or she visited a place where people were not selfish, ambitious, or vengeful, who were always friendly, generous, and public spirited. We would know that person was lying, just as if he had said he saw centaurs, miracles, etc.

Variant D

Imagine you are acrophobic (irrationally afraid of heights) and are told you will be put on a steep mountainside, but not until you have cured of your acrophobia If you were afraid of this happening, it indicates that you would not believe your personal identity was changed

Variant E

Imagine you will meet someone you love or despise in the future, but that you will not have any memory of them when you do meet the other person What does your attitude toward meeting this person say about whether you believe your personal identity was changed?

How does the self exist?

In metaphysics there are two different ways of understanding persistence (existence of a thing over time) Perdurantism & Endurantism

David Velleman

Is the self a problem? Buddhism says that the self is an illusion that is a necessary condition for suffering Some philosophers have said that the self is a construct, but they think it is something good or at least useful Parfit also thinks that believing in the self is confining and depressing

The unknown and unexpected (hume)

It is true that we can't explain all of the things that people do Just because you don't know the cause doesn't mean there isn't one That's much likelier than that what is happening isn't caused at all! If the doctor doesn't see what he or she expects to see, that doesn't mean there is no cause or that it has a different effect than it had in the same circumstances Everyone who is smart takes human bodies to be as necessary and uniform as the rest of nature • A really nice person is rude to you. Did the person suddenly change? • That person could be in great pain or be really hungry • A really easy-going person is suddenly walking really fast. Did the person suddenly change? • Something good must have just happened to him

Jones3

Jones3 is threatened with punishment if he does not do X Jones3 is impressed with the threat and would have been coerced by it, but Jones3 had already decided to do X. The reason he does X is that he had decided to do X before he was threatened We would hold him responsible for the act because the threat had nothing to do with his decision. That is, we would hold him responsible even though he could not have done otherwise • Should we say that Jones3 was coerced and morally responsible?• If we say he wasn't coerced, it would be because the threat did not determine Jones3's decision (and so he is still morally responsible) If we say he was coerced, then we have to admit that you can be coerced and also be morally responsible! So it doesn't matter for Jones3's morally responsibility whether he was coerced or not

Another attempted solution (chisholm)

Leibniz says that circumstances can incline you to act in a certain way without necessitating that you act in a certain way Leibniz meant that no matter what the incentives, your will is still free to choose That is, your choice is undetermined • But talk of inclining without necessitating leads Chisholm to the following idea.... imagine a public official who: resists the temptation to ask for a bribe; cannot resist the temptation to allow someone to leave $10,000 in cash behind the garage; he can resist temptation to actively do something wrong; but he cannot resist the temptation to allow someone else to do something wrong his desire for the money is not strong enough to make him do something contrary to his moral beliefs, but is strong enough to make him not do something to interfere with the bribe-giver's interests thus, we might say that his desire for money inclines him to ask for a bribe without necessitation him to ask for a bribe Chisholm seems to think of the desire for money like a physical force that is not strong enough to move the weight all by itself, but may be strong enough to prevent another force (the desire to do the right thing) from moving the weight

John Martin Fisher

Moral responsibility • We hold someone morally responsible for an action if we believe • certain attitudes (e.g. resentment, gratitude)or• certain activities (e.g. praise, blame) are appropriate • We do not hold someone morally responsible if that person could not control his or her actions (e.g. hypnosis, brain tumor, etc.) insofar as nothing comes between your decisions and your reasons for acting, we hold responsible your action that is, if one was free to do otherwise than he did, we hold him responsible. if he was not free to do otherwise than he did, then we do not hold him morally responsible however, in frankfurt's thought experiment involving jones4, we hold jones4 responsible even though he could not of done otherwise

David Hume

Necessity (determinism) • Everyone agrees that the laws of nature are deterministic/necessary • If nature were not regular and uniform, we would never even conceive of cause and effect, much less laws of nature • "All mankind have ever agreed in the doctrine of necessity, and that they have hitherto disputed, merely for not understanding each other."

Three ways it (strong reasons-responsiveness) can fail

No connection between (1) the reasons there are and the reasons the agent recognizes (failure to be receptive to reasons) (2) the agent's reasons and what the agent chooses to do (failure to be appropriately affected by beliefs) (3) choice and action (failure to successfully translate one's choices into action) • However, strong reasons-responsiveness is too demanding• Example: I go to the basketball game and I would still go if I had a sufficient reason not to go • Example: I steal a book even though I know I have sufficient reason not to is sufficient for moral responsibility but it is not a necessary condition of moral responsibility

Presentism

Only objects existing now exist. What exists now has a property of having been a certain way

Partial solutions

Parfit said he is comforted by the realization that he is not identical to his past self or future self He says he has less negative emotion when the walls of his glass tunnel disappear Velleman says "surely the remedy for these anxieties and regrets is not to get out of the tunnel and live 'in the open air'; the remedy is to stop moving." • That is, Parfit should become an eternalist People only appear to die, since time only appears to pass. "Dead" people still exist in the past The Tralfamadorians from Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five are eternalists They have abolished the illusion of the passage of time, though they still believe in the enduring self Parfit abolished the illusion of the self, but he still believed in the passage of time The beings in Vonnegut's novel remain themselves at all moments of time, able to visit any time of their lives in any order But this requires a meta-time to make sense To really become "unstuck in time," you would need to give up your self Abolishing the illusion of the self and the passage of time would free us from fear of time running out, of approaching death Abolishing these illusions would also prevent pain from becoming suffering—that is, we could cope with pain without panicking Velleman says he often remembers and anticipates many things at once, preventing him from enjoying the present • To abolish these illusions would allow us to more fully live in the present

Derek Parfit

Personal identity

Second criterion

Personal identity resides in the soul, not in the body The soul is immaterial, not necessarily tied to the body The soul is what perceives and is conscious The advantage of this criterion is that it allows for an easy answer to who you are and how it is that you stay the same person even though your body changes (or is destroyed) The disadvantage is that it cannot be perceived Gretchen objects: if it cannot be perceived, then you cannot know that I have the same soul I did Yesterday. Perhaps now I have the soul of some completely different person Sam replies: Psychological characteristics show sameness of soul Gretchen: That shows only similarity, not identity Sam:1. My soul and body are consistently found together Therefore,2. Sameness of body indicates sameness of soul Gretchen: you have no reason to believe that there has always been the same soul connected to your body. A psychologically similar but numerically different soul could replace the one I currently have .... Possibilities: a. One and the same soul has been with my body since I was born b. I was born with one soul, but it was replaced with another soul with the same memories and propensities as the first one c. Every five years a new soul takes over with the same memories and propensities as the last one d. Every five minutes a new soul takes over.... Sam gives up on this critierion