Personal identity and Individuation – Bernard Williams

Personal identity and Individuation

Chapter – 1

Harshit Sharma

Alumnus (BHU)

Contact

Personal identity is a complex issue due to two main reasons: self-consciousness and the relationship between bodily identity and personal identity.
Self-consciousness refers to the peculiar sense in which a person is aware of their own identity. This aspect will be explored in Section 3 of the paper.
The question of personal identity is not just about identifying a physical body. Even if a body is the same as the one at a specific time and place, it does not necessarily mean the person is the same.
Bodily identity alone is not sufficient to determine personal identity; other factors such as personal characteristicsand memory must be considered.
Some claim bodily identity is not a necessary condition for personal identity. This view can be divided into:
- Weaker thesis: Bodily identity may fail in some cases, but other conditions (like memory) can be sufficient for determining personal identity.
- Stronger thesis: Bodily identity is never necessary, and other conditions are always sufficient for personal identity.
The author argues that bodily identity is always a necessary condition for personal identity, thus rejecting both theses.
The paper will explore a case that appears to support the weaker thesis (Section 1).
The stronger thesis is also discussed, particularly the idea of defining personal identity without reference to a body, explored mainly in Section 4.
The individuation of personalities is considered, with the understanding that bodily identity cannot be easily divorced from other conditions of personal identity.
The criterion for bodily identity is assumed to involve spatio-temporal continuity.
The author acknowledges that in discussions on this topic, there is a tendency to treat bodily identity and other factors as separable, but insists that they should not be treated as such.

