12-Apr 22 - Mackie - Personal Identity and Dead People

7/28/2019 12-Apr 22 - Mackie - Personal Identity and Dead People

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DAVIDMACKIE

PERSONALIDENTITYAND DEAD PEOPLE(Received 6 May1997)

IThe view that psychological continuity is necessary for personalidentityremainspopular n discussions of personal dentity.Indeed,it is probablyfair to say thatthis view currentlyconstitutes ortho-doxy. I shall call this view the Psychological Necessity Thesis, orPNT for short.In this paperI shall advancethe following argumentagainstthePsychologicalNecessity Thesis:(1) In some cases of death, what is left behindafterthe deathis adeadperson.(2) In at least some suchcases, the deadpersonis not psychologic-ally continuouswith the earlier iving person.(3) In suchcases, the deadpersonis identicalwith theearlier ivingperson.Therefore(4) Psychologicalcontinuity s not necessaryfor personal dentity.

What,if anything, s wrongwith this DeathArgument? am notthe first to claim thatpeople can continue to exist, as corpses, aftertheirdeaths.1Yet this line of thoughtseems to havehad little impacton the personalidentitydebate.It seems likely thatthe reason forthis is that most philosophersbelieve that the idea of arguingfromthe case of death in this way is obviouslymisguided.My main aimin thispaper s to show thatthat s not so. I shallconsider n detail thevariouspossible responsesthatmightbe made to the Death Argu-ment,andexplainwhy they fail. I concludethatthe argumentdoes,in fact, present a seriouschallenge to the Psychological NecessityThesis.a PhilosophicalStudies 95: 219-242, 1999.

(C) 999 KluwerAcademicPublishers. Printed in theNetherlands.


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220 DAVIDMACKIEBut since there are other,more familiar,argumentsagainstPNT,it is worth explaining first why I think we ought to consider the

Death Argumentat all.One obviousreason is simplythatproponentsof the more famil-iar argumentshave not yet succeededin persuading he prominentdefenders of PNT of the falsity of their view. Defenders of PNTbelieve that there may be responses to those more familiarargu-ments. In these circumstances,a new argumentmay strengthen hecase againstPNT.In addition,the Death Argumentmay have advantagesover themore familiararguments.Otherargumentsagainst PNT typicallyappealeither to imaginedcases like the 'brainzap' and the case ofbrain-(or cerebrum-)removal,or to cases of coma or braindeath.These are claimed, by proponentsof the arguments, o be cases ofidentity,or persistence,in the absenceof psychological continuity.But rightlyor wrongly, many people tend to be suspiciousof intui-

tions elicited by considerationof the imagined cases, mainly onthe groundthat we may not really know what would be involved;while thereis at least some lack of clarityas to whether he cases ofcoma and braindeathreallyinvolvepsychological discontinuity.Bycontrast,deathis a real phenomenon;and there are cases where itis quiteuncontroversial oth that the death of a person hasoccurredand that there is no one psychologicallycontinuouswith the earlierliving person.That is not to say, of course,that there are no pointsof controversyhere.In defendingthe Death Argument, shall maketwo controversial laims: first,thatpeoplecancontinue o exist aftertheirdeaths;secondly, that this fact has the significanceI claim ithas for the personal identity debate. But if, as I shall show, theseclaims can be defended,there will be no roomfor the objectionthatit is questionablewhetherI havereally describeda genuine case ofpsychologicaldiscontinuity,or that t is unclearwhat my case reallyinvolves. In that sense, at least, the Death Argumentmay present aclearercase than othermore familiarargumentsagainstPNT.Thirdly,my use of the DeathArgument ervesto drawanimpor-tant distinctionbetween differentnon-psychological views aboutpersonal dentity.Somephilosopherswho reject PNT defend a viewaccording o whichcontinued ife is necessaryfor the persistenceofpersons. Perhapsthe most obvious example is Olson's 'biological


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PERSONALIDENT1TYAND DEAD PEOPLE 221approach'.2 Like Olson, I acceptAnimalism- the view that we arehumanbeings- and claimthatsinceAnimalism s true,PNT is false.But I rejectOlson's positive accountof ourpersistenceconditions.Considerationof the Death Argumentforces us to recognise thatAnimalistsface a genuinechoice between differentaccountsof thepersistenceconditions of humanbeings. The question what thoseconditionsarehas not been adequatelydebated n the literature,andthere has been a tendencyto assumethat continued ife is required.But, as I shall argue (especially in section VII), thatassumption squiteunwarranted.Finally,as I shall show in sectionIV,the most commonresponseto the DeathArgumentbetraysa serious confusionin the minds ofmany about what questionit is that we are asking when we try todiscover the criterionof personal identity over time. The easiestway to highlight, and clear up, this confusion is to examine theresponsein question, and show why it is inadequate.Thatprovidesan additionalreason for considering hisDeathArgument.

IIThe Death Argumentis obviously valid. So if there is anythingwrong with it, what is wrong must be that at least one of thepremissesis false.Perhapsthe most obvious and tempting response is to say thatpremiss (1) is false, because there is really no such thing as a deadperson.WhatI call a 'dead person' is not in fact a person at all, butjust a deadbody,or corpse. It might thenseem that, since this is so,my DeathArgumentdoes not succeed in threateningPNT at all.I want to emphasise that makingthis response involves assertingthe truthof two quite distincttheses.They are the following:FirstThesis: there is no such thingas a dead person:what I calla 'deadperson' is not really a person at all.

Second Thesis: since what I call a 'dead person' is not reallya person at all, my Death Argumentpresents no threat to thePsychological Necessity Thesis. If 'dead people' are not reallypeople (or persons), then they are irrelevant n a discussion ofpersonal dentity.


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222 DAVIDMACKIEIt is important o notice that these are distinct theses, both of

whichmust be true f the suggestedresponseto the DeathArgumentis to be successful. In sections III and IV I shall consider the twotheses in turn.I shall argue (in section III) that there is indeed away to defend the thesis that 'deadpeople' arenot really people (orpersons);but I shall also argue(in sectionIV) thatthe SecondThesiscannot be defended.Even if whatI call 'deadpeople' arenot reallypersons,it does not follow thatthe DeathArgument s irrelevant othepersonal dentitydebate.

