Memory Research: Personal Identity & Personhood
To some extent, I had already researched aspects of memories relation to personality identity in Phase 1, covering some of John Locke's views and Hume's Bundle Theory.
This theory by John Locke states that identity persists over time because you retain memories of yourself at different points, and each memory is connected to ones before it. It is the same 'links in a chain' logic that my Phase 1 research on his perspective of personal identity has.
More on Bundle Theory
Due to his beliefs that there is no ongoing self, David Hume has questioned: "If having a certain identity means possessing certain properties, then how could anyone really maintain the same identity from one moment to the next?" As our properties are constantly changing: our age, our experiences, our looks, etc.
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Left: John Locke
Derek Parfit is another philosopher who agreed with Hume that there is no ongoing self, and he had a thought experiment:
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If you had a ‘teleporter’ that perfectly copies you at point A, and creates a 'you' at B whilst destroying the 'you' at A, did you travel to B? Is the person at B the same person as you? They share all of your memories and physical traits.
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How would this change if the 'you' at A was not destroyed? Would that still be considered travel? Would it be duplication?
Parfit would say that in this thought experiment, you did not travel: it is a new you regardless of the version of you at A still exists or not. Even if you walked to B instead, you'd have undergone changes to make you a different person to who you were at A.
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However, despite agreeing that there is no singular 'you', Parfit thinks there is still a connectedness with yourself over time: like the links in chainmail. Pieces constantly drop off and get added on, but parts of you survive the passage of time.
Source: Arguments Against Personal Identity on YouTube, by Crash Course
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Right: Screenshot of noted source's visual aid of Parfit's thought experiment.
Obligation & Accountability When The Self is Different
When it is not the same you anymore, how can you be held accountable for a crime? or make sense of any promises, responsibilities or obligations?
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Parfit would say that the answer is that your degree of responsibility and obligation corresponds to how connected you are to the past-self that made the promise/incurred the responsibility. Someone who was a bully when they were 8 years old, but became someone who'd never hurt a soul when you are 40; you should not feel the need to bare any guilt since you're no longer connected to that past-self.
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Under this logic, Parfit thinks that lifetime promises do not make sense, and some share this feeling. Some believe that marriages should be temporary with the option to be renewed due to the significant changes that occur throughout life. Others think that regardless of these changes, you still reaffirm your connection to those vows every day.
Personhood
In philosophy, 'person' is separated from 'human'. Human is a biological matter in your DNA, whilst persons are part of a 'moral community' and deserve moral consideration. There is the possibility that one could consider non-human entities as persons deserving of moral consideration (like an alien or AI), or think that there are humans that don't deserve it (like those in a vegetative state, or foetuses).
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There are a few different answers people have to what one must have to deserve moral consideration, the one I am interested in is the cognitive criterion, as it is has some links with the subject of memory. All of the following criteria must be met to qualify under cognitive criterion:
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Consciousness
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Reasoning
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Self-motivated activity
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Capacity to communicate
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Self-awareness
Memory is tied in with consciousness and the ability to be self-aware. There is also the view that there are degrees to personhood to decide who deserves more moral consideration in any given situation: under cognitive criterion, how does impaired memory impact this? I think exploring the relationship of cognition and personhood could be an interesting topic to explore further in phase 3.
Source: Personhood on Youtube, by Crash Course
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Is Someone with Dementia The Same Person?
The following I will be discussing is intertwined with dementia, so I suggest reading my research on dementia topic before reading further.
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After learning Derek Parfit's perspective on identity, I considered how dementia would be seen through that perspective. Without our memories properly linked together, having gaps reducing connectedness with ourselves: there could be an argument that someone with dementia is not the same person anymore. This links with what I have previously mentioned of people having to “mourn someone who’s alive”, and that when I have talked to people with family suffering from dementia, they have expressed a preference to remember what their loved one was like before their symptoms were severe.
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I see this as a way to separate the person they were before and after their symptoms became significant. There is also a much more morbid question of: if we subscribe to the thought process that personhood varies based on how well someone fits within the criteria, and specifically go by cognitive criterion: does dementia impact one's personhood relative to others? Since they have a lesser ability to communicate, reason, perform activities and to be fully aware. Whilst I can agree with seeing them as a different person to how they were before dementia, I personally can't imagine treating a person with dementia as any less deserving of moral consideration despite largely subscribing to the cognitive criterion myself.
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