Brain Transplant and Personal Identity

Abstract

Should Christians support the view that one’s psychological continuity is the main criterion of personal identity? Is the continuity of one’s brain or memory states necessary and sufficient for the identicalness of the person? This paper investigates the plausibility of the psychological continuity theory of personal identity, which holds that the criterion of personal identity is certain psychological continuity between persons existing at different times. I argue that the psychological continuity theory in its various forms suffers from interminable problems. Then, I introduce an alternate account of personal identity, according to which personal identity is not further analyzable in terms of qualitative properties (“suchnesses”) of persons. Rather, persons are individuated by their primitive thisnesses (haecceities), which are nonqualitative properties of immaterial substances (or souls). This alternate conception of personal identity would be of particular relevance to those who believe in the immortality of the soul and are looking for a nonphysicalist account of personal identity.