III

The First Thesis assertsthat thereis no suchthingas a deadperson,or that whatI call 'deadpeople' arenotreallypeople (or persons).Some people seem to think that this thesis is obviously correct.But othersdisagree.Thomson,for example, appears o think that itis an obviously false thesis.That seems to be shownby the fact thatin attacking t she restrictsherself to asking rhetoricallywhy therecouldn't be some dead people in a house afterthe roof has fallenin, just as theremight be some dead cats there.3How should thisdisagreementbe resolved?We do findit natural o call the entities left behindin cases likeThomson's 'deadpeople'. And thisusageis not obviously incorrect,orself-contradictory. hatmeans,at least,thatdefendersof the FirstThesis ought to be able to explain away this usage. They should

say that,when we talk in this way, we are not really betrayinganybelief in the existence of things that arereallypersons,butthat aredead.Rather, his is just anotherway of referring o what we mightequally,and morecorrectly,call deadhumanbodies, or corpses.This claim is usually filled out in one of two differentways.Accordingto one view, the phrase 'dead people' is like the phrase'counterfeitmoney'.4 On this view, in saying that there are somedead people in a house we may say something perfectly true. Butthis does not meanthat dead people arereallypeople (or persons).For,on this view, just as counterfeitmoney is not reallymoney, sodead people are not really people (or persons). So on this view,saying that there are some dead people in a house involves no


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PERSONALIDENTITYAND DEAD PEOPLE 223commitmentto the claim that there are some things in the housethatarereallypeople (orpersons),butthat aredead.

This view, however, is implausible.The naturalway of takingthe suggestion is as saying that 'dead'belongs to a certain class ofadjectives,of which 'counterfeit'(and (e.g.) 'imaginary')are alsomembers. Such a class of adjectivesundoubtedlyexists. But I cansee no good reasonfor supposingthat 'dead'really does belong tothis class; while thereis at least some reason for supposingthatitdoes not. After all, it follows on this account that for any F, thephrase 'deadF' does not mentionsomethingthatreallyis anF. Forjust as counterfeitmoney isn't really money, so counterfeitrubiesare not really rubies, counterfeitbarns are not really barns, andso on. So, if 'dead' is an adjectivelike 'counterfeit',thenjust asdead people are not really people, so dead roses will not really beroses, dead butterflieswill not really be butterflies,and dead grasswill not really be grass. Worse still, dead bodies will not reallybe bodies. This will strikemost people as an unacceptableview.Rather,most people regard it as obviously true that dead grass isgrass,andthatdeadbutterfliesarebutterflies; ndit is very doubtfulwhetheranyone could seriously maintainthatdead bodies are notreallybodies. It is only whenit comes to people,orpersons, thatweareat all inclinedto hesitate.5Theseconsiderations uggest a second,andbetter,way to defendthe FirstThesis. Instead of claimingthat 'dead' is an adjective ike'counterfeit',defenders of the FirstThesis should say that thereissomethingspecialaboutpersons (as opposed to roses, grass,butter-flies and bodies) that means that there is no such thing as a deadperson.The obvious suggestionhere is thatfor something to countas a person, it has to satisfy some condition relating to psycho-logical endowment. According to this view, nothing falls underthe person concept unless it is psychologically endowed in somefairly specific and sophisticatedway. This is a familiarfeatureofthe person concept as it is understoodby many philosophers(andothers).It is on the groundthat personhoodrequiresa certainkindof psychological endowmentthat it is often assertedthat foetusesat certainstages of development,andpatients in a persistentvege-tativestate, arenot persons. And this view, of course, accordswithLocke's definition,accordingto which a person is a "thinking ntel-


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224 DAVIDMACKIEligent Being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider it selfas it self, the same thinkingthing in different times and places".6Clearly, hingsthat are dead fail to satisfythe relevantpsychologicalcondition.One way of makingthis point would be to say that those whoassert the existence of deadpeople have simply misunderstood heperson concept. But that would be to overstatethe case. Thomsonand I are fairly clearly not guilty of any misunderstanding f theconcept, and we are not blatantly misusing the English language,when we say that there are deadpeople. At the most, we areusingthe term 'person' in a different,but not obviously incorrect, way.The truth hereforeseems to be that ourconcept is at least to someextentambiguous.We can distinguishtwo slightly differentsensesof the term 'person'.On what we can call the strongsense, nothingis a person unless it meets some conditionrelatingto psychologicalendowment.But there is also a weaker sense of the term, whichmakes it not incorrect for Thomson and me to say that there aredeadpeople.It wouldhelpto avoid confusionif ourconceptwere notambigu-ous in this way. It wouldbe better,perhaps, f we restrictedour useof the term 'person'to refer to thingsthat arepersonsin the strongsense. No doubt some people, including many of those who writeaboutpersonal dentity,alreadyrestrict heirusage in this way.Andit may be that this practice will one day become universal.In themeantime, to avoid confusion, I shall from now on use 'Person'(with a capital P) to mean 'person in the strong sense': nothingis a Person that does not satisfy the relevantcondition relating topsychological endowment.But I shall allow myself to continuetotalkabout'dead people', and 'the dead person'. When I do, I shouldbe understoodas using the terms 'person'and 'people' in the weaksense only.

