Swinburne on Physicalism and Personal Identity

Hume on Personal Identity

First, Hume notes that we have a strong inclination to call something the “same” even when it is radically different. For instance, remove a chunk of matter from some object and we call it the same. A mature oak tree is said to be the “same” as the sapling. A fat adult is said to be the “same” as the tiny infant. So strong is this inclination that philosophers have attempted to explain identity...

Personal Identity and Uploading

Objections to uploading may be parsed into substrate issues, dealing with the computer platform of upload and personal identity. This paper argues that the personal identity issues of uploading are no more or less challenging than those of bodily transfer often discussed in the philosophical literature. It is argued that what is important in personal identity involves both token and type identi...

Utilitarianism and Personal Identity

Brain birth and personal identity

The concept of brain birth has assumed a position ofsome significance in discussions on the status ofthe human embryo and on the point in embryonic developmentprior to which experimental procedures may be undertaken on human embryos. This paper reviews previous discussions of this concept, which have placed brain birth at various points between 12 days' and 20 weeks' gestation and which have em...

Personal Identity and Practical Concerns

Many philosophers have taken there to be an important relation between personal identity and several of our practical concerns (among them moral responsibility, compensation, and self-concern). I articulate four natural methodological assumptions made by those wanting to construct a theory of the relation between identity and practical concerns, and I point out powerful objections to each assum...