Everett Jim A C, Skorburg Joshua August, Savulescu Julian
Department of Social and Organisational Psychology, Leiden University.
School of Psychology, University of Kent.
Philos Psychol. 2020 Jul 13;33(7):924-945. doi: 10.1080/09515089.2020.1789577.
Recent research has begun treating the perennial philosophical question, "what makes a person the same over time?" as an empirical question. A long tradition in philosophy holds that psychological continuity and connectedness of memories are at the heart of personal identity. More recent experimental work, however, has suggested that persistence of moral character, more than memories, is perceived as essential for personal identity. While there is a growing body of evidence supporting these findings, a recent critique suggests that this research program conflates personal identity with mere similarity. To address this criticism, we explore how loss of someone's morality or memories influences perceptions of identity change and perceptions of moral duties toward the target of the change. We present participants with a classic "body switch" thought experiment and after assessing perceptions of identity persistence, we present a moral dilemma, asking participants to imagine that one of the patients must die (Study 1) or be left alone in a care home for the rest of their life (Study 2). Our results highlight the importance of the continuity of moral character, suggesting that lay intuitions are tracking (something like) personal identity, not just mere similarity.
最近的研究开始将长期存在的哲学问题“是什么让一个人随着时间推移保持不变？”作为一个实证问题来对待。哲学界长期以来的传统观点认为，心理连续性和记忆的关联性是个人身份认同的核心。然而，最近的实验研究表明，相较于记忆，道德品质的持久性被认为对个人身份认同更为关键。尽管有越来越多的证据支持这些发现，但最近的一项批评指出，这个研究项目将个人身份认同与单纯的相似性混为一谈。为了回应这一批评，我们探究了某人道德或记忆的丧失如何影响对身份变化的认知以及对变化对象的道德责任认知。我们向参与者呈现一个经典的“身体互换”思想实验，在评估身份持久性认知后，我们提出一个道德困境，要求参与者设想其中一名患者必须死亡（研究1）或在养老院孤独度过余生（研究2）。我们的结果凸显了道德品质连续性的重要性，表明外行的直觉所追踪的（类似）是个人身份认同，而不仅仅是单纯的相似性。