IVDead people are not Persons. So I accept that premiss (1) in theDeathArgument s false if takenas referring o Persons. A temptingresponse to the argumentat this point is to say thatthis means thatthe Death Argumentis irrelevant o the personal identity debate,


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PERSONALIDENTITYAND DEAD PEOPLE 225and hence does not threatenPNT.Accordingto this response,sincedeadpeople are not Persons, they are not amongthe entitieswhosepersistence conditionsthat debate seeks to discover.To say this isof course to assertthe truthof what in section II I called the SecondThesis. It is to say that dead people fall outside the scope of thepersonal dentitydebate,becausethey are not Persons.The assumptionthat this is so can seem plausible:it seems tocoherewith the fact that the subjectis calledpersonal identity,andwith the view thatLocke's definition of 'person',which picks outwhatI have called the strongsense of 'person',is somehow centralto the debate. At any rate, it is obviously correct thatit is Personswhose persistenceconditions we are supposedto be investigating.It may seem to follow that dead people, who, as I admit,are notPersons, are not relevant o the debate.That inference, however, is fallacious. You and I are Persons;and our persistenceconditions are certainlyunderinvestigation nthe debate. But defenders of PNT need more than this if they areto establish the irrelevanceof the Death Argument.For what thatargumentasserts is that something that is a Person at one timemay continue to exist, in the absence of psychological continuity,at a later time, when it is no longer a Person.7Now that clearlyis an assertionaboutthe persistenceconditionsof somethingthatis a Person. So to point out that the personalidentitydebate is aninvestigation of the persistenceconditions of Persons is evidentlynot to show that the DeathArgument s irrelevant.TheDeathArgumentwould be irrelevant nly if the strong senseof 'person'definedthe personal dentitydebate in a morerestrictedwaythanthis. Theeasiestway to see this is to considertwo differentquestionsthat we might ask aboutpersonal dentity.8One question,which I shallcall the wide question,asks:What is therelationbetween a Person at one time, andsomethingat another ime,whichmakes these (numerically) dentical- one and the samething?Thenarrowquestion asks:What is the relationbetween a Person at one time, and a Person at another ime,whichmakes these (numerically) dentical- one andthe samePerson?

The Death Argument would be irrelevant f the personal identitydebate were restrictedto the narrowquestion.Defenders of PNT


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226 DAVIDMACKIEwould thenmerelybe asserting he truthof the restrictedclaim thatsomethingthat is a Personat one time is identicalwith somethingthat is a Person at anothertime only if a relation of psychologicalcontinuityholds between them. Since a deadperson s not a Person,the DeathArgument s clearly irrelevant o, andcould not threaten,this restrictedclaim.But contemporarydefenders of PNT do not merely seek todefendthis restrictedclaim. If they did, they could (withoutcontra-dicting themselves) agree with me when I suggest that I couldcontinue to exist in the absence of psychological continuity.PNTwould merely be the conditional claim that if I, who am now aPerson, persist in the absence of psychological continuity,then Ishalldo so withoutbeing a Person. Thisconditionalclaim is clearlyconsistent with my suggestion. But this conditional claim is notat all what contemporarydefenders of PNT take themselves to bedefending. Rather, hey are makingthe strongerclaim thatI couldnotpersistat all withoutpsychological continuity.Theyareanswer-ing the wide question, not the narrowone. Theirs is a claim aboutmy (your, their) persistence full stop, not about my (your, their)persistence-as-a-Person.That is, theirs is a position in a debatewhichtheydo not take to be restricted o the narrowquestion.This is often obscuredby the way in which these samephiloso-pherstypically formulatethe questionaboutpersonalidentitythatthey areaddressing.In introducing heirsubject,they usually writeas if they were attemptingto answer only the narrowquestion.Parfit'spracticeis typical:in his most recentarticle on the subject,he writes:Questions about ournumerical dentity all takethe following form. We have twowaysof referring o aperson,andwe askwhether hese are waysof referring o thesameperson.... Toanswersuchquestions,we must know the criterionof personalidentity:the relationbetween a person at one time, and a person at another ime,which makesthese one andthe same person.9Giventhe natural endencyof many to understand person'as mean-ing 'Person',this formulation uggeststhat Parfit akes thequestionaboutthe criterionof personalidentityto be what I have called thenarrowquestion. But that is not so. In defendingPNT, he does nottakehimself to be defending the restrictedclaim thatpsychologicalcontinuity s necessary for my persistenceas a Person;rather,he is


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PERSONALIDENTITYAND DEAD PEOPLE 227claimingthatI could notpersistat all, in the absenceof a psycholo-gically continuoussuccessor.He thinks thatI am wrongwhen I saythat I could continue to exist aftermy death,withoutbeing psycho-logically continuouswith my earlierliving self. And he thinksthatPNT is in genuine conflict with what I say. That shows thatPNTis meant to be partof an answer to the wide question,and not tothe narrowone. Parfit s not in the least unusual n thisrespect. Thewhole modempersonal dentitydebate s conducted argelyin termsof questions aboutwhat wouldhappento me, or some othernamedPerson,in variousimaginedcases. In discussion of such questions,it is not standardlyassumed that any resulting entity that is nota Person is ipso facto not a candidate for identificationwith theoriginal Person. Forexample:it is evidentthat no Person is locatedwhere a humanbody from which the cerebrumhas been removedis located.But Olson is not regardedas havingmissed the point,oras havingsaid somethingfalse, in claimingthat if he would remainwhere his body was if his cerebrumwere transplanted,henPNT isfalse.10It is true,as I have said, thatmanyphilosophersformulatethe problem as if they were interested n the narrowquestion, andnot the wide question;and some are initially inclined to respondto the Death Argument n the way that I am currentlycriticising.But thatis evidence of a failureclearlyto distinguishbetweenthosequestions; t is notevidencethat t was thenarrowquestionthattheymeant to addressall along.Not only are prominent modem defenders of PNT in factconcernedto answerthe wide question,rather hanthe narrowone;there is also a good reasonwhy the debateoughtnot to be restrictedto the narrow question. After all, our main interest, in investi-gating personal dentity, s in ourselves:we wantto know what ourpersistenceconditionsare. If, in tryingto discoverour persistenceconditions,we restrictourselvesto the narrowquestion,we shallbeguiltyof assumingwithoutargumenthatwe areessentiallyPersons- that we couldnot continueto exist withoutbeingPersons. 1It follows that it is not enoughfor defendersof PNT to pointoutthat dead people are not Persons. That observation s true;but itdoes not mean thatthe DeathArgument s irrelevant o thepersonalidentitydebate.In discussingpersonal dentity,we areinvestigatingourpersistenceconditions. If I, who am currentlya Person,am the


