A number of philosophers argue that the moral value of national identity is sufficient to justify at least a prima facie right of a national community to create its own independent, sovereign state. In the literature, this argument is commonly referred to as the identity argument. In this paper, I consider whether the identity argument successfully proves that a national group is entitled to a state of its own. To do so, I first explain (...) three important steps in the argument and then consider whether they lead to the desired conclusion. My examination reveals that the identity argument relies on the Optimal Protection Principle; however, this principle does not apply to the case of a national community. As a result, the identity argument fails to justify even a prima facie right of a national community to establish its own state. (shrink)

In this paper, I present a two-pronged argument devoted to defending the type-identity theory of mind against the argument presented by Kripke in _Naming and Necessity_. In the first part, the interpersonal case, I show that since it is not possible to establish the metaphysical conditions for phenomenal identity, it is not possible to argue that there can be physical differences between two subjects despite their phenomenal identity. In the second part, the intrapersonal case, I (...) consider the possibility of imagining one and the same individual having the same phenomenal state while counterfactually being in very different physical states. I argue that this case should respect Kripke’s implicit theory of personal identity—but this proves to be a very difficult task to accomplish, thus preventing the argument from getting off the ground. Therefore, I maintain, that the type-identity theory is still the better option to solve the mind–body problem. (shrink)

Martine Nida-Rümelin has argued recently for subject-body dualism on the basis of reflections on the possibility of survival in fission cases from the literature on personal identity. The argument focuses on the claim that there is a factual difference between the claims that one or the other of two equally good continuers of a person in a fission case is identical with her. I consider three interpretations of the notion of a factual difference that the argument employs, (...) and I argue that on each of them the argument either begs the question or is unsound. (shrink)

Recently, several philosophers have defended an explanatory argument that supposedly provides novel empirical grounds for accepting the type identity theory of phenomenal consciousness. They claim that we are justified in believing that the type identity thesis is true because it provides the best explanation for the correlations between physical properties and phenomenal properties. In this paper, I examine the actual role identities play in science and point out crucial shortcomings in the explanatory argument. I show that (...) the supporters of the argument have failed to show that the identity thesis provides a satisfactory explanation for the correlations between physical and phenomenal properties. Hence, the explanatory argument, as it stands, does not provide new grounds for accepting the type identity theory. (shrink)

Almost all philosophers interested in parthood and composition think that a composite object is a further thing, numerically distinct from the objects that compose it. Call this the orthodox view. I argue that the orthodox view is false, and that a composite object is identical to the objects that compose it (collectively). This view is known as composition as identity. -/- I argue that, despite its unpopularity, there are many reasons to favour com- position as identity over the (...) orthodox view. First, defenders of the orthodox view have not offered complete theories of composition. For instance, they have not given adequate accounts of heterogeneous properties like being black and white in composite objects. Nor have they given satisfactory explanations for the necessary connections that hold between composite objects and their proper parts. -/- Second, there appears to be no good way for defenders of the orthodox view to remedy this. Any account of the heterogeneous properties of composite objects which is compatible with the orthodox view faces serious problems, as does any account of the necessary connections between an object and its proper parts. Composition as identity, on the other hand, is compatible with intuitive responses to both of these challenges. -/- Third, there are a number of strong arguments in favour of composition as identity. For example, composition as identity fits our evidence about the way the world is better than the orthodox view does. It also allows us to easily maintain that composition sometimes occurs and sometimes does not—i.e., it allows us to easily maintain that composition is restricted. The orthodox view does not. The theories of composition put forward by most philosophers are at best incomplete or in need of improvement. At worst, they are false and composition as identity is true. (shrink)

One of the principle aims of the B version of Kant’s transcendental deduction is to show how it is possible that the same “I think” can accompany all of my representations, which is a transcendental condition of the possibility of judgment. Contra interpreters such as A. Brook, I show that this “I think” is an a priori (reflected) self-consciousness; contra P. Keller, I show that this a priori self-consciousness is first and foremost a consciousness of one’s personal identity from (...) a first person point of view. (shrink)

Leibniz’s short letter to the mathematician and physicist Ludovico Casati of 1689 is a short but interesting text on the Principle of Identity of Indiscernibles, to which it is entirely dedicated. Since there is no watermark in the paper of the letter, the letter is difficult to date, but it is likely that it was written during Leibniz’s stay in Rome, sometime between April and November of 1689 (A 2 2 287–8). When addressing the letter, Leibniz wrote ‘Casani’, but (...) this seems to be a mistake and the real addressee is thought to be Ludovico Casati, nephew of Paolo Casati, the Jesuit mathematician. The letter, reproduced in the Berlin’s Academy edition of Leibniz’s works, was first published by Gerhardt in the Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie in 1892 (Gerhardt 1892: 53–54). It also appears in Robinet’s Iter Italicum (Robinet 1988: 134–35). But neither Gerhardt nor Robinet provide a philosophical discussion of the letter, and I am not aware of any other philosophical discussion of it. Furthermore, as far as I know, the letter has never been translated into any language. Thus I shall here provide a transcription (from A 2 2 288–89) and a translation of the letter into English, and a philosophical discussion of its treatment of the Identity of Indiscernibles. (shrink)

