1. Introduction Personal identity is an important idea that permeates through life by influencing ideas, determining actions, and in some cases preceding the physical self. Personal identity influences choices in daily life, while also containing identity data that is important to those one will interact with, allowing others to make choices based upon that information. While the additional information contained within the impacts of an identity isn’t personal identity by itself, it is surely part of how personal identity is defined. In his essay “The Unimportance of Identity”, Derek Parfit argues that it is not personal identity that is important when considering the future, but survival. The intention of this writing is to outline the arguments from Parfit’s essay, and reveal that Derek Parfit’s definition and idea of personal identity in “The Unimportance of Identity” are incomplete. By completely defining personal identity, the soundness of the arguments presented in his writing will be disrupted and personal identity will be seen as a worthwhile consideration for the continuation of a person. 2. Explanation In the essay “The Unimportance of Identity” Parfit takes the reader through a specific set of thought experiments to undermine the idea that personal identity matters. Parfit starts with an explanation of personal identity, or rather, what impact it may or …show more content…
Parfit seems to be dismissive of the idea that personal identity should have consideration when trying to anticipate the future of self, and instead certain other relations should be considered. Certain other relations, more specifically means that one or more person or persons will be living in the future to be psychologically continuous of the originator or have enough of the originator’s
Identity, in general, is the way people are molded through the experiences of one’s life. The text Rule of the Bone by Russell Banks portrays the validity of the quote by Bernice Johnson Region “Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they’re supposed to help you discover who you are”. Aspects of one’s life is determined by multiple influential factors, that may result in positive or even negative effects such as family, cultural/social expectations, class structure and social inequality, and race.
Personal identity, in the context of philosophy, does not attempt to address clichéd, qualitative questions of what makes us us. Instead, personal identity refers to numerical identity or sameness over time. For example, identical twins appear to be exactly alike, but their qualitative likeness in appearance does not make them the same person; each twin, instead, has one and only one identity – a numerical identity. As such, philosophers studying personal identity focus on questions of what has to persist for an individual to keep his or her numerical identity over time and of what the pronoun “I” refers to when an individual uses it. Over the years, theories of personal identity have been established to answer these very questions, but the
Here is a brief summary of the argument of persisting persons. Parfit, with the help of the work of David Hume, believes that there is no enduring self. That is to say, that the person I am when I was born of the mother’s womb is not the person I am today, and the person I am today is not the same person ten years, ten days or perhaps ten minutes from now. Parfit argues for a perduring self. People are able to persist through time through overlapping psychological mental states. This is similar to Hume’s Bundle Theory, which argues that the self is made up of a bundle of overlapping experiences, conscious events, rather than a central person. When Parfit talks of persistence, what he means by persistence is these ongoing psychological states. For people seeking answers about the big life and death questions about identity, Parfit does not provide any answers here. In fact, he wants people to get over the idea of identity through time because it assumes that there is a right answer concerning identity. Essentially, it is a waste of time to worry if you are going to be the same person or not.
At birth, every person is given a name, a birth certificate and a social security number. However, labels and documents do not identify who one is or who he will be. Family, environment, and circumstances shape an individual. At any one point in time, an individual may have one identity but at another given point, they may have another. What causes one’s identity to change? At birth, identity begins to form, shaping an individual; and while personal choice slightly influences a person’s identity, environmental factors weigh most heavily in molding a person’s permanent identity.
Hume, David. "Of Personal Identity." Twenty Questions: An Introduction to Philosophy. Ed. G. Lee Bowie, Meredith W. Michaels and Robert C. Solomon. 4th ed. Harcourt College Publishers, 2000. 348-352
Although the concept of identity is recurrent in our daily lives, it has interpreted in various ways.