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228 DAVIDMACKIEkind of thing that could continueto exist in a dead state,when it isnot psychologically continuouswith the earlier living Person, thenPNT will be incorrect.It will be incorrecteven if, whenI amin thatdead state,I do notqualifyas a Person.Itwill be incorrectbecauseitgets my persistenceconditionswrong.Accordingly, o pointout thatdeadpeople arenot Persons is completely inadequateas a responseto the Death Argument.Premiss (1) is true,when 'person'is under-stoodin the weak sense. And that s the only sense in whichit needsto be true.

vI have now arguedthat my Death Argumentcannot be resistedbydenying the firstpremiss. That premiss is indeed false if taken assuggestingthat there are dead Persons. But that,as I have shown,is of no significance.Dead people arenot irrelevant o the personalidentitydebate ust becausethey are not Persons.A differentresponse to the Death Argument might challenge,instead,the secondpremiss.Thatis the premissthat assertspsycho-logical discontinuitybetween the deadpersonandthe earlier ivingPerson. If we challenge premiss (2), we make the following setof claims: There are dead people; but even if these dead peopleare identical with the earlier living Persons whose bodies theyhave, that constitutes no threat to PNT; for these dead people arepsychologicallycontinuouswith those earlier iving Persons.12Such a challenge, however, s utterly mplausible.Wemight,justconceivably,be prepared o grant thatsome dead people might becounted as psychologically continuouswith earlier living Persons;if we did, it would have to be because we were persuadedthat,afterdeath,their brainsretained some structural rganisation uchthat, if (somehow) they could be revived, they might pick up theirpsychologicallives wheretheyleft off. But thiscannotbe trueof alldeadpeople. Not all deadpeople's brainsdo retainany such struc-turalorganisation.If we 'scrambled'the cerebrumof some deadperson, that would certainlybe sufficient to ensurepsychologicaldiscontinuity.Suchaprocedurewoulddestroythe structuren virtueof which the dead person might otherwise have been said to bepsychologicallycontinuouswith theearlier iving Person.Defenders


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PERSONALIDENTITYAND DEAD PEOPLE 229of PNT who try to resist the Death Argumentby denying premiss(2) must therefore claim that such a scramblingprocedurewouldcause the deadpersonto cease to exist. Onthis view, we couldhavea dead person before us; but we could cause that dead person tocease to exist simply by insertinga sharp nstrument nto the headand scrambling he cerebrum.That is surely implausible.It seemsclearthat if dyingis not sufficient or non-existence,thendying andhaving one's cerebrumscrambledwill notbe sufficienteither.

VI

I have now arguedthat the Death Argumentcannot be resistedbychallengingeitherpremiss (1) or premiss (2). To avoid the conclu-sion of the Death Argument,then, defendersof PNT must insteadchallenge premiss (3). That is the premiss that asserts identitybetween the deadpersonandthe earlier iving Person.I shall defendpremiss (3) by appealto two claims that I believeto be correct. The first is that what I am is an animal- a humanbeing. The second is that humanbeings do not necessarily cease toexist when they die. Because I accept these two claims, I believethat sometimes, when someone dies, the humanbeing that he iscontinues to exist. What is left, after the death, is a dead humanbeing thatis (identicalwith) the earlier iving Person.The first claim - that what I am is a humanbeing - amountsto the thesis known as Animalism.A large, and growing,numberof philosophersworkingin the field alreadyaccept (some versionof) Animalism. They include Snowdon, Olson, Wiggins, Parfit,McDowell, Ayers, Carter,and van Inwagen.13But I cannot hopeto give a complete defence of Animalism here.That would requirean article,or more likely a book, of its own. Forthis reason, I shallhave nothingto say here by way of detailedreply to a defender ofPNT who agreeswith me thatAnimalism s inconsistentwith PNT,but who takes thatto be a reasonfor rejectingAnimalism. Such anapproachseems to me mistaken,because I believe that Animalismis much bettersupported han PNT. But I cannot defend my viewin full here. The most I can do is to refer readersto the excellentdefences of Animalism thathave been presentedby others.14


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230 DAVIDMACKIEThere is, however,one objection to Animalism that I want toaddresshere, for two reasons. The firstis simplythat it has not yet

been adequatelydealt with in the literature.The second reason isthat answeringthis objectionhelps to clarify still further he issueI raised in section IV about what question it is that we shouldbeaddressingwhen we discusspersonal dentity.This is the objection that Animalism is unjustifiablyanthropo-centric.Accordingto this objection,Animalism is guilty of rulingout a priori the possibilitythattheremightbe non-humanPersons.What I want to emphasise is that this objectionapplies only ifAnimalismhastobe statedas the thesis thatthe term 'Person'namesa particularbiological kind - namely, the species Homo sapiens.That thesis implies that,necessarily,all Persons are humanbeings.That thesis is indeed objectionable.It strikes us as objectionableprincipallybecause we are inclined to think that the possession ofcertainpsychologicalcapacities s sufficient orPersonhood,and we

have no good reasonto assumethathumanbeings arethe onlythingsthatcouldpossess suchcapacities.We are notentitled o assumethatthere could not be non-humanPersons: heremight be, forexample,MartianPersons,or roboticPersons who were not humanbeings;andif God, Satan,or angels existed, they too wouldpresumablybePersons,but not humanbeings.This only shows, however,thatAnimalism should not be statedin this objectionableway. Animalists should notclaim that 'Person'denotesa particularbiological kind,so that, necessarily,all Personsare humanbeings. Instead, they should claim, as Snowdon does,only that we are humanbeings.15 This formulation s free of theoffending assumption.This formulationof Animalism,of course, invites the question'Who are "we"?'.To this question, the answermust be that 'we'means you, me, and those other Persons who are of the samesubstantialkind as us.When Animalism is formulated n this way, some will objectthat it is of only limited value in a discussion of personal iden-tity. Proponentsof Animalismgenerally believe that theirview isof interestbecause it promisesto help to answer the question whatthe criterionof personal dentity s. Itpromisesto do so by telling uswhat kindof things we are.If, as Animalism asserts, we arehuman