This paper develops a theory of propositional identity which distinguishes necessarily equivalent propositions that differ in subject-matter. Rather than forming a Boolean lattice as in extensional and intensional semantic theories, the space of propositions forms a non-interlaced bilattice. After motivating a departure from tradition by way of a number of plausible principles for subject-matter, I will provide a Finean state semantics for a novel theory of propositions, presenting arguments against the convexity and nonvacuity constraints which Fine (2016, 2017a,b) introduces. (...) I will then move to compare the resulting logic of propositional identity (PI) with Correia’s (2016) logic of generalised identity (GI), as well as the first degree fragment of Angell’s (1989) logic of analytic containment (AC). The paper concludes by extending PI to include axioms and rules for a subject-matter operator, providing a much broader theory of subject-matter than the principles with which I will begin. (shrink)

According to various “harm-based” approaches to the non-identity problem, an action that brings a particular child into existence can also harm that child, even if his or her life is worth living. In the third chapter of The Non-Identity Problem and the Ethics of Future People, David Boonin surveys a variety of harm-based approaches and argues that none of them are successful. In this paper I argue that his objections to these various approaches do not impugn a harm-based (...) approach that Boonin does not consider, an approach I call the “existence solution to the non-identity problem.” I also argue that the existence solution is more plausible than Boonin’s own proposed solution. (shrink)

Can an identity be the proper subject of an explanation? A popular stance, albeit not one often argued for, gives a negative answer to this question. Building from a contentious passage from Jaegwon Kim in this direction, we reconstruct an argument to the conclusion that identities, to the extent in which they are necessary, cannot be explained. The notion of contrastive explanation, characterized as difference-seeking, will be crucial for this argument; however, we will eventually find the (...) class='Hi'>argument to be unsatisfactory. On the contrary, the discussion provides enough resource to sketch a very simple framework for a non-causal contrastive explanation of identities. Many instances will be provided, with different varieties of explanans, ultimately suggesting that certain entailment or biconditional principles involving identities (first and foremost, so-called two-level identity criteria) may indeed be taken to have an inherent explanatory value. (shrink)

What does social cohesion require in culturally diverse post-immigration societies? Immigration and social cohesion are, in the public debate, believed to be incompatible. In normative political philosophy, a similar understanding manifests in the argument that social cohesion-based on a common national identity-is incompatible with immigration. In so doing, its proponents justify restrictive border policies. In this chapter, I will critically engage with this argument by reconnecting the literature in social sciences to normative political philosophy. I will offer (...) a conditional and pro tanto argument that social cohesion in post-immigration societies justifies open and non-discriminatory border policies. My argument is conditional in two senses: first, it assumes social cohesion is based on a common identity, and second, it only applies to the societies with significant cultural, religious, and ethnic diversity that can be best described as post-immigration societies. My argument implies that liberal nationalists have a choice: they can either keep defending social cohesion in the traditional way, which comes with open borders; or they can abandon this view, thereby losing one of the strongest justifications for restrictive borders. (shrink)

The mind-brain identity theory, the thesis that sensations are identical with properties or processes of the brain, was introduced into contemporary discussion by U.T. Place, Herbert Feigl, and J.J.C Smart in the 1950s. Despite its widespread rejection in the following decades, the identity theory has received several carefully articulated defenses in recent years. Aside from developing novel responses to well-known arguments against the identity theory, contemporary identity theorists have argued that the epistemological resources available to support (...) the adoption of identities are more plentiful than has often been supposed; further, they have argued that mind-brain identities allow for the resolution of otherwise intractable explanatory puzzles about the phenomenal properties of experience. From an epistemological perspective, identity theorists have thus argued that a central reason for believing theoretical identities—both mind-brain identities as well as more mundane identities such as water = H2O—stems from the explanatory power that they confer. Yet from an explanatory perspective, identity theorists have maintained that identities cannot themselves be explained; indeed, they have maintained that it is hardly intelligible to request an explanation for an identity. This paper considers these ideas draws out an important tension between them. The central claim is that insofar as identity theorists insist on the explanatorily efficacy of identities, they should concede that there is a good sense in which theoretical identities can be explained. However, it is moreover argued that this concession is not especially problematic and, indeed, ought to be welcomed by identity theorists. (shrink)

Following insights from the New Theory of Reference, it has become widely accepted that theoretical identities like ‘water = H2O' are necessary. However, some have challenged this claim. I propose yet another challenge in the form of a sceptical argument. The argument is based on the contention that the necessity of theoretical identities is dependent upon criteria of identity. Thus, a theoretical identity is necessary given one criterion of identity but contingent given another. Since we (...) do not know which criteria of identity in fact obtain, it follows that, for all we know, theoretical identities may not be necessary. (shrink)

