Questions: Psychological Continuity Theory of Personal Identity

Question 1

A person suffers total amnesia and remembers nothing of their past life, but retains all their personality traits, values, skills, and habits. According to Parfit's psychological continuity theory, what is their relationship to their pre-amnesia self?

• A. They are not the same person — memory is the criterion of personal identity on this view
• B. They are psychologically continuous — continuity includes personality, values, and dispositions, not only explicit memories
• C. They are partially the same person — only the psychological states that survived count toward identity
• D. The theory cannot address this case because amnesia breaks the causal chain entirely

Answer: (B)

Parfit's theory (and the reply to Locke's memory criterion) holds that psychological continuity includes far more than explicit memory: personality traits, beliefs, desires, values, skills, and habits all count as psychological connections. Total amnesia disrupts episodic memory but leaves most of these intact. The view explicitly acknowledges that you don't need direct memory of every past moment — overlapping chains of psychological connection (including dispositional states) are what matter. Option A describes Locke's naive memory criterion, which Parfit's account supersedes.

Question 2

A teleporter malfunction splits a person into two psychologically identical successors — both have the same memories, personality, and intentions as the original. According to Parfit, which of the following is correct?

• A. One of the two must be the original person; we simply lack enough information to determine which
• B. Neither successor is strictly the original person, but both have what matters — psychological continuity
• C. Both successors are simultaneously the original person, since personal identity is not exclusive
• D. The original person survives in the successor who is physically closer to the original body

Answer: (B)

Parfit's radical claim is that strict numerical identity requires uniqueness — if there are two equally continuous successors, neither can be identified with the original without arbitrarily privileging one. But this does not mean survival has failed in any important sense: both successors have psychological continuity with the original, and psychological continuity — not identity — is what actually grounds rational self-concern and moral responsibility. The fission case reveals that identity and what matters can come apart.

Question 3

Parfit's theory holds that personal identity is what rationally matters — facts about whether you are strictly identical to a future person determine whether you should care about that person's wellbeing.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: False

This is precisely what Parfit argues against. His radical claim is that identity is NOT what matters. What grounds rational self-concern, planning for the future, and moral responsibility is psychological continuity — the overlapping chain of memories, personality, intentions, and values — not the further metaphysical fact of strict numerical identity. In fission cases where two successors each have equal psychological continuity with you, neither is strictly you, but both have what matters. Parfit concludes we have been wrong to think survival requires identity.

Question 4

The circularity objection to Locke's memory criterion points out that only genuine memories — memories of one's own past — count, but determining which memories are genuine already presupposes personal identity.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: True

Locke's criterion says you are the same person as a past individual if you can remember being that individual. But memory can be false or merely apparent. To restrict the criterion to genuine memories (actual memories of your own past) is to already assume we know who the person is — which is exactly what the memory criterion was supposed to tell us. This circularity doesn't immediately destroy the theory, but it motivates Parfit's shift from memory to causal psychological continuity, which doesn't define identity in terms of identity.

Question 5

What is Parfit's most radical claim in revising the psychological continuity theory, and why is it philosophically important?

Model answer: Parfit's most radical claim is that personal identity is not what matters. What grounds rational self-concern, planning, and moral responsibility is psychological continuity itself — overlapping chains of memory, personality, intentions, and values — not the further fact of strict numerical identity. This matters because in fission cases (where one person splits into two psychologically continuous successors), identity fails (neither is strictly the original), but both successors have what actually grounds the practical and moral significance we attach to survival. If Parfit is right, the question 'will I survive?' may matter less than we thought.

Parfit's move separates two questions that seem inseparable: 'Am I the same person?' and 'Is there something I care about persisting?' His answer is that these questions can come apart, and when they do, it is the second question — about what matters — that does the real work in ethics and rational planning. This has downstream implications for how we think about punishment, responsibility for past actions, and the rationality of future-directed concern.