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PERSONALIDENTITYAND DEAD PEOPLE 231beings, then our persistencecriteriaare the same as those of thehumanbeings with which we are identical. But if it is admitted,as I agree it must be, that 'we' are not the only possible Persons,thenAnimalism s nota thesis aboutall possiblePersons.Some willobject that,since this is so, Animalism can only be of limitedvaluein answeringthe question what the criterionof personal identityis. At most, it promisesto tell us somethingabout the persistenceconditions of some Persons.This new objection assumes that, in giving an answer to thequestion what the criterionof personalidentity is, we ought to begiving an answerto a questionabout the persistenceconditionsofall possiblePersons. Now if thequestionwe should be addressing swhat in section IV I called the wide question,then this assumptionmay seemjustified.Thatquestion,we recall,asks:What s the relationbetweena Person at one time, andsomethingat another ime,which makes these (numerically)dentical- one and the samething?Onone reading,this is indeed a questionaboutall possible Persons,and not just about human ones like you and me. But we are nowin a position to see more clearly thatwe shouldnot be addressingsuch a questionwhen we discuss personalidentity.If thereare, orcould be, Personswho are not humanbeings, thenit is reasonable othink thattheremay be no single criterionof identity over time forall possible Persons. It is reasonable o think this precisely becausethe range of thingsthat could count as Persons includesthings thatmaybe of widely differingkinds.God,if He existed, wouldon mostviews be animmaterialPerson(or threePersons).It is at least plaus-ible thatthat might make Him a very differentkind of entity fromthe humanorganismsthat,accordingto Animalism, you and I are.RoboticPersons would be material;butthey mightpresumably tillbe completelydifferentkinds of entitiesfrom us: for one thing, theywould not be biological entitiesat all. And even if MartianPersonswereanimals,they might yet be very differentsorts of animalsfromthe humananimalsthat you and I are.But if possiblePersons nclude,as this suggests, thingsthatcouldbe of many differentkinds, then thereis no reason to assume thatall possible Personswill havethe samepersistenceconditions. Thismeans that there is no reason to assume that there will be anysingle answer to the wide question if we understand t as a ques-


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232 DAVIDMACKIEtion about all possible Persons. But unless we have a reason toassume that it will have a single answer,that is not the questionthat we ought to set ourselves. Instead,we should ask a questionabout ourselves. We should understand he wide questionnot as aquestionaboutallpossible Persons,but as a questionabouta limitedsubset of possible Persons,who we have good reasonto think willall have the samepersistenceconditions.This subset should includeus human Persons,of course, because it is our persistencethatweare principally nterested n.

I suspect that most philosophers workingin this field have notconsidered thoroughly the distinction that I draw here betweendifferent ormulationsof 'the' questionaboutpersonal dentity.Butit is worthpointingout thatat least two featuresof the actualpracticeof those working n this field lend support o my view thatin inves-tigating personal identitywe ought not to set ourselves a questionabout thepersistenceconditionsof all possiblePersons.First,it would be absurd o assume that we could answer such aquestionby restrictingourselves to consideringwhat wouldhappento us in various real and imagined cases. Yet most philosophersworkingin this field plainly do hope to answer the question theyare addressingby findingout about our persistence conditions.Allthe thought experimentsthat they employ concern human beings.These philosophersdo not think that they need to consider cases

involving God, or robotic, or Martian,Persons, in order to answertheir question. That suggests that, implicitly at least, they are notconcernedto answera questionabout all possible Persons.Secondly, the views that many of these philosophers actuallypresentas answers to the question about the criterion of personalidentityare views that could not be meant to apply to all possiblePersons. The popularview that brain continuity is necessary forpersonal identity, for example, can hardly be meant to apply toGod's persistence, or to the persistence of such brainless alienPersons as mightexist. Most proponentsof this view don't supposethat, in holding it, they are ipso facto committed to denying thatthere might be such brainless Persons. Again, this suggests thatthese philosophersare really only concerned to answera questionaboutPersonsof the same substantialkindas us, and not a questionaboutall possible Persons.


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PERSONALIDENTITYAND DEAD PEOPLE 233I am not denying outrightthat there might be a single answerto the wide question understoodas a question about all possible

Persons.For example, if Lowe is rightin thinkingthat Personsarepsychological substances,then it does have a single answer.16Andalthough t is evidentfrom whatIhave said so far thatI do notmyselfacceptLowe's view, I have not argueddirectly against t here.WhatI am emphasising,rather, s that, in discussing personal identity,it would be folly to set ourselves a questionaboutthe persistenceconditions of all possible Persons, and to continue to try to find'the' answer, f that involves assumingwithoutargument hattherereally is a single answer to thatquestion. We should set ourselves aquestion that does not beg the questionin thatway. And, as I havesuggested,most of those working n the field at least implicitly (andprobablysubconsciously)do this, by concerningthemselves with aquestion that is restricted o those Personswho it is reasonabletoassumedo sharethe samepersistenceconditions namely,you, me,andother normalhumanbeings.Animalism, then, should be stated, as Snowdon states it, as athesis about our persistence,and not as a thesis aboutall possiblePersons. Thisrenders t innocentof the chargeof anthropocentrism.The criticismthatAnimalism, when statedin this way, could be oflimitedvalueonly in answering hequestionaboutpersonal dentityturnsout to be unfounded. n explainingwhy this is so, I havemadeit clearerwhat question it is, precisely,that we ought to be askingwhenwe investigate 'thecriterionof personal dentity'.

VIIEven those who accept Animalism, however,may still doubt thetruthof premiss (3) in the Death Argument.Thatwas the premissthatasserted dentitybetweenthe deadpersonand the earlier ivingPerson.