I argue that one’s views about which “metaphysical laws” obtain—including laws about what is identical with what, about what is reducible to what, and about what grounds what—can be used to deflect or neutralize the threat posed by a debunking explanation. I use a well-known debunking argument in the metaphysics of material objects as a case study. Then, after defending the proposed strategy from the charge of question-begging, I close by showing how the proposed strategy can be used by (...) certain moral realists to resist the evolutionary debunking arguments. (shrink)

Williams’s famous argument against immortality rests on the idea that immortality cannot be desirable, at least for human beings, and his contention has spawned a cottage industry of responses. As I will intend to show, the arguments over his view rest on both a difference of temperament and a difference in the sense of desire being used. The former concerns a difference in whether one takes a forward-looking or a backward-looking perspective on personal identity; the latter a distinction (...) between our normal desire to continue living and the kind of desire implied in desiring immortality. Showing that there is some sense of identity and desire that support Williams’s conclusion goes some way toward providing support for his argument, if not a full-fledged defense of it. (shrink)

This paper is about the meaning and function of identity statements involving proper names. There are two prominent views on this topic, according to which identity statements ascribe a relation: the object-view, on which identity statements ascribe a relation borne by all objects to themselves, and the name-view, on which an identity statement 'a is b' says that the names 'a' and 'b' codesignate. The object- and name-views may seem to exhaust the field. I make a (...) case for treating identity statements as sui generis instead of attempting to explain them by means of the idea that they ascribe a relation. My contention is that once we do this, no analysis is required. -/- I do not wish to insist that we stop saying that identity statements ascribe a relation. The point is that there is a fundamental disanalogy between identity statements and other two-termed statements which we overlook to our peril. This will be seen to parallel the more recognized disanalogy between existence statements and other one-termed statements. One way of registering the fundamental disanalogy is to say that identity statements are not relational, but this is not essential. Following my negative arguments in section 2, I employ some simple diagrammatical models in section 3 to exhibit the fundamental disanalogy. In a final section I respond to some possible objections which may be raised against this kind of approach. (shrink)

In decision-making based on multiple criteria, situations may arise where agents find their options to be neither better than, worse than nor equal to each other with respect to the relevant criteria. How, if at all, can a justified choice be made between such options? Are the options incomparable? This article explores a hypothetical case that illustrates how such a situation can arise in an environmental context; more specifically, it considers the deliberations of an imagined 'ethics committee' as it struggles (...) to decide whether or not a deep-sea mining project should be allowed to proceed. I argue that the case is best understood as involving options that are comparable in the sense of being 'on a par'. Working out from a discussion of Ruth Chang's 'self-governance' theory of choice in cases of parity, I suggest that, in the environmental context, the idea of choices expressing a moral identity may lead us in the direction of a plausible solution to these particularly challenging cases. (shrink)

In the 1950’s and 1960’s, Feigl, Place and Smart offered an answer to the mind‑body problem called Identity Theory. According to Identity Theory, there are physical descriptions describing the same event as first‑person descriptions of experience. In this article, we address the criticism that mind‑body identity can be refuted on logical grounds, taken in the widest sense. Kripke’s criticism to this effect, as developed in Naming and Necessity, will be our central concern. Another notorious argument we (...) will consider is Chalmers’s, as developed in The Conscious Mind. The Identity Theorists originally held that identity statements could be contingently true. Kripke argues that all true identity statements are true necessarily. If the mind‑body identity is contingent, as Kripke thinks it must be, it cannot be true. Unlike Identity Theorists, I accept that body‑mind identity must be necessary, but unlike Kripke, I argue that it can be. Central to my refutation of Kripke and Chalmers is a more elaborate approach to thinking about reference. (shrink)

Argumentations are at the heart of the deductive and the hypothetico-deductive methods, which are involved in attempts to reduce currently open problems to problems already solved. These two methods span the entire spectrum of problem-oriented reasoning from the simplest and most practical to the most complex and most theoretical, thereby uniting all objective thought whether ancient or contemporary, whether humanistic or scientific, whether normative or descriptive, whether concrete or abstract. Analysis, synthesis, evaluation, and function of argumentations are described. Perennial philosophic (...) problems, epistemic and ontic, related to argumentations are put in perspective. So much of what has been regarded as logic is seen to be involved in the study of argumentations that logic may be usefully defined as the systematic study of argumentations, which is virtually identical to the quest of objective understanding of objectivity. (shrink)

