I would start by imagining possible worlds of humanoids where personal identity does not exist, just to roughly outline the boundaries. Not sure if this has been done in literature, except for science fiction.
For example, let’s assume that everyone is perfectly telepathic and perfectly tele-empathetic (telempathic?), so that everyone perceives everyone else’s thoughts and feelings unattenuated. Would personal identity be meaningless in a society like that? (SF example: Borg)
Another example: hive-mind structure with non-stupid drones controlled by a superior intelligence. Would the drones have a sense of identity?
Real-life examples: impaired left brain/right brain connections, multiple personality disorders etc. -- do these result in multiple identities in the same body? By what criterion?
This assumes that subjective identity is the same thing as personal identity in the philosophical sense, which presumes an answer to the question. Many philosophers (including me at times) have fallen into that trap and it is a reasonable posistion so I won’t nitpick that too much.
Another possible way to get rid of personal identity, hypothetically speaking, would be “beings” that had no continuity of anything- psyche, form, consciousness, body, or even genes- over any period of time we would consider significant. Such beings would have an identity at a given point but said identity would cease to be in less time than we could blink.
“Subjective identity”- A sense of being a seperate person, and the same person over time.
“Personal identity’- A vague term, defined differently by different philosophers. Generally used to mean what a person “is”. A significiant amount of the debate is what coherent definition should be put on it.
I’m not sure about that. But why the second term is needed is because some philosophers dispute “Subjective identity” and “personal identity” being the same thing. Body view and Form view philosophers being most prominent. A common type of analogy would be that somebody could think they were Napoleon without being Napoleon.
I would start by imagining possible worlds of humanoids where personal identity does not exist, just to roughly outline the boundaries. Not sure if this has been done in literature, except for science fiction.
For example, let’s assume that everyone is perfectly telepathic and perfectly tele-empathetic (telempathic?), so that everyone perceives everyone else’s thoughts and feelings unattenuated. Would personal identity be meaningless in a society like that? (SF example: Borg)
Another example: hive-mind structure with non-stupid drones controlled by a superior intelligence. Would the drones have a sense of identity?
Real-life examples: impaired left brain/right brain connections, multiple personality disorders etc. -- do these result in multiple identities in the same body? By what criterion?
This assumes that subjective identity is the same thing as personal identity in the philosophical sense, which presumes an answer to the question. Many philosophers (including me at times) have fallen into that trap and it is a reasonable posistion so I won’t nitpick that too much.
Another possible way to get rid of personal identity, hypothetically speaking, would be “beings” that had no continuity of anything- psyche, form, consciousness, body, or even genes- over any period of time we would consider significant. Such beings would have an identity at a given point but said identity would cease to be in less time than we could blink.
Not being a philosopher, I don’t know the difference.
“Subjective identity”- A sense of being a seperate person, and the same person over time.
“Personal identity’- A vague term, defined differently by different philosophers. Generally used to mean what a person “is”. A significiant amount of the debate is what coherent definition should be put on it.
Why is the second term needed? Is this like internal vs external view of identity?
I’m not sure about that. But why the second term is needed is because some philosophers dispute “Subjective identity” and “personal identity” being the same thing. Body view and Form view philosophers being most prominent. A common type of analogy would be that somebody could think they were Napoleon without being Napoleon.