Why is personal identity a problem? This seems to be the question of life or death. Your personal identity
Identity is a group of characteristics, data or information that belongs exactly to one person or a group of people and that make it possible to establish differences between them. The consciousness that people have about themselves is part of their identity as well as what makes them unique. According to psychologists, identity is a consistent definition of one’s self as a unique individual, in terms of role, attitudes, beliefs and aspirations. Identity tries to define who people are, what they are, where they go or what they want to be or to do. Identity could depend on self-knowledge, self-esteem, or the ability of individuals to achieve their goals. Through self-analysis people can define who they are and who the people around them are. The most interesting point about identity is that some people know what they want and who they are, while it takes forever for others to figure out the factors mentioned before. Many of the individuals analyzed in this essay are confused about the different possible roles or positions they can adopt, and that’s exactly the reason they look for some professional help.
Identity is very important in a person’s life. It can induce pride or shame, provide a community or provide a way to distinguish one’s self from others. But, where does this identity come from? It is easy to assume we are who we are because of who raised us, but this is not the entire case. Andrew Solomon, author of “Far from the Tree” introduced two different forms of identity, vertical and horizontal. He defines vertical identity as the attributes acquired and shared by the people we are raised by and horizontal identity as the attributes different from those who raised us, but are shared and acquired through a peer community. These two types of identities generally do not intersect and, depending on the circumstance, one can greatly impact
Identity is primarily described primarily as what makes a person who they are. While it is seen as an individual asset, one’s identity can be shaped and persuaded not only by life experiences, but by society as well. Bryan Stevenson speaks on several controversial issues and proclaims certain societal problems and the typical behaviors noticed in response to them. How one approaches the issues that are spoken about may expose their true identity. Stevenson argues that how one reacts to racial inequality within the criminal justice system may regulate their identity. In addition to that, how dealing with the nation’s history may force a growth on one’s identity, eventually bringing peace and acceptance to the nation. Lastly, how one views the
Many philosophers and psychologist from Jean Piaget to William James have theorized what makes a person who they are, their identity. Jean Piaget believed that the identity is formed in the sensorimotor stage and the preoperational stage. This means that a child is forming his identity as late to the age of seven (Schellenberg, 29) However, identity is strongly impacted by society such as school, church, government,and other institutions. Through our interactions with different situations our personality develops (Schellenberg 34). "In most situations there is a more diversified opportunity for the development of social identities, reflecting what the individual wants to put forth to define the self as well as what others want to accept,"(Schellenberg 35). Therefore, humans, much like animals, adapt to different situations based on who they are with. Individuals are always changi...
Problems of personal identity generally involve questions about what makes one the person one is and what it takes for the same person to exist at separate times (Olson, 2010). Parfit aims to defend the following two claims about personal identity:
What is personal identity? This question has been asked and debated by philosophers for centuries. The problem of personal identity is determining what conditions and qualities are necessary and sufficient for a person to exist as the same being at one time as another. Some think personal identity is physical, taking a materialistic perspective believing that bodily continuity or physicality is what makes a person a person with the view that even mental things are caused by some kind of physical occurrence. Others take a more idealist approach with the belief that mental continuity is the sole factor in establishing personal identity holding that physical things are just reflections of the mind. One more perspective on personal identity and the one I will attempt to explain and defend in this paper is that personal identity requires both physical and psychological continuity; my argument is as follows:
In this paper I will be focusing on Erikson’s Theory mainly about identity versus role confusion. Finding one’s identity is not always an easy task. Everyone at some point in his or her life has had, as Erikson puts it, an identity crisis. Everyone experiences different struggles that can have either a positive or negative impact on their identity. On my path to identity, I have reached identity achievement, which means I have explored and made commitments. I will also be focusing on two articles highlighting a fifth possible outcome regarding identity and looking at identity statuses as developmental trajectories.
In conclusion, the formation of one’s identity has many components. Beginning at the onset of adolescence and continuing to expand, grow and form and reform as we live through the struggles or success of life. Many theorists have endeavored to clarify the development of identity formation. However, Erik Erickson offered one significant theory involving the formation of one’s identity. Expounding on Erickson theory, Marcia developed his Identity Status Model according to the existence or absence of crisis and commitments. These four statuses, diffusion, foreclosure, moratorium and achievement can combine in various ways to produce a self. One’s sense of identity is determined largely by the choices and commitments made, therefore, having a well-developed sense of self can provide an individual with insight to their strengths, weaknesses, and individual uniqueness. An individual that finds themselves