The following seems to be a truism in modern day philosophy: No agent can have had other parents (IDENTITY). IDENTITY shows up in discussions of moral luck, parenting, gene editing, and population ethics. In this paper, I challenge IDENTITY. I do so by showing that the most plausible arguments that can be made in favor of IDENTITY do not withstand critical scrutiny. The paper is divided into four sections. In the first, I document the prevalence of (...) IDENTITY. In the second, I examine a defense of IDENTITY on the basis of genetic considerations. In the third, I examine a defense of IDENTITY that I call gamete essentialism. In the fourth, I return to genetic considerations to wrap up the paper. (shrink)

In this essay I shall argue that the crucial assumptions of Kripke's argument, i.e. the collapse of the appearance/reality distinction in the case of phenomenal states and the idea of a qualitatively identical epistemic situation, imply an objective principle of identity for mental-state types. This principle, I shall argue, rather than being at odds with physicalism, is actually compatible with both the type-identity theory of the mind and Kripke's semantics and metaphysics. Finally, I shall sketch a version (...) of the type-identity theory. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore the “expressivist critique” of the use of prenatal testing to select against the birth of persons with impairments. I begin by setting out the expressivist critique and then highlighting, through an investigation of an influential objection to this critique, the ways in which both critics and proponents of the use of technologies of genetic selection negotiate a difficult set of dilemmas surrounding the relationship between genes and identity. I suggest that we may be able (...) to advance the debate about these technologies by becoming more aware of the ways in which this debate is itself in part a political contestation over this relationship. Ultimately, I will argue, the real force of the expressivist objection lies in its capacity to draw our attention to political questions about the role of the state and about relationships between different social groups rather than between parents and prospective children. That is to say, crucial issues, when evaluating the force of this criticism, turn out to be: the nature of the institutions which determine how decisions about prenatal selection are made; and how we think of each other, that is, what we take to be the defining characteristics of human beings. Paradoxically, arguments about the ethics of the “sorting society”, both supportive and critical, are an important arena in which these institutions and these ideas about identity are contested and shaped. An increased awareness of the reflexive nature of the process of debating these issues may assist us in better negotiating them. (shrink)

Trinitarians are charged with at least two contradictions. First, the Father is God and the Son is God, so it seems to follow that the Father is the Son. Trinitarians affirm the premises but deny the conclusion, which seems contradictory. Second, the Father is a God, the Son is a God, and the Holy Spirit is a God, but the Father is not the Son, the Father is not the Holy Spirit, and the Son is not the Holy Spirit. This (...) argument seems to entail that there are three Gods. Again, Trinitarians affirm the premises but deny the conclusion. In this article, I present a novel Trinitarian solution to these alleged contradictions. The solution allows one to maintain that the premises in the above arguments are absolute identity statements, forestalls the need to develop a new way of counting (e.g. by sortals or numerical sameness), and is compatible with divine simplicity. (shrink)

This article considers recent arguments against the proposition that one and the same object cannot go out of existence and then come into existence again (so that, e.g., teleportation would involve change of identity.). It argues that these arguments can be evaded by adopting a four-dimensional ontology, according to which human beings, trees, etc., have temporal as well as spatial parts.

Our ability to tell stories about ourselves has captivated many theorists, and some have taken these developments for an opportunity to answer long-standing questions about the nature of personhood. In this essay I employ two skeptical arguments to show that this move was a mistake. The first argument rests on the observation that storytelling is revisionary. The second implies that our stories about ourselves are biased in regard to our existing self-image. These arguments undercut narrative theories of identity, (...) but they leave room for a theory of narrative self-knowledge. The theory accommodates the first skeptical argument because there are event descriptions with retrospective assertibility conditions, and it accommodates the second argument by denying us epistemic privilege in regard to our own past. The result is that we do know our past through storytelling, but that it is a contingent feature of some of our stories that they are about ourselves. (shrink)

In this paper, I present a dilemma for those who believe in the afterlife: either we won’t survive death (or an eternal life) in the sense that most matters to us or we will become bored if we do. First, I argue that even if we – in a strict sense – survive death, there is practical sense in which we don’t survive death. This applies, I contend, to all accounts of the afterlife that: eventually, we lose our practical (...) class='Hi'>identity. I show that our practical identity is more important to us than our numerical identity. But, as we’ll see, our practical identity is not just lost in an afterlife, but also with an eternal or immortal life. Theists have a strategy to resist this line of argument: they can argue that God will help us to retain our current practical identities. However, those that pursue this line of argument fall onto the second horn of my proposed dilemma: if we cannot change our practical identities then it seems that eventually we will become bored, and eternally so. (shrink)

In a recent article forthcoming in *Mind*, Leech (2020) presents a challenge for essentialist accounts of metaphysical modality: why should it be that essences imply corresponding necessities? Leech’s main focus is to argue that one cannot overcome the challenge by utilizing an account of essence in terms of generalized identity due to Correia and Skiles (2019), on pain of circularity. In this reply, we will show how to use identity-based essentialism to bridge ‘epistemic’ and ‘explanatory’ understandings of this (...) alleged essence-to-necessity gap without circularity, Leech’s arguments notwithstanding. We do so by first presenting a novel proof that generalized identities imply corresponding necessities. We then propose several substantive identity-based explanations of how it is, exactly, that essences imply necessities. -/- . (shrink)

