Identity practice questions.

Animalism holds that each of us is identical with a human animal. On that view, what happens when a person's cerebrum is transplanted into another skull?

• The person stays with the emptied organism, because that animal is what she is
• The person goes with the cerebrum, because her memories, plans and character travel with it
• The person ceases to exist, because neither the organism nor the cerebrum is a person
• There is no fact of the matter, because identity is fixed by whatever the law decides

Answer: The person stays with the emptied organism, because that animal is what she is

Animalism identifies the person with the living organism, so the operation moves a part of her rather than her; the psychological criterion returns the opposite verdict. That clash, and not any doubt about memory, is what the case is built to expose.

In Parfit's fission case each half of a person's brain is transplanted into a different body, and both recipients wake with her memories and character. Why does the case embarrass the psychological criterion?

• Because neither recipient has any of the original brain, so continuity is broken at the operation
• Because memories that two people share cannot be genuine memories of one earlier experience
• Because continuity holds with two people, and one thing cannot be identical with two
• Because the original body is destroyed, so bodily continuity settles the question instead

Answer: Because continuity holds with two people, and one thing cannot be identical with two

Identity is a one-one relation, so a relation that can hold one-many cannot be identity. Parfit's own response is to keep the relation and drop the demand: what matters in survival is the continuity, which fission preserves twice over.

A writer holds that personal identity is a further fact over and above every fact about bodies and psychologies, and that the answer in any case is either yes or no with no borderline. What is this position called?

• The complex view, on which identity consists in more ordinary relations
• The narrative view, on which a life is unified by the story told of it
• The relational view, on which identity is conferred by other people
• The simple view, on which identity is basic and admits of no analysis

Answer: The simple view, on which identity is basic and admits of no analysis

Simple views treat identity as unanalysable and always determinate, which is why they sit naturally with belief in a soul. Parfit's reductionism is the developed form of the complex view, and the narrative view is itself a complex view rather than a denial of analysis.

Williams describes one case twice. In the first telling, two people's psychologies are swapped between bodies and readers judge that each person has moved with their memories. In the second, a reader is told that tomorrow she will be tortured, that her memories will first be erased and replaced with someone else's, and readers now fear for the body. What is the case designed to show?

• that the psychological criterion is refuted, since fear of torture is always about the body one currently occupies
• that memory transfer is technically impossible, so the thought experiment establishes nothing at all
• that both bodily and psychological criteria are correct, each in its own kind of case
• that our intuitions about persistence can be reversed by how the same events are described

Answer: that our intuitions about persistence can be reversed by how the same events are described

The two descriptions are of the same sequence of events, so a difference in verdict cannot be tracking a difference in the facts. Williams uses this against confidence in intuitions, not as a proof of the bodily criterion — the standard reply is that one of the two descriptions misleads, and the argument is over which.

Locke argues against the view that personal identity consists in the persistence of an immaterial soul. What is his objection?

• If the same soul could carry a wholly different consciousness, sameness of soul would not settle sameness of person
• Immaterial substances cannot be counted, so there is no fact about how many souls a body has
• Souls are unobservable, and only what can be observed can be a criterion of anything
• A soul could not survive the death of the body it animates, so it cannot ground identity over time

Answer: If the same soul could carry a wholly different consciousness, sameness of soul would not settle sameness of person

Locke's point is a mismatch of criteria, not a denial of souls: he asks us to imagine the same soul once in a Greek warrior and now in a man with no consciousness of that life, and concludes that identity of person follows consciousness rather than substance. The empiricist worry about unobservability is Hume's line, not Locke's.

Nozick's closest continuer account says that a later being is the earlier person if it is the closest continuer of that person and close enough. Which consequence does this account accept?

• Identity over time is a matter of degree rather than an all-or-nothing relation
• Whether I survive can depend on whether some rival candidate happens to exist
• Two later beings can both be identical with one earlier person
• Bodily continuity is always a closer relation than psychological continuity

Answer: Whether I survive can depend on whether some rival candidate happens to exist

The account is deliberately extrinsic: adding a second, equally good candidate can stop the first from counting as the closest continuer, which is why critics say it violates the 'only x and y' principle. It does not make identity one-many or a matter of degree — the closeness ranking is what admits of degrees, the verdict does not.