Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Personal Identity, Responsibility and Time

  • Chapter
Book cover Time and Ethics: Essays at the Intersection

Part of the book series: Library of Ethics and Applied Philosophy ((LOET,volume 14))

Abstract

Before Derek Parfit’s revolutionary book, Reasons and Persons (1984), it was assumed that a necessary condition for moral and legal responsibility is personal identity. After all, what could be more obvious than the thesis that to hold a person culpable for misconduct he or she must be the person who engaged in the deed? As F. H. Bradley once expressed it:

Now the first condition of the possibility of my guiltiness, or of my becoming a subject of moral imputation, is my self-sameness; I must be throughout one identical person. … If, when we say, “I did it,” the I is not to be the one I, distinct from all other I’s; or if the one I, now here, is not the same I with the I whose act the deed was, then there can be no question whatever but that the ordinary notion of responsibility disappears (Bradley (1927) p. 4).

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • Bigelow, John. “Presentism and Properties.” In Metaphysics pp. 35–52. Edited by James Tomberlin. Philosophical Perspectives 10. Cambridge, M.A.: Blackwell, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bradley, F. H. Ethical Studies. London: Oxford University Press, 1927.

    Google Scholar 

  • Broad, C. D. Scientific Thought. London: Routledge, 1923.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carter, William R. and H. Scott Hestevold. “On Passage and Persistence.” American Philosophical Quarterly 31 (1994): 269–283.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chisholm, Roderick “Problems of Identity.” In Identity and Individuation, pp.3–18. Edited by M. K. Munitz. New York: New York University Press, 1981.

    Google Scholar 

  • Craig, William Lane. “Oaklander on McTaggart and Intrinsic Change.” Analysis 59 (1999): 319–320.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Craig, William Lane. “McTaggart’s Paradox and the Problem of Temporary Intrinsics.” Analysis 58 (1998): 122–127.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Craig, William Lane. “Is Presentness a Property?” American Philosophical Quarterly 34 (1997): 27–40.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haslanger, Sally. “Endurance and Temporary Intrinsics.” Analysis 49 (1989): 119–125.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hinchliff, Mark. “The Puzzle of Change.” In Metaphysics, pp. 119–136. Edited by James Tomberlin. Philosophical Perspectives 10. Cambridge, M.A.: Blackwell, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hinchliff, Mark. “McTaggart, Change and Real Tense: A Critical Notice of Hugh Mellor’s Real Time I I.” In The Importance of Time, pp. 59–67. Edited by L. Nathan Oaklander. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hoy, Ronald C. “Becoming and Persons.” Philosophical Studies 34 (1978): 269–80.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Johnston, Mark. “Is There a Problem About Persistence?” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 61 (1987): 107–135.

    Google Scholar 

  • Le Poidevin, Robin. Change, Cause and Contradiction: A Defence of the Tenseless Theory of Time. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  • Le Poidevin, Robin. “Change.” In Routledge Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, pp. 274–276. Edited by Edward Craig. New York: Routledge, 1998a.

    Google Scholar 

  • Le Poidevin, Robin. “Review of Michael Tooley, Time, Tense and Causation.” British Journal of the Philosophy of Science 49 (1998b): 365–369.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Le Poidevin, Robin. “Can Beliefs Be Caused by Their Truth-makers?” Analysis, 59, 3 (1999): 148–156.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, David. On the Plurality of Worlds. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, David. “Tensing the Copula.” Mind 111, 441 (2002): 1–14.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lombard, Lawrence. “The Doctrine of Temporal Parts and the ‘No-Change’ Objection.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research LIV, 2 (1994): 365–372.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lombard, Lawrence. “On the Alleged Incompatibility of Presentism and Temporal Parts.” Philosophia 27, 1–2 (1999): 253–260.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ludlow, Peter. Semantics, Tense and Time: An Essay in the Metaphysics of Natural Language. Cambridge M.A.: MIT Press, 1999.

    Google Scholar 

  • McCall, Storrs. A Model of the Universe: Space-Time, Probability, and Decision. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mellor, D. H. Real Time II. London: Routledge, 1998. “A Reply to Hinchliff, Paul and Perry.” In The Importance of Time. Edited by L. Nathan Oaklander. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001.

    Google Scholar 

  • Merricks, Trenton. “Endurance and Indiscernibility,” The Journal of Philosophy 91, 4 (1994): 65–84.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Merricks, Trenton. “On the Incompatibility of Enduring and Perduring Entities.” Mind 104 (1995): 523–531.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Merricks, Trenton. “Persistence, Parts, and Presentism.” Nous 33: 3 (1999): 421–438.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Merricks, Trenton. Personal correspondence. 2001.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oaklander, L. Nathan. Temporal Relations and Temporal Becoming: A Defence of a Russellian Theory of Time. Lanham, M.D.: University Press of America, 1984.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oaklander, L. Nathan.“Persons and Responsibility: A Critique of Delmas Lewis.” Philosophy Research Archives 13 (1987–88): 181–187.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oaklander, L. Nathan. “McTaggart’s Paradox and Smith’s Tensed Theory of Time.” Synthèse 107 (1996): 205–221.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Oaklander, L. Nathan.“Tooley on Time and Tense.” In The Importance of Time, pp. 3–12. Edited by L. Nathan

    Google Scholar 

  • Oaklander. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oaklander, L. Nathan. “Presentism, Ontology and Temporal Experience.” In Time, Reality and Experience, pp. 73–90. Edited by Craig Callendar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oaklander, L. Nathan. “Presentism: A Critique.” In Real Metaphysics: Essays in Honour of D. H. Mellor, With His Replies, pp. 196–211. Edited by Hallvard Lillehammer and G. Rodriguez Pereyra. London: Routledge, 2003.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oaklander, L. Nathan and Quentin Smith. Editors. The New Theory of Time. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  • Parfit, Derek. Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984.

    Google Scholar 

  • Prior, Arthur N. Papers on Time and Tense. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reid, Thomas. Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man. Introduction by Baruch A. Brody. Cambridge M.A.: MIT Press, 1969.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shoemaker, Sydney and Richard Swinburne. Personal Identity. Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1984.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sider, Theodore. “Merricks on the Perdurance/Endurance Incompatibility.” Unpublished Manuscript. 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sider, Theodore. “The Stage View and Temporary Intrinsics.” Analysis 60, 1 (2000): 84–88.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sider, Theodore. Four-Dimensionalism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, Quentin. “Personal Identity and Time.” Philosophia 21, 4 (1991): 155–167.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, Quentin. Language and Time. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, Quentin and L. Nathan Oaklander. Time Change and Freedom: An Introduction to Metaphysics. New York and London: Routledge, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tooley, Michael. Time, Tense and Causation. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zimmerman, Dean. “Temporary Intrinsics and Presentism.” In Metaphysics: The Big Questions, pp. 206–219. Edited by D. W. Zimmerman and P. van Inwagen. Cambridge M.A.: Blackwell, 1998.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. L. Nathan Oaklander
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

    Heather Dyke (Senior Lecturer in Philosophy) (Senior Lecturer in Philosophy)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2003 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Oaklander, L.N. (2003). Personal Identity, Responsibility and Time. In: Dyke, H. (eds) Time and Ethics: Essays at the Intersection. Library of Ethics and Applied Philosophy, vol 14. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3530-8_11

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3530-8_11

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-90-481-6297-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-017-3530-8

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation