Reading: Snowdon 'Persons, Animals and Ourselves' in Gill (ed) The Person and the Human Mind
Johnson 'Human Beings' in Journal of Philosophy Vol 84 (1987)
Both Snowdon and Johnston approach the question of personal identity from a different angle to that of Parfit and Williams and question the validity of a specific-case based inquiry. Snowdon discusses the question of human beings and animals and reaches the conclusion that people are essentially animals, but concedes that this still needs to be argued for and cannot be assumed on the grounds that responses to arguments for it seem to be flawed. Johnston, on the other hand, argues that we are essentially human beings, that is to say, partly psychological and partly biological (as opposed to human organisms which are purely biological). I find Johnston's approach compelling and I think he gives a satisfactory response to the problems raised in Williams' article, that we can seem to have conflicting intuitions about the same case. In this paper I will first examine Snowdon's arguments and highlight some criticisms of them and then I will turn to a consideration of Johnston's approach. I would argue that Johnston's approach to the question of personal identity is a helpful one to take and that he does come up with an appealing answer to the question of what it is that we are.
Snowdon criticises traditional approaches to the question of personal identity for assuming that 'I am essentially a person' and that 'The notion of a person involves the distinctive criteria of identity' without discussing the question of the relation between human beings and animals. The crucial question that he is concerned with is whether or not it is true that 'I am an animal (of the species homo sapiens)' (I will refer to this, as he does, as statement (3)).
There are two premises which entail that (3) is false, and an animalist would have to deny at least one of them for his case to stand. However, I would argue that this cannot be done successfully. The two premises are:
(5) If something is an animal it cannot continue to exist without remaining an animal
(6) There are possible circumstances in which I carry on existing without being an animal
The first of these statements is true if the class of 'animal' is an abiding sort, and Snowdon himself concedes that it is. The second is true if there are circumstances where (a) I survive and, (b) there is no animal that I am. The only way that an animalist can attempt to defeat the non-animalist's arguments is by denying part (a), by saying that in certain circumstances (such as brain transplants) too much is lost to say I survive. However, as Johnston shows, we are inclined to give more weight to psychological continuity than bodily continuity, and we can in fact switch bodies if a brain transplant takes place. So it seems as though the animalist cannot convincingly argue against the case of the non-animalist (Johnston's Brown case dismisses Snowdon's animalist approach).
It is worth pointing out some criticisms of the animal attribute theory of personhood. I would criticise it on the grounds that not all persons are necessarily animals (For example I believe in a personal God who is not an animal) This defeats the view of psychological animalism, that only animals are mentally endowed. If psychological animalism could be shown to be true, it would provide a means for accepting (3), but Snowdon does not defend psychological animalism, so he cannot show that (3) is true.
Snowdon argues that I am not essentially a person, and cites the case of someone being brain damaged from birth. I disagree with his view that he might not have become a person because I think someone who is brain damaged from birth is still a person by virtue of being a human being. I do not see why Snowdon finds it so objectionable that person may mean no more that 'individual human being'.
Contrary to Snowdon, Johnston argues that we are essentially human beings and he arrives at this conclusion by making a departure from the method of cases. He argues that, although there is some relation between the concept of being the same person and the concepts of mental and physical continuity, it would be a mistake to analyse personal survival in terms of the evidence for survival. The method of citing specific cases and theorising about personal identity based on our intuitions about those cases is flawed because it does not have the reductionist requirement (ie. there are no necessary and sufficient conditions for the application of the predicate 'is the same person'), and also our intuitions differ vastly because of background belief (for example religion).
The main of Johnston's article is taken up with arguing against wide psychological reductionism (the theory held by Parfit and many others, which holds that the necessary and sufficient conditions for personal identity are statements about relations of mental continuity and connectedness). Johnston disagrees that, "mental continuity and connectedness are jointly sufficient for personal identity" (P62), and he pursues what is known as the further-fact view. The primary question for him is:
"What sort of thing is such that things of that sort can be reliably and unproblematically reidentified over time in just the way in which we reliably and unproblematically reidentify ourselves and each other over time?"(P63)
Johnston bases his discussion round Williams' example, although he modifies it slightly so that the A-body person comes out with B's experiences without an actual brain transplant having taken place. A possible response to the puzzle caused by the conflicting intuitions in the two presentations of Williams' example is the one Nozick formulates, which is that of the closest continuer. However, Johnston shows that this is flawed because it seems absurd that anything happening after the B-body person says 'I am A' can make a difference to the truth of that statement. Another response is that of viewing a person as a locus of mental life ie. something that typically exhibits psychological continuity, but does not necessarily have to. However, Johnston argues that the bare locus view (that we are possessors of mental life whose survival does not require bodily or mental continuity) is unacceptable because it fails to show how our everyday practise of reidentifying people can be a source of knowledge about personal identity over time. I am not sure that Johnston's criticisms of this view are as strong as they might be. Surely if you can have God, who has mental capabilities without being an animal, then it is possible to view humans as having souls which function in the same way.
Johnston discusses Nagel's suggestion that I am my brain, but reaches the conclusion that, although it is plausible that the survival of my brain can be sufficient for my survival and may well be necessary for it, this does not show that we are human brains. Nagel's view can be objected to on the grounds that a brain is a radically mutilated human being and so it would be more plausible to identify ourselves with the human being.
To conclude I would argue that Snowdon does not adequately establish that people are animals and therefore there is room to argue that opposite view, as Johnston does. I would agree with Johnston that we need an approach to the question of personal identity which does not rely on our intuitions about specific cases and I view his account as the most plausible one.
© Anne Witton 1996. No part of this article may be copied without my permission.
