5515
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Imaginary cases are good for revealing our beliefs, rather than the truth [Parfit]
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Full Idea:
I believe it is worth considering imaginary cases (such as Teletransportation), as we can use them to discover, not what the truth is, but what we believe.
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From:
Derek Parfit (The Unimportance of Identity [1995], p.293)
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A reaction:
The trouble is that we might say that IF I were suddenly turned into a pig, then I would come to believe in dualism, but that will not and cannot happen, because dualism is false. It seems essential to accept the natural possibility of the case.
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5516
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Reduction can be by identity, or constitution, or elimination [Parfit, by PG]
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Full Idea:
We can distinguish Identifying Reductionism (as in 'persons are bodies'), or Constitutive Reductionism (as in 'persons are distinct, but consist of thoughts etc.'), or Eliminative Reductionism (as in 'there are no persons, only thoughts etc.').
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From:
report of Derek Parfit (The Unimportance of Identity [1995], p.295) by PG - Db (ideas)
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A reaction:
Constitutive Reductionism seems the most common one, as in 'chemistry just consists of lots of complicated physics'. He doesn't mention bridge laws, which are presumably only required in more complicated cases of constitutive reduction.
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16061
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If some facts 'logically supervene' on some others, they just redescribe them, adding nothing [Lynch/Glasgow]
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Full Idea:
Logical supervenience, restricted to individuals, seems to imply strong reduction. It is said that where the B-facts logically supervene on the A-facts, the B-facts simply re-describe what the A-facts describe, and the B-facts come along 'for free'.
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From:
Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM (The Impossibility of Superdupervenience [2003], C)
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A reaction:
This seems to be taking 'logically' to mean 'analytically'. Presumably an entailment is logically supervenient on its premisses, and may therefore be very revealing, even if some people think such things are analytic.
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5514
|
Psychologists are interested in identity as a type of person, but philosophers study numerical identity [Parfit]
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Full Idea:
When psychologists discuss identity, they are typically concerned with the kind of person someone is, or wants to be (as in an 'identity crisis'). But when philosophers discuss identity, it is numerical identity they mean.
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From:
Derek Parfit (The Unimportance of Identity [1995], p.293)
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A reaction:
I think it is important to note that the philosophical problem breaks down into two areas: whether I have numerical identity with myself over time, and whether other people have it. It may be that two different sets of criteria will emerge.
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5521
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If my brain-halves are transplanted into two bodies, I have continuity, and don't need identity [Parfit]
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Full Idea:
If the two halves of my brain are transplanted into different bodies just like mine, they cannot both be me, since that would make them the same person. ..But my relation to these two contains everything that matters, so identity is not what matters.
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From:
Derek Parfit (The Unimportance of Identity [1995], p.314)
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A reaction:
I challenge his concept of what 'matters'. He has a rather solipsistic view of the problem, and I take Parfit to be a rather unsociable person, since his friends and partner will be keenly interested in the identities of the new beings.
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1392
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If we split like amoeba, we would be two people, neither of them being us [Parfit]
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Full Idea:
In the case of the man who, like an amoeba, divides….we can suggest that he survives as two different people without implying that he is those people.
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From:
Derek Parfit (Personal Identity [1971], §1)
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A reaction:
Maybe an amoeba is a homogeneous substance for which splitting is insignificant, but when a person has certain parts that are totally crucial, splitting them is catastrophic, and quite different. I'm not sure that splitting a self would leave persons.
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5519
|
It is fine to save two dying twins by merging parts of their bodies into one, and identity is irrelevant [Parfit]
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Full Idea:
If I am largely paralysed, and my twin brother is dying of brain disease, then if the operation to graft my head onto his body is offered, I should accept the operation, and it is irrelevant whether this person would be me.
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From:
Derek Parfit (The Unimportance of Identity [1995], p.308)
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A reaction:
Parfit notes that the brain is a particularly significant part of the process. The fact that I might cheerfully accept this offer without philosophical worries doesn't get rid of the question 'who is this person?' Who should they remain married to?
