Andrea Sauchelli
  • Home
  • About
  • Research
  • Teaching
  • Taste Matters
  • Personal Identity and Applied Ethics
  • Contact

Personal Identity and applied ethics

'Soul', 'self', ‘substance’ and 'person' are just four of the terms often used to refer to the human individual. Cutting across metaphysics, ethics, and religion the nature of personal identity is a fundamental and long-standing puzzle in philosophy.

Personal Identity and Applied Ethics introduces and examines different conceptions of the self, our nature, and personal identity and considers the implications of these for applied ethics. A key feature of the book is that it discusses a range of different approaches to personal identity; philosophical, religious and cross-cultural, including perspectives from non-Western traditions. Within this comparative framework, Andrea Sauchelli examines the following topics:

  • Early views of the soul in Plato, Christianity and Descartes
  • The Buddhist 'no-self' views and the self as a fiction
  • Confucian ideas of our nature and the importance of self-cultivation as constitutive of the self
  • Locke's theory of personal identity as continuity of consciousness and memory and objections by Butler and Reid as well as contemporary critics
  • The theory of 'animalism' and arguments concerning embodied theories of personal identity
  • Practical and narrative theories of personal identity and moral agency
  • Personal identity and issues in applied ethics, including abortion, organ transplantation, and the idea of life after death
  • Implications of life-extending technologies for personal identity.
Throughout the book Sauchelli also considers the views of important recent philosophers such as Sydney Shoemaker, Bernard Williams, Derek Parfit, Marya Schechtman and Christine Korsgaard, placing these in helpful historical context.

Chapter summaries, a glossary of key terms, and suggestions for further reading make this a refreshing, approachable introduction to personal identity and applied ethics. It is an ideal text for courses on personal identity that consider both western and non-western approaches and that apply theories of personal identity to ethical problems. It will also be of interest to those in related subjects such as religious studies and history of ideas.

For a review of the book, click here. 

Picture
Picture
Some errata/clarifications:

P. 114:
Parfit has 'outlined' an influential psychological theory (or, better, various versions of the psychological approach). 

(Although Parfit says (2012: 6-7) that he "defended" a brain-based psychological theory.)

P. 115:
"In his Reasons and Persons, Parfit suggests that we do not have to choose among these different versions of the psychological theory and that some cases may even be indeterminate as to whether personal identity holds"

should be

"In his Reasons and Persons, Parfit suggests that we do not have to choose among different theories of personal identity so long as we are reductionists (more on this later) and claim that some cases may be indeterminate as to whether personal identity holds."

Parfit in Reasons and Persons (1987 edition), Part III is more interested in criticising non-reductionism, in any of its forms, than other forms of reductionism. 

P. 139:
Where I discuss McMahan's and Parfit's versions of the Embodied Part view, I should have said that Parfit proposes the Embodied Person view. 

"More specifically, on what Parfit calls the best version of the embodied part view, the embodied person view, 'human animals think by having a conscious thinking part, which is a person in the Lockean sense' (Parfit 2012: 17)."

Also, I could have said that Parfit does not claim that, when he proposes the embodied person view, he has thereby rejected his version of the constitution view (constitutive reductionism), which is very similar to Shoemaker's (see especially Parfit 1999 and 2007). 


P. 151:
“according to Frankfurt, having volitions is a necessary and sufficient condition for being a person”
​should be:
"according to Frankfurt, having volitions is a necessary condition for being a person."


Teaching Material on Personal Identity
​I have here included a syllabus that can be used to teach a course on personal identity (intermediate, upper-level undergraduate) based on my book.

