Week 4: Personal Identity III and
Plato

• (p. 38) The BRAIN of Julia North is transplanted into the BODY of Mary
Frances Beaudine.
• Who is the survivor? Is it North, whose attitudes, beliefs, and judgments remain?
Or is it Beaudine, whose body remains?
• Who decides?

• In the brain transplant case, we get different answers to the question of who survives depending on the criterion we use for personal identity. If we use the
body as a criterion, it seems that Mary
Frances Beaudine survives. If we use the
brain, memory, or psychological
continuity as the criterion, it seems that
Julia North survives.

• We have assessed various ways of answering the question “what makes me, me, over time?” and considered various
criteria for personal identity:
– Body
– Immaterial Soul
– Psychological continuity (continuity of memory)
– Brain

• None of these answers to the question of personal identity is clearly correct. possible objections and responses
Each one has
• But by thinking about these answers and the responses, we are getting clearer on what we
ourselves think and why we think so (the
reasoning and thought behind our everyday
assumptions and beliefs).
• By thinking through unusual cases, we find out what we think, and why we think so, in everyday cases as well.

• Socrates was born around 470 BC and died around 399 BC.
• When he was about
40 years old, he began asking questions about wisdom, knowledge, justice,
virtue, and truth.

• In Socrates’ time, growing skepticism and doubts were beginning to take the place of traditional mythological explanations
• Sophists took their name from the word for wisdom (“sophia”)
• These “wise men” could, for pay, teach anyone how to argue and win a case

• Instead of practicing sophistry, Socrates undertook to practice philosophy or the
“love of wisdom”
• Philosophy meant using dialogue and argument to get to the best or the true
answer, the one supported by the better
reasons, rather than just whatever side we are arguing at the moment

• The oracle at Delphi was one of the most important religious centers of the Greek world
• The priestess of the oracle would go into a trance state and answer questions about the future, the right courses of action, and the destiny of nations and empires
• Socrates’ friend Chaerephon went to the oracle to ask whether there was anyone wiser than
Socrates

• The oracle answered: NO. There is no one wiser than Socrates.
• At first, Socrates could not understand the answer, since he knew nothing special. He was not an expert in any particular craft or science. He went looking for others wiser than him to refute the oracle.

• Socrates found that most of the people who were called wise actually knew nothing more than he did.
• “So I withdrew and thought to myself: ‘I am wiser than [the ones called wise]; it is likely that neither of us knows anything worthwhile, but they think they know something when they do not, whereas when I do not know, neither do I think I know; so I am likely to be wiser to this small extent, that I do not think I know what I do not know.” (Apology, 21d-e)

• Virtue (
): the excellence or perfection of a human being
• Is Virtue teachable? Can it be learned from a wiser person? If so, how can it be taught and learned? Who should we trust to teach it to our children?
• Does anyone actually know what virtue is?

• Meno’s first definition (pp. 60-61): “…If you want the virtue of a man, it is easy to say that a man’s virtue consists of being able to manage public affairs and in so doing to benefit his friends and harm his enemies … if you want the virtue of a woman … she must manage the home well, preserve its possessions, and be submissive to her husband…”

• Why does Socrates want a single definition of “virtue”?
• What do we learn when we define things?
• Why do we define something one way rather than another?

• “Even if [the virtues] are many and various, all of them have one and the same form which makes them virtues, and it is right to look to this when one is asked to make clear what virtue is.” (p. 61)
• Other examples: health, size, strength.

• Giving definitions of concepts like
“virtue” means giving reasons for why we think the way we do.
• In giving reasons, we are not just giving
“our opinion.” We are adding to our opinion a basis that we can discuss, defend, and criticize.

• “…For true opinions, as long as they remain, are a fine thing … but they are not willing to remain long, and they escape from a man’s mind, so that they are not worth much until one ties them down by [giving] an account of the reason why.” (97e-98a)

• When we look for an account of virtue, we are looking for a definition that explains what it is and also how we can know about it.
• If we cannot know just by looking, we may have to use thought and reason to find out.
• Using reason means giving an account that
has reasons behind it: one that “ties down” what we believe with reasons and arguments that can be articulated, compared, and defended.