Now, if dead human beings exist at all, they are presumablyidenticalwith those earlier iving humanbeings whose bodies theyhave. If we deny this, we face the questionwho these deadhumanbeingsare.Theycannotplausiblybe identicalwith anyotheralreadyexisting human beings; so on this view they must be brandnewhumanbeings. This is surely unacceptable: t commits us to the


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234 DAVIDMACKIEabsurdview thatkilling humanbeings could be a way of creatingbrand new humanbeings. Since this is so, Animalists who denypremiss (3) in the Death Argumentought to deny that there areany deadhumanbeings at all. They oughtto doubt the truthof mysecond claim - thathumanbeings do not necessarilycease to existwhen they die. They must accept what I shall call the TerminationThesis- the thesis that humanbeings necessarily cease to exist atthe time of their deaths.The TerminationThesis strongly conflicts with what ordinarypeople believe. Non-philosophers hinkthat the TerminationThesisis not only false, but obviously so. Their view can be outlined asfollows.Membersof otherbiological species do not necessarily cease toexist whentheydie. As Feldmanhaspointedout,thesuggestionthata butterflycollector does not reallyhavebutterflies n his collectionwouldbe greetedwith astonishmentby anynon-philosopher. Theitems in the collector'scollection aredead; but that does not meanthattheyare notreallybutterflies.Thismangoes out in the morningwith a net, and spendsthe day catchingbutterflies.In the eveninghe comes home and mounts them. Those who thinkthatmembersof biological kindsnecessarilycease to exist when they die have tosay thatthethings this manmounts n theeveningare not the butter-flies thathe caughtduringthe day,but some other items - namely,butterflycorpses.But whydeny thatbutterflycorpsesaremembersof the biological kind butterfly?These corpses owe every featurethey have- theirphysicalstructure, hemicalcompositionandso on- to thefact thattheyareproductsof biological processesdistinctiveof the biological species in question. It is reasonable o suggest thatit is preciselybecausethese arebutterflies hat it is possible to learnaboutbutterfliesby studying such collections. Why think that themereabsence of life meansthatthey arenotbutterflies?Similarremarksapplyto themembersof otherbiologicalspecies.It wouldbe, if anything,even more astonishing o suggest thatdeadroses arenotreallyroses, or thatdeadgrass is not reallygrass.But ifbiological entities in general do not necessarilycease to exist whenthey die, there is no reason to thinkthat the members of ourbiolo-gical species areany different n thisrespect.Livinghumanbeings,then,canbecomedead humanbeings.And this too is whatwe ordin-


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PERSONALIDENTITYAND DEAD PEOPLE 235arilybelieve. We do indeeddistinguishbetween a manfreshlydead- he is dead,but still there- and the pile of ashes remainingafterhis cremation.Non-philosophers, hen, regardmy view that members of biolo-gical species do not necessarily cease to exist when they die asan obvious truth.Thatmeans, at least, that those who endorsetheTerminationThesis need some very strong groundsfor doing so.My view can with fairnessbe regardedas the defaultview here.Now it seems thatsomephilosophersdo have whattheythink arespecial philosophicalgrounds or acceptingtheTerminationThesis.Feldman has already discussed a numberof argumentsfor it.18But,as Feldmanhasconclusivelydemonstrated,he threeargumentshe discusses - the Argumentfrom Definition,the ArgumentfromPersonalDualism,and theArgument romPersonality are all veryweak, and entirely question-begging,and I shall not discuss themhere.

Itmayfairly be said,however, hatthe threeargumentsdiscussedby Feldman do not exhaust the considerations that might beadvancedin supportof the TerminationThesis. In the remainderof this section, I shall thereforeconsiderwhat seem to me to be theremainingconsiderations hat mightbe advanced.I shall show thatthey fail to give adequate supportto the TerminationThesis; andI shall conclude that, in the absence of alternativearguments, heTerminationThesis should be rejected.Some of those who accept the TerminationThesis may do sobecause they want to respect what they take to be an importantinsightof Locke's. Locke famously distinguishedbetween the iden-tity conditions of masses of matter on the one hand, and livingorganisms on the other. It is indeed reasonable to draw such adistinction:unlike masses of matter,biological organismstake on,and lose, matter as part of their naturalway of living. Trees andotherbiological organismsdo not cease to exist when they lose orgain matter(e.g. throughmetabolic processes); rather, osing andgaining matterin this way is part of how they typically persist.It is therefore reasonableto claim that any plausible view of thepersistenceconditions of humanbeings will respectthis differencebetweenbiologicalorganismsand Lockean masses of matter.


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236 DAVIDMACKIEIndrawing hisdistinction,Lockeadditionally laimed that t wasnecessaryfor the persistenceof biological items like trees and men

(whatwe would call humanbeings) thattheyremainalive.We must thereforeconsider wherein an Oak differs from a Mass of Matter,andthat seems to me to be in this; thatthe one is only the Cohesion of Particles ofMatterany how united,the other such a dispositionof them as constitutes thepartsof an Oak;andsuch an Organization f those parts,as is fit to receive, anddistributenourishment, o as to continue,and frametheWood, Bark,andLeaves,etc. of an Oak, in which consists the vegetableLife. Thatbeing then one Plant,which has such an Organizationof Parts n one coherentBody, partakingof oneCommonLife, it continuesto be the samePlant,as long as it partakesof thesameLife, though that Life be communicated o new Particlesof Mattervitally unitedto the living Plant, in a like continuedOrganization, onformable o the sort ofPlants.19... the Identity of the same Man consists ... in nothingbut a participation f thesame continuedLife, by constantly fleeting Particles of Matter,in successionvitallyunited to the sameorganizedBody.20

Locke's account of the persistence conditions of biologicalorganisms,then, respects his own insight - that living organismsmust have differentpersistenceconditionsfrommasses of matter. tdoes so by giving anaccountof thepersistenceconditionsof humanbeings accordingto which humanbeings necessarilycease to existwhentheydie. But it is to be emphasised hatthe need to respecttheimportantLockean insight does not oblige us to accept, as Lockedid, the TerminationThesis. For it is evident that we can respectthe Lockeaninsight here withoutendorsingLocke's own view ofthe persistence conditions of humanbeings, and withoutacceptingthe TerminationThesis. The obvious alternative s to suggest thatthe persistenceof biological organismsdepends on theirretaining(enough of) the organisationof parts that is the product of theirnaturalbiological development, and that makes them apt for life,while stopping short of saying that life itself is necessary. If weadoptthis view, we can agreethat thereis a differencebetween theidentityconditions of masses of matterand those of organisms,andthat this difference s connected with the fact that it is characteristicand/ordistinctiveof biological organisms hattheytakeon, andlosematteras partof theirnatural ife cycles - indeed, that this is howthey naturally live - without believing that biological organismsnecessarilycease to exist whenthey die.


