Re: "The Self and the Future"
Want to read what I think of Bernard Williams’ article “The Self and the Future”? Finals brain vomit after the jump.
Bernard Williams, in his article ‘The Self and the Future’, argues for a bodily criterion of personal identity. In support of this argument, Williams presents two variations of a thought experiment that produce two different and contradictory conclusions regarding criterion of personal identity. Williams then makes sense of these contradictory results by re-evaluating the conclusion of one of the conflicting thought experiment variations. After-which remains only the conclusion that bodily-continuity is a necessary condition of personal identity, founded on “the principle that one’s fears can extend to future pain whatever psychological changes precede it”.
Williams’ first variation on his thought experiment is referred to as a “body swap”, and this description indicates the expected intuitive response. It is proposed that two persons, similar enough in their capacity for expression of personality, were to undergo an operation that would result in “exchanged bodies” and would produce two affected persons referred to as A-body-person and B-body-person, based upon the physical body they inhabit after the operation. After the operation concluded, A-body-person would seem to possess all the mannerisms, memories, character, and entire mental state of person B, just as B-body-person would seem to possess the very same traits of person A.
In addition, the designer of this “body swap” operation offers options to persons A and B prior to the operation. A and B are given a choice, which is assumed they will make selfishly, about punishments and rewards to be inflicted upon the resultant A-body-person and B-body-person. One will receive a large cash reward, while the other will be subject to painful torture. If person A assumes that after the operation they will find themselves to be B-body-person, they would (selfishly) ask that A-body-person be tortured and that B-body-person be awarded the money. We can assume that person B would make the same self-serving decision, requesting that A-body-person be rewarded and that B-body-person be punished. Since the designer of the operation cannot satisfy both of these requests, one situation must be chosen over the other.
If the operation’s designer decides to give the money to A-body-person and painfully torture B-body-person, it will only satisfy the desires of one person. B-body-person, who will have the first-person memories of person A asking to have A-body-person punished and B-body-person rewarded, will find that the operation’s designer did not do what they remember asking them to do. Conversely, A-body-person will have the first-person memories of person B asking for exactly what was done. Since the operator brought about both what person B asked for prior to the operation, and what A-body-person remembers asking for, it is evidenced that A-body-person really is person B. The same can be said about the denial of person A’s request, and B-body-person finding they did not get what they asked for, thus confirming that person A is now B-body-person.
The same conclusion, that the identities of both persons A and B were transposed along with their mental states into each other’s bodies, can be drawn from other possible outcomes of the operation. For example, if the designer of the operation instead granted person A’s request while denying that of person B, if the designer told the participants before the operation who they intended to torture and who they intended to reward, if the designer withheld this information until after the operation, or when considering the expectations of the participants in regards to physical and psychological advantages and disadvantages of “swapping” bodies, it still follows that persons A and B now occupy each other’s bodies. Williams later refers to this intuitive conclusion as a “mentalistic” consideration of personal identity.
Another thought experiment is then offered, and is later revealed to be but a one sided variation on the same set of hypothetical circumstances previously described. In this variation, Williams presents the thought experiment in the first-person, and that is how it will be recounted here. I am told that tomorrow I will be tortured, and I fear this. It is certain that the person telling me this has the power to do so, and that the torture itself will be painful. My fear is one of certain future physical bodily pain, and Williams chooses physical pain as the subject of this fear as it is least dependent on belief or character. No matter any changes in my beliefs or character, I will still fear this future pain as pain inflicted upon me.
The person who has informed me of this impending torture also tells me that as I am being tortured I will not remember that they informed me of this pain in advance. I remain fearful of this unexpected torture though, as it is something I would not want to have done to me for the same reasons I would want to avoid expected torture. If the informant reveals to me that at the moment of torture I will have no memories of my life before that point, it will not quell my fears. Amnesia followed by torture is just as imaginable and frightening as unexpected torture, and forewarned torture as well. Even the knowledge that at the moment of torture I would possess a head full of false memories, none of which were of the warning of torture, would not make this future pain any less frightening. It also follows that if I had all the memories of someone else’s life at the moment of torture, I would still have very good reason to fear the impending painful torture.
From this account, Williams states that fear of future pain maintains, even if the pain is preceded by “certain mental derangements”. Because this is a fear of pain being inflicted upon one’s self, and is unlike feelings of empathy in response to the pain of someone else, personal identity must also be maintained despite the mental erasures, re-writes, and transpositions preceding the torture. This conclusion is “the principle that one’s fears can extend to future pain whatever psychological changes precede it”, and Williams refers to this conclusion as “considerations of bodily continuity” in regards to personal identity.