Deciding Another’s Identity

A person undergoes a sudden and violent change of character, going from quiet, deferential, church-going, and home-loving to loud-mouthed, blasphemous, and bullying.
The key question is: Is he the same person as before? However, two difficulties arise:
- The first difficulty is about the reference of the second ‘he’. The question can be rephrased as “Is this person the same as the person who went to sleep last night?”. This avoids ambiguity because personal pronouns can refer to both the body and personal characteristics.
- The second difficulty is that the question may be interpreted as “Is he the same sort of person” or “Has he the same personality”. These are not identity questions, but rather questions about qualities or characteristics, which do not address personal identity in the strict sense.
The term personality can be understood in two ways: as a set of characteristics (a loose interpretation of identity) or as a particular personality, meaning an individual’s unique identity.
A shift in personality may seem uncanny if someone acquires not only a new set of characteristics but also a new background or past, as in the example of the Identity Club in Nigel Dennis’ novel.
The concept of memory becomes important here. Memory is crucial for defining personal identity, especially in cases of radical character changes.
Two important features of memory:
- (I) When we say “A remembers x”, it implies that x really happened, so “remember” is treated similarly to “know”.
- (II) Not all memories are reliable; not every memory claim is veridical or true, and not everything one remembers is actually remembered.
Locke’s theory involves the role of memory in personal identity, but a common mistake is assuming that remembering actions implies personal identity. For example, remembering one’s brother joining the army doesn’t mean the person and the brother are the same person.
A more accurate formulation is: “If X remembers doing something, then X is the person who did it.” However, memory itself presupposes personal identity, as memory is about the person remembering their own past actions.
The case of Charles—the man who underwent a drastic character change—raises the question: if he now claims to remember things he didn’t remember before, does this mean he has a different personality?
In Charles’ case, if he remembers specific actions or events, these can help identify him as a particular person or indicate a change in his personality. Each event or action is a particular that can individuate a person.
However, the claim that Charles remembers actions must be verified. Typically, memory can be corroborated with external evidence, such as records or others’ memories, but in this case, we might not be able to find such evidence.
If evidence of Charles’ presence at the events is absent, then we cannot confirm his memories, raising a conflict between bodily identity and mental identity.
This scenario shows the interdependence of bodily and mental criteria when determining personal identity, as memory itself may depend on the presence of the body.
Charles may have memories of events and actions that suggest he has information he would not ordinarily know, which could imply he has experienced those events firsthand.
The events Charles claims to remember can be categorized:
- Witnessed events: events for which we have other eye-witness accounts.
- Unwitnessed events: events we believe occurred but were not witnessed by anyone.
- Events no one witnessed: events that are believed to have occurred, but with no one observing them.
One hypothesis for explaining Charles’ memories is clairvoyance, where Charles claims knowledge of events without having witnessed them. This would suggest he has lost his real memories.
If the events Charles remembers were witnessed by someone else, we could consider the possibility that Charles now has a new identity, being identical to the person who witnessed those events. However, this would only work if we could identify a single person who witnessed all of the events.
Moving to actions, a more solid argument for a change of identity may emerge:
- Unlike events, token actions are unique to the person performing them, meaning if Charles claims to have performed certain actions, we could identify him based on those actions.
- However, this is not always conclusive, as some actions are difficult to identify without referencing the agent, such as common actions (e.g., sharpening pencils).
- Actions can often be identified through specific details, like identifying the pencil color or a specific dance.
While actions can often be uniquely identified, the features of actions—such as intentions—may remain private to the agent, which limits the ability to definitively link the action to the person performing it.
In some cases, actions may be described in a way that uniquely identifies the agent (e.g., “the person who murdered the Duchess”), which is more helpful than descriptions of events in investigating identity.
In the case of Charles, if his memories of actions and events match the known life history of someone like Guy Fawkes, we might wonder if Charles has somehow become Guy Fawkes or if his memories are clairvoyant.
The temptation to claim that Charles is Guy Fawkes reincarnated is strong, but this is likely an exaggeration or simplification.
We might instead say that Charles has become like Guy Fawkes in terms of his memories and personality, but not his body, or that he knows about Fawkes’ life clairvoyantly.
Memory is crucial in this situation, as it helps establish personal identity by linking a person to their past actions and experiences.
Although the descriptions of actions and events may effectively identify a person, it is logically impossible for two people to correctly remember performing the same action or witnessing the same event, though they might claim to. This shows that memory does not guarantee a unique personal identity, as multiple people can claim similar memories.
If Charles undergoes a change that makes him identical to Guy Fawkes, it is logically possible for someone else, like Robert, to undergo the same change at the same time.
If both Charles and Robert were Guy Fawkes, they would be in two places at once, which is absurd.
Additionally, if both were identical to Guy Fawkes, they would be identical to each other, which is also absurd.
We could then say one of them is identical to Guy Fawkes, but this would leave the other as just “like” Guy Fawkes, which is a vacuous maneuver with no principle to determine which description applies to whom.
In the case of two individuals, it would be better to say both mysteriously became like Guy Fawkes or knew about him clairvoyantly.
The same reasoning can apply when Charles alone undergoes the change, suggesting that we should describe his transformation as similar to clairvoyance or similarity, rather than identity.
The standard form of identity questions involves comparing two instances of x (e.g., “Is this x the same x as that x?”), but this becomes difficult when both individuals are equally plausible candidates for being Guy Fawkes.
In the more complicated situation, it is hard to ask an identity question, as both individuals could be the same person, making the question of identity not recognizable.
This suggests that in more complicated cases, such as when there are two people who could both claim the same identity, we must resort to similarity instead of identity.
Exact similarity in material objects can be distinguished from identity, but this distinction doesn’t hold when it comes to character or memories.
If two individuals share the same character or same memories, we are really saying their characters or memories are exactly similar.
There is a difficulty in talking about exact similarity of memories, especially because to claim exact memory similarity would imply that the memories are correct, and we don’t have reliable information on what memories Guy Fawkes had.
This difficulty leads to thinking that the case should be described in terms of identity. However, if two people share the same memories, they are exactly similar, not identical.
In the Charles and Robert example, where both change in similar ways, we cannot apply the concept of identity. Instead, we must say they are similar in memory, character, etc., to Guy Fawkes.
When describing Charles’ relationship to Guy Fawkes, it would be more accurate to say they are exactly similar in character and memories, but not identical.
The body plays a critical role in identifying someone as Guy Fawkes. The continuity of Fawkes’ body is necessary for linking the memories and actions to a single individual.
Even though Charles’ memories fit Fawkes’ life, without the body continuity, it would be impossible to make a clear identification of Charles as Guy Fawkes.
This shows that bodily continuity is essential for establishing personal identity, even though there may be cases where memory could be used to identify someone without referencing their body.
Memory alone would not be enough if bodies changed frequently, as this would make it impossible to identify someone solely based on their memories.
In cases like the girl with red hair, it’s possible to identify someone based on similarity, even if their appearance changes (e.g., hair color), as long as there is enough consistency in their actions or traits.
Fawkes’ personality would not be identifiable without a reference to his body, and the memory criterion would also require a bodily reference for clarity.
Thus, the claim that bodily considerations can be completely omitted in personal identity fails, as the body remains a necessary element in identifying a person.