Brief introduction:
​

This course investigates classic and contemporary theories of personal identity and their consequences for some selected debates in applied ethics. The first part of the course gives a foundational knowledge of classic and contemporary theories of personal identity and the self. The second part of the course is focused on various controversial topics, such as the morality of abortion, self-concern, the definition of death, and the legitimacy of certain human enhancements (in particular those enhancements aimed at extending human life beyond its perceived ‘natural’ limits). 
​
The course aims to: 
  • Introduce the students to classic theories of personal identity and the self from different philosophical traditions;
  • Present contemporary theories of personal identity and relate them to their predecessors;
  • Enable students to draw a connection between classic and contemporary theories of personal identity with issues in applied ethics;
  • Provide students with theoretical tools to develop their own views on the philosophical issues debated.

Schedule

Week 1 & 2

General Concepts: Identity and Individuation, The Simple-Soul Approach, Dualism(s) and Criticisms.

Required Readings 
  • A. Sauchelli, Personal Identity and Applied Ethics (Routledge, 2018): introduction and chapter 1.
  • D. Bostock, Plato's Phaedo (Clarendon Press, 1986): 21-41.
  • Selections from Plato, Phaedo (78a-84b)
  • R. Swinburne, The Dualist Theory. In R. Swinburne and S. Shoemaker (Eds.) Personal Identity (Basil Blackwell, 1984): 22-34
  • E. Olson, What Are We? (OUP, 2007): 150-153 and 164-171.

Suggested Readings
  • Plato, Phaedo (Any Edition)
  • Descartes, Meditations (Any Edition)
  • E. Olson (2007): chapter 7.
  • J. Heil, Philosophy Of Mind, Third Edition (Routledge): chapter 2.
  • P. K. Dick, Impostor (Sci-Fi Short Story)

Week 3
 
Buddhist no-self Theories and Nihilism
 
Required Readings
  • Sauchelli (2018): chapter 2.
  • M. Siderits, Buddhism as Philosophy (Hackett, 2007): chapter 3
 
Suggested Readings
  • Siderits (2007): chapter 2.
  • Siderits (2007): chapter 6.
 
Week 4
 
Relational approach and Confucian role-person
 
Required Readings
  • Sauchelli (2018): chapter 3.
  • H. Rosemont, Right-Bearing Individuals and Role-Bearing Persons (1991)
  • D. Wong, Relational and Autonomous Selves (2004)

Suggested Readings
  • J. Yu, Soul and Self (2008)

Week 5 & 6

The Psychological Approach

Required Readings
  • Sauchelli (2018): chapter 4.
  • J. Locke, Of Identity and Diversity (From His An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Second Edition 1694)
  • S. Weinberg, Locke On Personal Identity (2011)
  • D. Parfit, Reasons and Persons (1984/6/7): Part 3, Chapter 10, Section 78. 
 
Suggested Readings
  • S. Shoemaker, Persons and their Pasts (1970)
  • S. Shoemaker, Personal Identity: a Materialist's Account (1984)
  • A. Sauchelli, Introduction to Part III in A. Sauchelli, Derek Parfit's Reasons and Persons (2020). 
 
Week 7
 
The Physical Approach

Required Readings
  • Sauchelli (2018): chapter 5.
  • B. Williams, Personal Identity and Individuation (1956/7)
  • E. Olson, An Argument for Animalism (2003)
 
Suggested Readings
  • Thornton, Varieties of Animalism (2016)
 
Week 8
 
The Practical Approach

Required Readings
  • Sauchelli (2018): chapter 6.
  • H. Frankfurt, Freedom of The Will and The Concept Of A Person (1971)
  • H. Frankfurt, Identification and Externality (1976)

Suggester Readings
  • R. Moran, Frankfurt on Identity (2002)
 
Week 9
 
The Narrative Approach
 
Required Readings
  • M. Schechtman, Stories, Lives, And Basic Survival (2007)
  • G. Strawson, Against Narrativity (2004)

Suggested Readings
  • C. MacKenzie, Personal Identity, Narrative Integration, and Embodiment (2009)
 
Week 10

What Matters in Survival

Required Readings
  • Sauchelli (2018): chapter 7.
  • D. Parfit, The Unimportance of Identity (1995/2003)