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PERSONALIDENTITYAND DEAD PEOPLE 237Partof what Locke himself says in this context might actuallylead a reader o thinkof this alternative o Locke's own view. (This

is not to suggest that we should interpretLocke as suggesting, oreven being awareof, this alternative.)At one point,he writes thataplant continuesto exist duringall the time that ts parts"exist unitedin thatcontinuedOrganization,which isfit to conveythatCommonLife to all the Parts so united".21 Now the parts of an organismplainly can be organised n such a way thatthey arefitto conveylifeto the organism,even if they are not actuallydoing so. Freshlydeadtrees, butterfliesand humanbeings may retain an almostperfectlyintactorganisationof theirparts.I propose,then,as an alternative othe TerminationThesis, the view thatbiological organismspersistas long as this organisationof constituentpartsremainssufficientlynearly intact.22This view enables us to respect Locke's insight,whilst retainingthe commonsense view that there really are suchthingsas deadbutterflies,deadroses, anddeadhumanbeings.

Moreover,Locke's own analogy with the watch counts againstthe TerminationThesis. He arguesthaton his account the identityof biological organisms s similar to that of machineslike watches,for a watch is... nothingbut a fitOrganization, r Construction f Parts, o a certainend, which,when a sufficientforce is addedto it, it is capableto attain.If we would supposethis Machine one continued Body, all whose organized Parts were repair'd,increas'dor diminish'd,by a constantAddition or Separationof insensible Parts,with one CommonLife, we should have something very much like the Body ofanAnimal,withthis difference,That n an Animal the fitness of theOrganization,and the Motion wherein Life consists, begin together, the motion coming fromwithin;butin Machines the force, coming sensibly fromwithout, is often away,when the Organ s in order,and well fitted to receive it.23

As Locke seems to recognise,it wouldclearly be wrong to applythe analogue of the TerminationThesis to watches. Whenthe forcethatdrives the watch is absent, the watch still exists. In fact, evenwhen a watch is broken, and will not work, as for example whensome vital part (say, the mainspring) s hopelessly damaged, noone seriously supposesthat the watch has ceased to exist. What wehave, rather,s a broken,perhapseven an irreparably roken,watch.Though it is broken,it is still the very same watch as the one wepreviouslyhad, whichused to work, and tell the time. It is natural osuggestthatwe can still have the same watch in suchcircumstances


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238 DAVIDMACKIEbecauseenough of the watch'spartsremain, n a sufficiently imilarstructural rganisation.But, if we find the analogybetweenanimals(biologicalmachines)and watches(artefactualmachines)attractive,why should we not give an analogousaccount of the persistenceofanimals? Why not say that animals, like watches, can continue toexist, even whentheyareirreparably roken that s, dead), providedthat they retainenough of theirparts,in a sufficientlysimilar stateof organisation? f Locke's analogybetween machineslike watchesandbiological organismsreally holds, it actuallyprovidesa furtherreasonfor rejectingthe TerminationThesis.Locke's insight, then, providesno good reason for acceptingtheTerminationThesis. And thealternative uggestionthatI have madealso shows that a second considerationthat might be adducedinsupportof the TerminationThesis is without force. Olson impliesthat,unless we accepttheview thathumananimalsnecessarilyceaseto exist when they die, it is hard to see what it does take for ahumananimalto cease to exist.24But that is not so. In rejectingtheTerminationThesis, we can retain a view thatgives a plausibleandprincipledanswerto the question what it takes for an organismtocease to exist. An organismpersistsfor as long as it retainsenoughof its parts, n a sufficientlysimilarstateof organisation.On this view, no precise line is drawn specifying how muchcounts as enough, or what counts as sufficient similarity.Therewill be cases in which it is indeterminatewhetherthe humanbeingstill exists. It might finally be claimed that the TerminationThesisis preferableto this view, precisely because it avoids such inde-terminacies.But thatis dubious, to say the least. For one thing, itis not obvious that the fact that a proposed criterion allows thereto be indeterminate ases constitutesany threat to its plausibility.Secondly,the idea thatif we adoptthe TerminationThesis we canavoid such cases is itself dubious. For it is far from clear thatplausible criteriaof life can be specified such that all possibility ofindeterminate ases will be eliminated.Inthis sectionI have shownthatfurther onsiderations hatmightbe advanced n supportof the TerminationThesis in fact have littleforce. And otherarguments or the thesis, as Feldman has alreadyshown, are quite inadequate.But as far as I know there are nogroundsotherthan these for accepting theTerminationThesis. And


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PERSONALIDENTITYAND DEAD PEOPLE 239as I have already said, we should need a very strong reason foraccepting that thesis, since doing so would involve the rejectionof our naturalconviction that living organismscan become deadorganisms. conclude thatwe shouldfavour he commonsenseview,andrejectthe TerminationThesis.