It is my intention in this article to present some consequences of Quine’s thesis on the dependence of ontology on ideology (Quine, 1980), seeking an argument for my own thesis on the dependence (theoretical) existence of entities on identity type or ontology dependence on logic and language.If Quine's thesis is correct, then we can expand the resolution of this conclusion and say that ontology depends on the identity or on identification of the "identity criteria for conceptual (...) schemes" (Davidson, 2001) which is constructed in the theory. Consequently I will speak about types of identity which adapts choice of ontology and of which depends ontology of a theory. Here I want to connect the different types of use of the term identity in Aristotle's writings and the different types of predications that are based on them with the concept of identity as the equivalence of symbols in modern logic. I want to reinterpret Quine's statement: "There is no entity without identity " in the form of imlication "What (kind of) identity such (kind of ) entity." . (shrink)

Keränen (2001) raises an argument against realistic (ante rem) structuralism: where a mathematical structure has a non-trivial automorphism, distinct indiscernible positions within the structure cannot be shown to be non-identical using only the properties and relations of that structure. Ladyman (2005) responds by allowing our identity criterion to include 'irreflexive two-place relations'. I note that this does not solve the problem for structures with indistinguishable positions, i.e. positions that have all the same properties as each other and exactly (...) the same relations to all objects (including themselves). I conclude that realistic structuralists must compromise and treat some structures eliminativistically. (shrink)

David Miller argues that national identity is indispensable for the successful functioning of a liberal democracy. National identity makes important contributions to liberal democratic institutions, including creating incentives for the fulfilment of civic duties, facilitating deliberative democracy, and consolidating representative democracy. Thus, a shared identity is indispensable for liberal democracy and grounds a good claim for self-determination. Because Miller’s arguments appeal to the instrumental values of a national culture, I call his argument ‘instrumental value’ arguments. In (...) this paper, I examine the instrumental value arguments and show that they fail to justify a group’s right to self-determination. (shrink)

This paper examines a recent argument in favour of strong precautionary action—possibly including working to hasten human extinction—on the basis of a decision-theoretic view that accommodates the risk-attitudes of all affected while giving more weight to the more risk-averse attitudes. First, we dispute the need to take into account other people’s attitudes towards risk at all. Second we argue that a version of the non-identity problem undermines the case for doing so in the context of future people. Lastly, (...) we suggest that we should not work to hasten human extinction, even if significant risk aversion is warranted. (shrink)

The interest for versions of cosmological argument formulated in non-causal terms had increased in the last years. In this paper I shall argue that the cosmological argument of contingency is better understood in noncausal terms and I shall explore how the ontological dependence of the universe on God presupposed by this cosmological argument can be understood in terms of the identityessential account for ontological dependence championed by Kit Fine. First, I discuss the reasons for considering that the (...) cosmological argument of contingency is about constant or constitutive ontological (noncausal) dependence. Second, I present the essentialist account of ontological dependence by Kit Fine. Third, I examine the perplexities involving the ontological argument of contingency in the framework of identity-essential dependence. My conclusion is that, under the cosmological argument of contingency plus an identity-essential account of ontological dependence, all contingent things depend on God in a collective way, not an individual one. The collective essence of the totality of contingent things requires God, even although none of these things individually need to have God in their individual essences. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Chunghyoung Lee argues that, because zygotes are developmentally plastic, they cannot be numerically identical to the singletons into which they develop, thereby undermining conceptionism. In this short paper, I respond to Lee. I argue, first, that, on the most popular theories of personal identity, zygotic plasticity does not undermine conceptionism, and, second, that, even overlooking this first issue, Lee’s plasticity argument is problematic. My goal in all of this is not to take a stand (...) in the abortion debate, which I remain silent on here, but, rather, to push for the conclusion that transitivity fails when we are talking about numerical identity of non-abstract objects. (shrink)

The problem of personal identity contains various questions and issues, but the main issue is persistence; how can one person remain the same over time? Modern philosophers have proposed various solutions to this problem; however, none are without problems. David Hume rejected the notion of personal identity as fictitious and posited a theory that personal identity is merely a bundle of perceptions which does not remain the same over time. Hume’s approach to personal identity is flawed, (...) and Derek Parfit pushed back against Hume’s complete rejection of personal identity through his argument of psychological continuity; a continuous chain of overlapping cognitive connections between beliefs, preferences, memories, and other characteristics can meet the criterion of identity. However, Parfit falls short in only acknowledging mental features as the essential property of personal identity; physical features such as age, race, sex, etc. have a significant impact on one’s understanding of themselves. Through a combination of Hume’s bundle theory and Parfit’s psychological continuity, an understanding of what personal identity is and how it is able to remain constant over time can be reached. In this paper, I argue that personal identity is a bundle of mental and physical features that persists through time through psychological continuity. (shrink)

