Parfit's Personal Identity

Personal Identity And Survival

In Parfit's writings on personal identity he attempts to explain the idea that one's personal identity is not the same thing as one's survival. First, I will examine how Parfit comes to this conclusion and provide some examples from his text. Next, I will attempt to explain what Parfit decides is the most important aspect of one's personal identity which is connectedness. Lastly, I will look at connectedness apposed to continuity and why Parfit believes that connectedness is more important and must be looked at as a matter of degree. To begin his argument Parfit starts with an example of a man dividing like an amoeba and in this division the brain will be separated in two, and a half of the brain will
Now Parfit entertains the idea that each "new" person will have memories and characteristics of the original person. Next, Parfit poses a few questions pertaining to survival. First, did the original man survive? Is he now one of the two people? Or did he survive as both? It seems likely that he would survive given the fact that he could live with only half his brain. It seems awkward that he would become one person rather than the other because there is no basis for which is better or worse. So Parfit will now deal with surviving as both people. But he prefers to use the notation of two bodies with a divided mind rather than two people. If survival is taken as having the same identity the two new people would be identical as the original person and this seems illogical. It seems implausible that the two divided minds can work together as one person such as they had in the original man. He even goes as far to say, "They
To explain the difference between connectedness and continuity Parfit uses several diagrams. He explains connectedness as a direct relationship and uses this example; if X remembers most of Y's life, and y remembers most of Z's life it does not make sense that X would remember Z's life because they are not directly related. Similarly, he uses the same example with intentions as well as memories. Whereas, continuity is simply overlapping chains such that in a tree diagram the person at the bottom of the branches has continuous control over all the subjects that are above it. Connectedness is more important because it has a direct link to its counterparts. In continuity things such as memories will weaken over time as proposed by Parfit. Likewise, intentions once carried out by the lower or higher branch will soon be replaced by a new intention that could come from one of the many other links in the continuous