Name: 14.14. 什麼是重要的(續)；死亡的性質，第一部分。 (14. What matters (cont.); The nature of death, Part I)
Uploaded: 2021-01-14T05:49:07.000Z
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Professor Shelly Kagan: At the end of last class,

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I began to raise the question as to whether or not we should

頻率副詞

distinguish two questions that we would normally be inclined to

run together. We've been asking ourselves,

what does it take for me to survive, for me to continue to

I suggested, that we really shouldn't focus

on the question, what does it take for me to

logically speaking, that there could be cases in

normally have when I survive, and so I don't have what

when I wanted to survive. It could be that in the typical

cases of survival I've got that extra thing.

But we can think of cases in which I would survive,

but I don't have that extra thing, and so I wouldn't have

everything that matters to me. So as it were,

we might say, it might be that mere survival

or bare bones survival doesn't really give me what matters.

What I want is survival plus something else.

And I tried to motivate this question by having you think

about perhaps the possibility, if the soul view was the truth

about personal identity, but imagine a case of complete

But the soul is going to then, having been scrubbed clean,

get a brand new personality. A new set of memories,

No chance of recalling your previous, current,

case, I find myself wanting to say, all right,

I don't care. It doesn't matter that it's me,

in that case. Because I don't just want it to

be me, I want to have there be somebody that's me with my

personality. Similarly, suppose we thought

that the body view was the correct view and we imagine,

again, some sort of case of complete amnesia.

And so then we get a new personality and you say,

"Oh look, that's going to be you, your body,

And I say, "It could be true, but so what?"

It doesn't give me what I want, when I want to survive.

So should we conclude, therefore, that what really

matters is not just survival but having the same personality?

Would that--Suppose the personality view of personality

identity was correct. Would that then give us not

just personal survival, but what matters?

recall the fact that according to the personality view,

the crucial point isn't that my personality stay identical.

It's not that I have to keep all exactly the very same

then I'd die as soon as I got a new belief.

I'd die as soon as I forgot anything at all of what I was

doing 20 minutes ago. No, according to the

personality theory, what personal identity requires

isn't item-for-item the same personality,

but rather the same evolving personality.

new goals. I may lose some of my previous

beliefs, lose some of my previous memories,

but that's okay as long as it's a slowly-evolving personality

with enough overlap. Okay, so now let's consider the

a set of--I believe I'm Shelly Kagan, a set of memories about

growing up in Chicago. I have a certain set of desires

about wanting to finish my book in philosophy and so forth.

And I get some new memories and some new desires and some new

Somewhere around 200, suppose that my friends give me

And after a while, somewhere the name spreads and

by the time I'm 250 years old, everybody's calling me Jo-Jo.

Nobody calls me Shelly anymore. And by the time I'm 300,350,

400, I've forgotten anybody used to call me Jo-Jo .

And I no longer remember growing up in Chicago.

I remember things about my youth when I was a lad of 100.

But I can't go back to what it was like in the early days,

just like you can't go back to what it was like to be four or

My personality is changing in a variety of other ways.

I lose my interest in philosophy and take up an

interest in, I don't know, something that completely

doesn't--organic chemistry holds no interest to me whatsoever.

I become fascinated by the details of organic chemistry.