Many of us think that ordinary objects – such as tables and chairs – exist. We also think that ordinary objects have parts: my chair has a seat and some legs as parts, for example. But once we are committed to the thesis that ordinary objects are composed of parts, we then open ourselves up to a whole host of philosophical problems, most of which center on what exactly the composition relation is. Composition as Identity is the view that (...) the composition relation is the identity relation. While such a view has some advantages, there are many arguments against it. In this essay, I will briefly canvass three different varieties of Composition as Identity, and suggest why one of them should be preferred over the others. Then I will outline several versions of the most common objection against CI. I will suggest how a CI theorist can respond to these charges by maintaining that some of the arguments are invalid. (shrink)

Eric Olson and David Shoemaker argue that our numerical identity over time is irrelevant to such practical issues as moral responsibility or self-concern. Being the same individual at different moments in time may, in our case, can be seen as the preservation of the relevant biological processes (e.g., according to Olson), while psychological continuity, independent of these processes, may be crucial for such issues. I will defend the view that, contrary to the above authors, any conception of our diachronic (...) identity has ethical implications, at least with regard to the aforementioned issues. My argument has two basic assumptions. (1) The dispute over identity of persons is a dispute over the conditions of our persistence in time as the same individuals, whether we consider being a person as our essential property or not (e.g., Olson maintains the latter). The question is under what conditions I am the same as a particular earlier or later individual. (2) The pronoun “I,” on the other hand, is an essential component of practical reasoning, so also of ethical one. Thus, the debate on the persistence of persons concerns the identity conditions of the individuals to whom/which we refer when planning our future actions, formulating our intentions. My rational self-concern or my moral responsibility for past actions regards the individual to whom the pronoun refers. An additional result of my argument is to undermine the influential strategy of defending positions on our diachronic identity against the charge of controversial ethical implications. It cannot be argued in the case of every such controversy that a given ethical issue only apparently involves our identity, while in fact what is relevant to it is a different relation binding persons at different moments in time. (shrink)

Teleological theories of reason and value, upon which all reasons are fundamentally reasons to realize states of affairs that are in some respect best, cannot account for the intuition that victims in non-identity cases have been wronged. Many philosophers, however, reject such theories in favor of alternatives that recognize fundamentally non-teleological reasons, second-personal reasons that reflect a moral significance each person has that is not grounded in the teleologist’s appeal to outcomes. Such deontological accounts appear to be better positioned (...) to identify the wrong committed against non-identity victims because a person wrongs another on such accounts if she violates his second-personal claims -- overall benefit to victims presents no obstacle to the identification of second-personal wrongdoing. Derek Parfit argues that non-identity is a problem for these deontological theories as well because the alleged victims are properly understood as consenting to the action in question, thereby waiving any such second-personal claim. But his arguments misrepresent the role of consent on such theories by articulating it through appeal to the very teleological theory of reasons that their advocates dismiss as inadequate. Properly understood, Parfit’s appeal to consent understood as retroactive endorsement only provides the answer on such deontological accounts to the question of whether, given that the non-identity victim is second-personally wronged, he is nonetheless better off existing. Indeed, it becomes clear that it is teleological theories for which non-identity poses a particular problem: they cannot -- while their deontological counterparts can – account for the intuition that non-identity victims have been wronged. (shrink)

In 'Chrysippus' Puzzle about Identity', John Bowin (thereafter JB) cogently strengthens David Sedley's reading of the puzzle of Chrysippus as a reductio ad absurdum of the Growing Argument. For Sedley, Chrysippus reduces to absurdity the assumption that matter is the sole principle of identity by refuting its presupposition that the two protagonists of the puzzle, namely Theon and Dion, are related as part to the whole. According to Plutarch's Comm. not. 1083 a8-c1, however, the Growing Argument (...) concludes by posing that growth is actually 'generation' and 'destruction'. In order to avoid the contradiction, Theon should have perished rather than become a part of Dion. JB attempts to answer the questions of whether within the Growing Argument there are elements against Theon being a living part of Dion. He shows that in both Epicharmus' fragment 2 and Plutarch's Comm.not. 1083b 308 "there is nothing to block the inference from matter being the sole principle of identity to the possibility that Theon could be a part of Dion" (246). Again, in exploring whether the above contradiction can be solved, he convincingly argues against Epicharmus' and Plutarch's reading of growth as generation and destruction. In the last part of his article, JB stresses that the reductio ad absurdum of the Growing Argument can be tackled without introducing the concept of 'peculiarly qualified individuals'. (Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2004.04.12). (shrink)