VIIIThatcompletes my defence of premiss (3) in the Death Argument.There was not room for me to give a completedefence of Animal-ism myself in this paper;butstrong arguments or Animalismhavebeen advancedby others. And if we do acceptAnimalism,then weought to believe that it is possible for us to continueto exist afterour deaths. For we are human beings; and there are no adequatereasons for abandoning he ordinaryview that living humanbeingscan become, and hence continue to exist as, dead humanbeings.Since that is so, premiss(3) is true: a deadpersonis identicalwiththe earlier iving Person whose body he has.But as I arguedin sections II to V, the Death Argumentcannotbe blocked by denying either of the other two premisses. I there-fore submit that this argument s sound,and that the PsychologicalNecessity Thesis should be rejected.Now as I said at the start,I amwell aware that other argumentsagainstPNT already exist in theliterature;and I myself believe that those argumentscan be madecompelling. So far as the rejectionof PNT is concerned, then, myown view is thatmy DeathArgumentmerely representsphilosoph-ical overkill.But even forthose who sharemy view that those morefamiliarargumentscan be made compelling, considerationof theDeathArgument s notwithoutvalue.Forit is not only defendersofPNT who tell me thatthe Death Argument s obviously flawed. Inexplaining why that is not so, I hope that, as well as presentinganddefendinga new argumentagainst PNT, I have done something toclear up some serious confusions about what questionit is that weoughtto be addressingwhen we discuss personal dentity.25


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240 DAVIDMACKIENOTES

1 JudithThomson is a prominentdissenter from the Psychological NecessityThesis; sherecognisesthather own view thatpeoplearebodiescommits her to theview that there are deadpeople who are identical with earlier iving people;andshe has argued hat this commitment s unproblematic see Thomson(forthcom-ing)). Fred Feldman has publishedan extended defence of the view thatpeoplecan continue to exist for a while after their deaths. He does not use the term'psychologicalcontinuity',or relatehis claims explicitlyto the personal dentitydebate;but he considers, and rejects, criticisms of this view that are based onclaims about the relevance of psychology to the persistenceof persons;and it isclear that his own position must be that his views about deathare inconsistentwith PNT (see Feldman(1992), ch. 6). AndEricOlson, thoughhe himself rejectsthisview,mentionsthatmany peoplebelieve thatorganismscancontinue o exist,as corpses, after theirdeaths(Olson (1997a), p. 119). Note that the Death Argu-ment can be regardedas a kind of temporalmirror mage of the (perhapsmorefamiliar)argument hat,since foetuses areidenticalwith,but notpsychologicallycontinuouswith,laterpeople,PNTis false (see, forexample,Carter1982), Olson(1997b), (1997a), ch. 4).2 See Olson (1997a).3 Thomson(forthcoming).4 I first heard his view from E. J. Lowe.5 Some philosophersclaim to be untroubledby thisobjection.Theydo denythatdead grass is grass; for they thinkthat they have sound theoreticalreasons foracceptingthe view thatliving thingsnecessarilycease to exist atthe time of theirdeaths.I discuss theirview further n section VII.6 Locke (1975), II. xxvii. 9.7 This is to say,of course, thatPersonis whatWiggins calls a phased-sortal.SeeWiggins (1980), pp. 24-27.8 Cf. Eric Olson's clearpresentationof the samepointin Olson (1997a), ch. 2.9 Parfit 1995), p. 14.10 Olson (1994).1l This is not to deny that a philosophermight choose to restricthis inquirytowhatIhave called thenarrowquestion.Plainlyone couldchoose to restrictoneselfto the taskof identifyingthenecessaryand sufficientconditionsof thepersistenceof Persons as Persons. But the narrowquestion is the less interestingquestion,for two reasons.First,the range of possible answers to it is narrower.Secondly,and moreimportantly, n answerto the narrowquestion s not guaranteed o be ananswer to the questionwhat our persistenceconditions are;the narrowquestiondoes notaskexplicitlyforthepersistenceconditionsof membersof thesubstantialkindto which we belong. Since we do wantanswers to questions suchas 'WhendidI beginto exist?', it is the wide question that we shouldset ourselves, not thenarrowone.12 This line of reply was first suggested to me by DerekParfit.


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PERSONALIDENTITYAND DEAD PEOPLE 24113 See e.g. Snowdon (1990); Olson (1994); Wiggins (1980), ch. 6; Parfit forth-coming);McDowell (forthcoming);Ayers(1991), ch. 25; Carter 1982), (1989);van Inwagen (1990), section 14.14 See especially Snowdon (1990), (1991); Olson(1994), (1997a).15 Snowdon(1991), p. 109; (1990), pp. 84-86.16 See Lowe (1991).17 Feldman(1992), pp. 34f., 93-95.18 Feldman(1992), pp. 96-104.19 Locke (1975), II. xxvii. 4.20 Locke (1975), II. xxvii. 6.21 Locke (1975), II. xxvii. 4 (my emphasis).22 In sayingthatthe organisationof partsmust remainsufficientlynearly intact,I should not claim that complete, or even very nearly complete, intactnessisrequired. amnotclaiming,forexample,that t is necessaryfor thepersistenceofa humanbeing that it actuallybe apt for life, if that is understoodas meaningthatit would have to be so perfectly ntact thatit mightin principlebe revivable.Thatis animplausiblystrongrequirement.Forthepurposesof thispaper,however, heexact detailsof the view I defendareunimportant.23 Locke (1975), II.xxvii. 5.24 Olson (1997a),p. 119.25 I am very gratefulto Paul Snowdon,DerekParfit,Eric Olson, JoanMackie,RobertFrazier,KatharineDrummondandananonymousrefereeof PhilosophicalStudiesfor theircommentson earlierversions of thispaper.

REFERENCESAyers,M. (1991): Locke,Volume I: Ontology,London:Routledge.Carter,W.R.(1982): 'Do Zygotes Become People?',Mind91, pp. 77-95.Carter,W.R. (1989): 'How to ChangeYourMind', Canadian Journal of Philo-

sophy 19, pp. 1-14.Cockburn,D. (ed.) (1991): Human Beings, Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress.Feldman, F. (1992): Confrontationswith the Reaper, New York and Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress.Locke, J. (1975): An Essay concerning Human Understanding,P.H. Nidditch(ed.), Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress.Lowe, E.J. (1991): 'Real Selves: Persons as a SubstantialKind', in Cockburn

(199 1).McDowell, J. (forthcoming):'Reductionismand the First Person', in J. Dancy

(ed.),ReadingParfit,Oxford:Basil Blackwell.Olson, E. (1994): 'Is Psychology Relevant to Personal Identity?'AustralasianJournalof Philosophy 72, pp. 173-186.Olson,E. (1997a):TheHumanAnimal,New YorkandOxford:OxfordUniversityPress.


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12-Apr 22 - Mackie - Personal Identity and Dead People