ABSTRACT

Recent research has begun treating the perennial philosophical question, “what makes a person the same over time?” as an empirical question. A long tradition in philosophy holds that psychological continuity and connectedness of memories are at the heart of personal identity. More recent experimental work, however, has suggested that persistence of moral character, more than memories, is perceived as essential for personal identity. While there is a growing body of evidence supporting these findings, a recent critique suggests that this research program conflates personal identity with mere similarity. To address this criticism, we explore how loss of someone’s morality or memories influences perceptions of identity change and perceptions of moral duties toward the target of the change. We present participants with a classic “body switch” thought experiment and after assessing perceptions of identity persistence, we present a moral dilemma, asking participants to imagine that one of the patients must die (Study 1) or be left alone in a care home for the rest of their life (Study 2). Our results highlight the importance of the continuity of moral character, suggesting that lay intuitions are tracking (something like) personal identity, not just mere similarity.

摘要

最近的研究已经开始处理一个长期存在的哲学问题，“随着时间的推移，是什么让一个人保持不变？” 作为一个经验问题。哲学的悠久传统认为，记忆的心理连续性和连接性是个人身份的核心。然而，最近的实验工作表明，道德品质的持久性，而不是记忆，被认为对个人身份至关重要。虽然有越来越多的证据支持这些发现，但最近的一项批评表明，这项研究计划将个人身份与单纯的相似性混为一谈。为了解决这种批评，我们探讨了某人的道德或记忆的丧失如何影响对身份变化的看法以及对改变目标的道德义务的看法。我们向参与者展示了一个经典的“身体转换”思维实验，在评估了对身份持久性的看法后，我们提出了一个道德困境，要求参与者想象其中一名患者必须死去（研究 1）或被单独留在疗养院他们的余生（研究 2）。我们的结果强调了道德品质连续性的重要性，表明外行直觉正在追踪（类似）个人身份，而不仅仅是相似性。