The underdetermination of theory by data obtains when, inescapably, evidence is insufficient to allow scientists to decide responsibly between rival theories. One response to would-be underdetermination is to deny that the rival theories are distinct theories at all, insisting instead that they are just different formulations of the same underlying theory; we call this the identical rivals response. An argument adapted from John Norton suggests that the response is presumptively always appropriate, while another from Larry Laudan and Jarrett Leplin (...) suggests that the response is never appropriate. Arguments from Einstein for the special and general theories of relativity may fruitfully be seen as instances of the identical rivals response; since Einstein’s arguments are generally accepted, the response is at least sometimes appropriate. But when is it appropriate? We attempt to steer a middle course between Norton’s view and that of Laudan and Leplin: the identical rivals response is appropriate when there is good reason for adopting a parsimonious ontology. Although in simple cases the identical rivals response need not involve any ontological difference between the theories, in actual scientific cases it typically requires treating apparent posits of the various theories as mere verbal ornaments or computational conveniences. Since these would-be posits are not now detectable, there is no perfectly reliable way to decide whether we should eliminate them or not. As such, there is no rule for deciding whether the identical rivals response is appropriate or not. Nevertheless, there are considerations that suggest for and against the response; we conclude by suggesting two of them. (shrink)

According to First-Person Realism, one's own first-person perspective on the world is metaphysically privileged in some way. After clarifying First-Person Realism by reference to parallel debates in the metaphysics of modality and time, I survey eight different arguments in favor of First-Person Realism.

This essay examines Locke’s chapter “Of Identity and Diversity” (Essay 2.27) in the context of the series of chapters on ideas of relations (Essay 2.25–28) that precede and follow it. I begin by introducing Locke’s account of how we acquire ideas of relations. Next, I consider Locke’s general approach to individuation and identity over time before I show how he applies his general account of identity over time to persons and personal identity. I draw attention to (...) Locke’s claim that “person” is a forensic term and analyse his arguments for why the sameness of a human being and the sameness of a substance or soul are neither necessary nor sufficient for personal identity. Instead, Locke argues that personal identity consists in sameness of consciousness. Locke regards persons as moral agents who are accountable for their actions. If a person now is held accountable for a past action it is important that the person now is the same person as the person who did the action. This means that moral accountability presupposes personal identity. Additionally, it will be important to consider whether the person deserves reward or punishment for the action. Locke’s account of moral relations, which he develops in Essay 2.28, addresses this issue and I show how it supplements his account of persons and personal identity. (shrink)

Person-affecting views in population ethics state that (in cases where all else is equal) we’re permitted but not required to create people who would enjoy good lives. In this paper, I present an argument against every possible variety of person-affecting view. The argument takes the form of a dilemma. Narrow person-affecting views must embrace at least one of three implausible verdicts in a case that I call ‘Expanded Non-Identity.’ Wide person-affecting views run into trouble in a case (...) that I call ‘Two-Shot Non-Identity.’ One plausible practical upshot of my argument is as follows: we individuals and our governments should be doing more to reduce the risk of human extinction this century. (shrink)

Composition as Identity is the view that an object is identical to its parts taken collectively. I elaborate and defend a theory based on this idea: composition is a kind of identity. Since this claim is best presented within a plural logic, I develop a formal system of plural logic. The principles of this system differ from the standard views on plural logic because one of my central claims is that identity is a relation which comes in (...) a variety of forms and only one of them obeys substitution unrestrictedly. I justify this departure from orthodoxy by showing some problems which result from attempts to avoid inconsistencies within plural logic by means of postulating other non-singular terms besides plural terms. Thereby, some of the main criticisms raised against Composition as Identity can be addressed. Further, I argue that the way objects are arranged is relevant with respect to the question which object they compose, i.e. to which object they are identical to. This helps to meet a second group of arguments against Composition as Identity. These arguments aim to show that identifying composite objects on the basis of the identity of their parts entails, contrary to our common sense view, that rearranging the parts of a composite object does not leave us with a different object. Moreover, it allows us to carve out the intensional aspects of Composition as Identity and to defend mereological universalism, the claim that any objects compose some object. Much of the pressure put on the latter view can be avoided by distinguishing the question whether some objects compose an object from the question what object they compose. Eventually, I conclude that Composition as Identity is a coherent and plausible position, as long as we take identity to be a more complex relation than commonly assumed. (shrink)

Manzotti (2021) surveys recent variants of identity theories, defending his own preferred version, mind-object identity theory (MOI). According to this view, experiences are identical with the external objects, and the mind is thus literally “spread” in the world. Manzotti supports this view with considerations about indiscernibility of properties and other theoretical considerations. He claims that brain-mind accounts of identity commit the “fallacy of the center,” locating conscious mind inside the skull. Amongst other recent works, he comments on (...) our (Polák and Marvan, 2018) article, in which we defended a standard, neurocentrist version of type identity theory, and supplemented it with a sketch of neuro-phenomenal typing. Manzotti holds that although we appeal to neuro-phenomenal types in our account of mind-brain identity, we nevertheless “lack a convincing explanation as to why the type of neural processes should be identical to the type of one's experience.” This is a fair point. We didn't do much in our 2018 article to support our views on the principles of neuro-phenomenal typing, either by detailed theoretical considerations or by empirical evidence. In this short rejoinder, we offer the missing argument. By doing so, we also respond both to Manzotti's cited objection and to the charge of the “fallacy of the center.” -/- . (shrink)

