Is Belief in The Special Nature of Personal Identity False?

Abstract

In a paper (73) and in a radio discussion I had with him (74) Derek Parfit has questioned what he describes as the ‘belief in the special nature of personal identity’. One way of saying what this belief is is in terms of the bisected brain transplant case I outlined in the last chapter. Suppose the question is asked: If half of Guy Fawkes’s brain were transplanted into what used to be Charles’s body and half into what used to be Robert’s body, so that out of the mouths of both ‘Charles’ and ‘Robert’ came claims to have done the things only Guy Fawkes did, would Guy Fawkes (a) not survive, (b) survive in the body of one of the two, or (c) survive in the bodies of both? The belief in the special nature of personal identity can be expressed as the belief that this question about Guy Fawkes must have one of the three answers suggested. In more general terms it can be expressed as follows: ‘Whatever happens between now and any future time, either I shall still exist, or I shall not. Any future experience will either be my experience, or it will not’ (73, p. 3).