Derek Parfit: The Idea Of Personal Identity

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Derek Parfit claims that the idea of personal identity (having a unique personality exclusive to one person) is not as important as psychological continuity, which is having an uninterrupted mental connection between the person who you were two weeks ago and the person you are today, at least when reflecting on ones self. His arguments for this view are relatively sound, personal identity is not essential to survival or responsibility, he claims. Also, the thought experiment in which one brain is split into two parts and transferred to two separate bodies stomps all over the idea of personal identity being fundamental to our existence. However, ones personal identity, their idea of who they are, play a crucial role in their emotions and, most importantly, their happiness. …show more content…

Forgoing the many arguments surrounding this topic, the basis of transsexualism is being unhappy with your biological gender and wanting to change it to reflect the gender that you identify with. Say you have two males who self identify as women and don't feel comfortable in their current bodies. One undergoes gender reassignment treatment and the other does not. Both would be psychologically continuous, the only difference being that one male now has the physical features of the gender they identified with. This, hopefully, would result in the person who received the treatment happier than they would have been if they did not receive

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