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5520
|
If two humans are merged surgically, the new identity is a purely verbal problem [Parfit]
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Full Idea:
If there is someone with my head and my brother's body, it is a merely verbal question whether that person will be me, and that is why, even if it won't be me, that doesn't matter. ..What matters is not identity, but the facts of which identity consists.
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From:
Derek Parfit (The Unimportance of Identity [1995], p.310)
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A reaction:
It strikes me that from the subjective psychological point of view identity is of little interest, but from the objective external viewpoint (e.g. the forensic one) such questions are highly significant, and rightly so.
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1391
|
Concern for our own lives isn't the source of belief in identity, it is the result of it [Parfit]
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Full Idea:
Egoism, and the fear not of near but of distant death, and the regret that so much of one's life should have gone by - these are not, I think, wholly natural or instinctive. They are strengthened by a false belief in stable identity.
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From:
Derek Parfit (Personal Identity [1971], §6)
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A reaction:
This raises some very nice questions, about the extent to which various aspects of self-concern are instinctive and natural, or culturally induced, and even totally misguided and false. I can worry about the distant death of my guinea pig, or my grandson.
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7098
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There is a new sort of moral scepticism, about the possibility of moral theories [Statman]
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Full Idea:
Since the 1980s, ethics has witnessed a new sort of moral scepticism, this time about the possibility of moral theories.
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From:
Daniel Statman (Introduction to Virtue Ethics [1997], §4)
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A reaction:
He cites McDowell, Williams, Nussbaum and Baier as the culprits. 'Particularism' (every situation is different, so there can't be rules) seems an essential part of virtue theory, but total absence of principles sounds to me like moral drift.
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7100
|
Virtue theory isn't a genuine ethical theory, because it doesn't have universal application [Statman]
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Full Idea:
It can be claimed that universality is a necessary property of any ethical theory and therefore virtue theory, which fails in this respect, is not a theory, and hence poses no alternative to genuine ethical theories.
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From:
Daniel Statman (Introduction to Virtue Ethics [1997], §5)
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A reaction:
Replies: a) totally universal morality is an idle dream (part of the 'Enlightenment Project' to prove everything) and we must settle for something more relative; b) virtues aren't totally universal, but they are truths about humanity. I prefer b).
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7104
|
The ancients recognised imperfect duties, but we have added perfect duties like justice [Statman]
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Full Idea:
The advantage of modern thinkers over the ancient virtue ethicists is that in addition to imperfect duties (i.e. virtues) they also recognise the existence of perfect duties, or duties of justice, which are essential for the existence of society.
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From:
Daniel Statman (Introduction to Virtue Ethics [1997], §7)
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A reaction:
Even the Greeks had laws (e.g. Idea 422), so they understood that a society needs rules, but many laws don't seem to be moral rules (e.g. car parking), and the Greeks thought morality was about human excellence, not avoiding traffic jams.
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9762
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We should focus less on subjects of experience, and more on the experiences themselves [Parfit]
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Full Idea:
It becomes more plausible, when thinking morally, to focus less upon the person, the subject of experiences, and instead to focus more upon the experiences themselves.
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From:
Derek Parfit (Reasons and Persons [1984], §116)
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A reaction:
This pinpoints how Parfit moves from a view of persons in terms of continuity of consciousness to a utilitarian morality. It brings out nicely what is wrong with utilitarianism - the reductio of a great ball of nice experiences, with no one having them.
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7103
|
Abortion issues focus on the mother's right over her body, and the status of the foetus [Statman]
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Full Idea:
Most of the debate on abortion focuses on two issues, the mother's assumed right over her body, and the status of the foetus.
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From:
Daniel Statman (Introduction to Virtue Ethics [1997], §6)
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A reaction:
Personally I think society as a whole might have a say (if, perhaps, we are over- or under-populated, or we have a widely accepted state religion, or we are just very shocked). Mother's have virtues and duties as well as rights.
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