Derek Parfit's Views On Personal Identity

Personal identity is a crucial aspect of philosophy. The main argument attributed with personal identity, is whether or not a person is the same person before and after a new experience occurs. This paper will describe several philosophers’ views on personal identity with the use of examples. It will also discuss the topic of personal identity by analyzing the relationship between someone who is “beamed” down from a spaceship to a planet, while that person is also still up in the spaceship at the same time. Lastly, it will also touch on whether a one-of-a-kind sculpture that has been beamed down is still one-of-a-kind of the sculpture is still also up on the ship.
In philosophy, personal identity is based on one main question. This question
Parfit believes that with this point of view, identity is not needed. The definition of psychological connectedness is “an intransitive relation of having overlapping memories.”(Delancey) The difference between this and psychological continuity is that the latter is only a single mind, whereas psychological connectedness is more than one. Parfit argues his view by saying that the connection that we hold with our future selves is a matter of degree. Psychological connectedness comes in degrees because the level of connection can vary. Also, there is no need for identity because if more than one person share the same memories or beliefs, then they are not each their own unique person. An example to illustrate Parfit’s views can be explained by summarizing an example from his piece “Personal Identity,” that he uses to question survival and personal identity. The scenario is that person A’s brain is cut in half. Half od person A’s brain goes into a new body and becomes person B, and the other half goes into another new body and becomes person C. Parfit determines that there are three possible outcomes: 1) person A does not survive, 2) person A survives as either B or C, but not both, or 3) person A survives as both B and C. The reason this clashes with personal identity, is because with personal identity, each person is unique; one person cannot become two people. The major difference and part that stands out the most with psychological connectedness, is the lack of identity, because Parfit does not believe that it is needed. This is also what is an issue with his view. Parfit does not think identity is needed because we all share some beliefs and memories with others, making our memories and beliefs not unique to us. This is a problem because if someone was born and left alone following birth, to grow up by themselves, this person would have no shared memories or anything