Some Remarks on Bodily Interchange

If we believe that personalities can be identified without reference to bodies, we might expect the idea of bodily interchange to make sense.
In a magician’s trick where the emperor and peasant switch bodies, the goal would not be for them to simply be in each other’s location, but for the emperor’s body to hold the peasant’s personality, and vice versa.
A key issue arises with the voices. The peasant’s rough voice would be expected to speak in the emperor’s refined tone, and the emperor’s eloquent speech in the peasant’s growl.
The facial features also present problems, as the emperor’s face may not be able to express the peasant’s morose suspiciousness, and the peasant’s face may not express the emperor’s fastidious arrogance.
These moulds are not just empirical; certain expressions might be unthinkable based on the body features alone.
This suggests that the idea of bodily interchange has logical limits and is not as simple as it might appear.
Even if the peasant claims to remember the emperor’s past, the trick would fail if he couldn’t exhibit the same type of personality as the emperor.
For example, if the peasant could not smile royally or express the emperor’s characteristic smile, the trick would not have succeeded.
These considerations show that bodily interchange is not always logically conceivable and challenges the idea of identifying personality without considering the body.
There is a deeper point: when trying to distinguish personality from body, it becomes unclear what to separate from what.
This reflects Wittgenstein’s view that the best picture of the human soul is the human body, suggesting that personality and body are inseparable in meaningful ways.

A criterion for oneself?

It may be objected that memory plays a crucial role in how a person reveals themselves to themselves, as Locke suggested with “consciousness” or memory being what makes a person be themselves to themselves.
The suggestion that a person could use memory as a criterion to decide if they are the same person as before is demonstrably absurd.
Suppose a person has a set of memories S and later a different set S1; the person is never in doubt about their identity unless they have both memories simultaneously, which contradicts the assumption that they are different.
If S1 contains a general memory that they used to remember things no longer remembered, it wouldn’t raise questions for them, as this is a common condition.
If the person tries to account for incompatible memories between S and S1, they would need to rely on others’ memories of their past, which undermines the idea of memory as a personal criterion for identity.
The criterion of identity must be used by someone; this has often been overlooked in theories of personal identity, such as in Hume’s account, which assumes an externalized view of a person’s mind.
The problem with abstract theorizing is that it requires a privileged position to observe a person’s thoughts, which is impossible.
If it’s argued that memory is the essence of personal identity, it only shows that memory is essential for recognizing oneself, but not that it uniquely determines personal identity.
A person who loses memory cannot recognize anyone or anything, not just their own identity, since they wouldn’t remember the past to make connections.
The example of a man looking into a mirror and saying “this is not my body” does not prove that a person can identify themselves without reference to other people’s memories.
To claim a man could correctly say “this is not my body,” it would need to be shown that the statement is necessarily true or doesn’t require reference to others’ memories, which it doesn’t.
Self-consciousness alone cannot reveal the secret of personal identity, as it leads to the illusion that it does.
Theories that try to unify both inner and outer perspectives fail to explain personal identity properly.
Accepting these conclusions suggests that the idea of a particular personality that omits reference to the body fails, though cases of multiple personalities in one body seem to provide grounds for exploring this idea further.

Multiple Personality and Individuation

Multiple personality cases, like Miss Beauchamp’s, raise identity questions that are different from straightforward cases of personal identity based on the body.
The key question in Miss Beauchamp’s case is whether the personality manifesting in her behavior now is the same as the one two hours ago.
The primary issue in such cases is how many personalities there are and how to sort behaviors into distinct personality manifestations, leading to questions of individuation rather than identity.
The term individuation is used to refer to determining which manifestations belong to which personality, whereas identity questions focus on whether two personalities are the same.
It is often more practical to ask questions of individuation because they are more determinate than identity questions. For example, it’s easier to refer to specific manifestations of behavior than to the abstract notion of a personality.
Individuation questions focus on how behaviors are allocated to different personalities, rather than asking directly about the identity of those personalities.
In the case of Miss Beauchamp, we can identify personalities through personal characteristics, preferences, and skills rather than through physical bodies.
Memory does not straightforwardly individuate the personalities because their memories are asymmetrical, with some personalities knowing things about others without being told.
The manifestations of personalities are clear and systematic, which allows us to refer to different personalities without needing to reference the body.
However, while individuation in Miss Beauchamp’s case does not rely on body reference, it still occurs in the context of a single body, showing that bodily identity plays a background role.
Even though principles like character and attainments can help individuate personalities, these principles are generaland not inherently tied to a body, although they still occur within a bodily context.
Character is a peculiar kind of particular, more general than a physical object. For instance, saying “he has the same character as his father” differs from saying “he has his father’s watch,” because character lacks the same particularity as physical objects.
The use of character and attainments to individuate personalities in Miss Beauchamp’s case demonstrates that they can be distinguished by sets of characteristics, though this does not completely remove reference to the body.
Memory can be useful in individuating personalities if they differ, but bodily identity is often necessary to describe situations where one personality may remember what another could not.
As Miss Beauchamp became nearly cured, she referred to herself as having been different personalities (e.g., Bi or B4) but considered them to be just mood differences, reflecting the continuity of self across different states.