The two considerations for criterion of personal identity that Williams has drawn from the variations of his thought experiment, those “mentalistic” and those of “bodily continuity”, are contradictory to one another. Williams acknowledges this incompatibility and seeks to explain some important differences between the two variations of the thought experiment.
The first difference is that in the first variation, the thought experiment is told in the third-person perspective, as the operation is happening to two other people, while the second variation of the thought experiment is explicitly related to the reader via the second-person perspective, and thus any intuitive responses are formed in the first-person. According to Williams this forced first-person perspective may be necessary to allow for considerations of future pain.
The second notable difference between the two variations of the thought experiment is the omission of the second person (person B) from the second variation of the thought experiment, except for their “being the provenance of the impressions” transposed to my mind. Expanding on this point, Williams suggests that it may not be necessary at all, for the determination of the preservation of personal identity, for the status of a second person (person B) to be considered. This thought is applied to the first variation of the thought experiment as Williams retells it concentrating only on person A’s one sided experience.
Six situations preceding possible future pain are recounted, and throughout the first five situations it remains consistent with the considerations of “bodily continuity”, as presented as the intuitive conclusion to the second variation of Williams’ thought experiment. Person A is told of future torture to be preceded by (i) complete amnesia of person A’s memories, (ii) changes in person A’s character, (iii) the introduction of memories not belonging to person A, (iv) changes in character and the introduction of memories that reflect the identity of a different actual person, and (v) changes in character and the introduction of memories that are transposed to the brain of person A from the brain of person B who remains unchanged. Williams posits that person A’s fear of future pain will “reach through the change(s)” of situations i through v, remaining consistent with the considerations of “bodily continuity”.
It is only upon the consideration of situation vi, in which memories and characteristics are transposed to the brain of person A from the brain of person B while at the same time the operation is enacted upon person B in reverse, that the consideration of “bodily continuity” is challenged. Situation vi follows the same logic as the “body swap” variation of the thought experiment, which brings about “mentalistic” considerations. Williams states that if the “bodily continuity” consideration held fast through situations i through v, then it should require strong reasoning not to maintain in situation vi as well, thus admitting that the two contradictory considerations are difficult to separate. Furthermore, Williams criticizes lines of thought that would suggest that, within situation vi, person A exists ex post facto as B-body-person because B-body-person is a “very good candidate for being [person] A”. While this language and reasoning may be perfectly applicable in disputes of ownership or property, Williams believes it is wholly inaccurate for describing the situations at hand.
It is only by dismantling the first variation of his thought experiment, the one that first led to the “mentalistic” consideration, that Williams can arrange a single principle for the consideration of personal identity as it relates to the future self. Only because of an “artificial” order does the first variation achieves it’s seemingly straightforward conclusion, Williams argues. Instead of resulting in the actual transfer of two separate selves into each other’s bodies, the “body swap” was merely a situation that easily evoked that understanding. It would be possible for the designer of the operation to produce many different resultant situations, such as situation v, both A-body-person and B-body-person possessing the same memories and mental states (of either person A or B), along with many other variations.
It is only because the designer brought about a situation to which we were disposed to call “exchanged bodies”, Williams posits, that we have come across the “mentalistic” considerations. By this reasoning Williams puts forward that the consideration of “bodily continuity” is “positively straightforward”, as based on “the principle that one’s fears can extend to future pain whatever psychological changes precede it”.
The same reasoning that Williams applies to the deconstruction of the “body swap” variation of his thought experiment, that the situation presented was not actually the “effective experiment” but rather one that elicits the impression of effectiveness, can be applied to his acceptance of the “bodily continuity” considerations. For example, Williams omits the possibility that the “body swap” will result not in persons A and B finding themselves in different bodies than they inhabited prior to the operation, but rather that persons A and B will no longer exists, instead being replaced by two new people. These people, who we may call person C and person D, would possess the body of person A along with the mental state of person B, and the body of person B along with the mental state of person A, respectively.
To consider that the exchange of bodies or the transposition of mental states results in the formation of two new persons requires a consideration of personal identity that includes both the physical body and the mental state as criterion. This holistic consideration stands opposed to both the “mentalistic” and “bodily continuity” considerations, as they are both dualistic considerations of personal identity.
If this holistic consideration is applied to the second variation of Williams’ thought experiment, it may be revealed that the fear extended “to future pain whatever psychological changes precede it” may not be entirely accurate, as the person being tortured would no longer posses both the same combination of mental state and physical body they had when their torture was predicted. An argument that explored not just the “bodily continuity” or “mentalistic” considerations of personal identity, but considerations that considered both mental and physical states simultaneously, would perhaps lead to a better understanding of how fear of future pain relates to the continuity of personal identity.