Suggested Readings
  • B. Williams, The Self and the Future (1970)
  • D. Lewis, Survival and Identity (1976/83)
 
Week 11
 
Life-extending technologies (Mental Uploading, Cryonics)

Required Readings
  • D. Chalmers, Singularity (2010)
  • M. Pigliucci, Mind Uploading (2014)

Watch: Black Mirror S3 E4 'San Junipero'

Week 12
 
Abortion

Required Readings
  • Sauchelli (2018): chapter 8.
  • D. Marquis, Abortion Revisited (2009)
  • M. Warren, On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion (1973)
 
Suggested Readings
  • L. R. Baker, When Does a Person Begin? (2002)
  • H. Lindemann, What Child is This? (2002)
  • A. Olberding, Amy, A Sensible Confucian Perspective on Abortion (2015)
 
Week 13

Death

Required Readings
  • J. McMahan, Brain Death, Cortical Death, and Persistent Vegetative State (1998)
 
Suggested Readings
  • D. A. Shewmon, The Brain and Somatic Integration (2001)

Other suggested readings can be found in my book.

Further resources on personal identity, self, memory

Some movies on memory, identity, personhood:
  • Chris Marker, La Jetée (1962)
  • Ingmar Bergman, Persona (1966)
  • Philip Kaufman, Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1978)
  • Daniel Vigne, The Return Of Martin Guerre (1982)
  • Ridley Scott, Blade Runner (1982)
  • John Carpenter, The Thing (1982)
  • David Cronenberg, The Fly (1986)
  • Penny Marshall, Awakenings (1990)
  • Paul Verhoeven, Total Recall (1990)
  • Abbas Kiarostami, Close-up (1990)
  • Mamoru Oshii, Ghost In The Shell (1995)
  • David Fincher, Fight Club (1999)
  • Christopher Nolan, Memento (2000)
  • Cameron Crowe, Vanilla Sky (2001)
  • Andrew Lau & Alan Mak, Infernal Affairs [無間道系列] (2002)
  • Michel Gondry, Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (2005)
  • Duncan Jones, Moon (2009)
  • Martin Scorsese, Shutter Island (2010) 
  • Spike Jonze, Her (2013)
Picture
TV Series:
  • Black Mirror, S1-S5 (2011–)
  • Orphan Black, S1-S5 (2013-2017)
  • Westworld (2016–)
  • Electric Dreams, S1 (2017)
  • Altered Carbon (2018)

Gentle introductions to Plato:
  • On Plato's theory of forms, here.
  • On Plato's theory of forms II, here.

On metaphysics:
  • What is metaphysics? Read here.

Podcasts:
  • Plato's Phaedo, and the Republic.
  • On Buddha, R. Gethin on Buddhism, J. Westerhoff on Nāgārjuna.
  • On Confucius.  

Paintings:
  • R. Magritte (1960) The memoirs of a saint.
  • S. Dali (1931) The persistence of memory.
  • Xiaogang Zhang (2002) My memory nr. 1.

Poems:
  • ​W. H. Auden (1940) In Memory of B. W. Yeats.
Picture
Short stories and novels:
  • Apuleius (160s) Metamorphoses (or The Golden Ass)
  • Augustine (397-400) Confessions 
  • Luigi Pirandello (1926) Uno, nessuno e centomila [One, No One and One Hundred Thousand]
  • Neil R. Jones (1931) The Jameson Satellite
  • Philip K. Dick (1953) Impostor
  • Philip K. Dick (1966) We can remember it for you wholesale
  • Philip K. Dick (1968) Do androids dream of electric sheep? 
  • Jorge Luis Borges (1960) Borges and I (see also John Perry (2007) "Borges and I" and I)
  • Greg Egan (1994) Permutation city

Comics
  • ​Existential comincs, The machine

​Cartoons
  • John Weldon (1990) To be [Watch it here]
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.