Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Center for Adaptive Rationality (ARC), Berlin, Germany.
University of Bristol, School of Psychological Science, Bristol, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2020 Feb 12;15(2):e0228271. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0228271. eCollection 2020.
Studying personal identity, the continuity and sameness of persons across lifetimes, is notoriously difficult and competing conceptualizations exist within philosophy and psychology. Personal reidentification, linking persons between points in time is a fundamental step in allocating merit and blame and assigning rights and privileges. Based on Nozick's (1981) closest continuer theory we develop a theoretical framework that explicitly invites a meaningful empirical approach and offers a constructive, integrative solution to current disputes about appropriate experiments. Following Nozick, reidentification involves judging continuers on a metric of continuity and choosing the continuer with the highest acceptable value on this metric. We explore both the metric and its implications for personal identity. Since James (1890), academic theories have variously attributed personal identity to the continuity of memories, psychology, bodies, social networks, and possessions. In our experiments, we measure how participants (N = 1, 525) weighted the relative contributions of these five dimensions in hypothetical fission accidents, in which a person was split into two continuers. Participants allocated compensation money (Study 1) or adjudicated inheritance claims (Study 2) and reidentified the original person. Most decided based on the continuity of memory, personality, and psychology, with some consideration given to the body and social relations. Importantly, many participants identified the original with both continuers simultaneously, violating the transitivity of identity relations. We discuss the findings and their relevance for philosophy and psychology and place our approach within the current theoretical and empirical landscape.
研究个人身份，即个体在不同生命阶段的连续性和同一性，是一项极具挑战性的任务，哲学和心理学领域存在着相互竞争的概念化观点。个人再识别是指在时间点之间将个体联系起来，这是分配功过和权利的基本步骤。基于诺齐克（Nozick）的（1981）最接近的延续者理论，我们提出了一个理论框架，该框架明确邀请进行有意义的实证方法，并为当前关于适当实验的争议提供了建设性的综合解决方案。按照诺齐克的观点，再识别涉及根据连续性度量来判断延续者，并选择在该度量上具有最高可接受值的延续者。我们探讨了度量及其对个人身份的影响。自詹姆斯（James）（1890）以来，学术理论将个人身份归因于记忆、心理、身体、社交网络和财产的连续性。在我们的实验中，我们测量了参与者（N=1,525）在假设的分裂事故中如何权衡这五个维度的相对贡献，在这种情况下，一个人被分裂成两个延续者。参与者分配补偿款（研究 1）或裁定继承要求（研究 2），并重新识别原有人。大多数人根据记忆、个性和心理的连续性做出决定，同时也考虑到身体和社会关系。重要的是，许多参与者同时将原有人与两个延续者联系起来，违反了身份关系的传递性。我们讨论了这些发现及其对哲学和心理学的意义，并将我们的方法置于当前的理论和实证背景中。