The paper examines the loss of African identity within the modern/ contemporary era. African identity has been a recurrent theme in all domains of African studies, serving as a major intellectual concern of many African scholars. Debates on the reality of African Philosophy are anchored on the questions surrounding African identity giving rise to thoughts and contents of that philosophy. Despite the volumes already generated on the theme, the controversial circumstances that engendered the subject of African (...) class='Hi'>identity makes its intellectual concern sustainable and almost inexhaustible. The question of African identity is basically an ontological question of the reality of Africa cum the being of an African. The series of infiltration and appraisals of Africa by foreign elements tend to plunge the continent into crises of identity. In addition to the various approaches to the subject, the nature-culture perspective presents the argument that if culture is ideally the product of a people’s nature, African culture represents the objective manifestation of the Africanity of the continent and its organic/holistic content. Such frame of thought embellished with philosophic tools provides further locus for a more feasible and stable definition of African identity as the holistic nature and character of being African. (shrink)

We discuss arguments against the thesis that the world itself can be vague. The first section of the paper distinguishes dialectically effective from ineffective arguments against metaphysical vagueness. The second section constructs an argument against metaphysical vagueness that promises to be of the dialectically effective sort: an argument against objects with vague parts. Firstly, cases of vague parthood commit one to cases of vague identity. But we argue that Evans' famous argument against will not on its (...) own enable one to complete the reductio in the present context. We provide a metaphysical premise that would complete the reductio, but note that it seems deniable. We conclude by drawing general morals from our case study. (shrink)

Composition as identity, as I understand it, is a theory of the composite structure of reality. The theory’s underlying logic is irreducibly plural; its fundamental primitive is a generalized identity relation that takes either plural or singular arguments. Strong versions of the theory that incorporate a generalized version of the indiscernibility of identicals are incompatible with the framework of plural logic, and should be rejected. Weak versions of the theory that are based on the idea that composition is (...) merely analogous to identity are too weak to be interesting, lacking in metaphysical consequence. I defend a moderate version according to which composition is a kind of identity, and argue that the difference is metaphysically substantial, not merely terminological. I then consider whether the notion of generalized identity, though fundamental, can be elucidated in modal terms by reverse engineering Hume’s Dictum. Unfortunately, for realists about possible worlds, such as myself,... (shrink)

The principle of Identity of Indiscernibles has been challenged with various thought experiments involving symmetric universes. In this paper, I describe a fractal universe and argue that, while it is not a symmetric universe in the classical sense, under the assumption of a relational theory of space it nonetheless contains a set of objects indiscernible by pure properties alone. I then argue that the argument against the principle from this new thought experiment resists better than those from classical (...) symmetric universes three main objections put forth against this kind of arguments. (shrink)

Property-identical divine-command theory (PDCT) is the view that being obligatory is identical to being commanded by God in just the way that being water is identical to being H2O. If these identity statements are true, then they express necessary a posteriori truths. PDCT has been defended in Robert M. Adams (1987) and William Alston (1990). More recently Mark C. Murphy (2002) has argued that property-identical divine-command theory is inconsistent with two well-known and well-received theses: the free-command thesis and the (...) supervenience thesis. I show that Murphy's argument is vitiated by mistaken assumptions about the substitutivity of metaphysical identicals in contexts of supervenience. The free-command thesis and the supervenience thesis therefore pose no serious threat to PDCT. (Published Online August 11 2004). (shrink)

Causal essentialists hold that a property essentially bears its causal and nomic relations. Further, as many causal essentialists have noted, the main motivations for causal essentialism also motivate holding that properties are individuated in terms of their causal and nomic relations. This amounts to a kind of identity of indiscernibles thesis; properties that are indiscernible with respect to their causal and nomic relations are identical. This can be compared with the more well-known identity of indiscernibles thesis, according to (...) which particulars that are qualitatively indiscernible are identical. Robert Adams has developed a well-known objection to this thesis by considering a series of possibilities involving nearly qualitatively indiscernible particulars that naturally leads to a possibility involving qualitatively indiscernible particulars. I argue that we can construct parallel cases involving a series of possibilities involving properties that are nearly indiscernible with respect to their causal and nomic relations that naturally lead to possibilities involving properties that are indiscernible with respect to their causal and nomic relations. The same features that make Adams’ argument forceful also carry over to my cases, giving us a powerful objection to the causal essentialist identity of indiscernibles thesis. (shrink)