•  403
    Thought experiments and personal identity in africa
    Journal of the American Philosophical Association 7 (4): 239-452. 2021.
    African perspectives on personhood and personal identity and their relation to those of the West have become far more central in mainstream Western discussion than they once were. Not only are African traditional views with their emphasis on the importance of community and social relations more widely discussed, but that emphasis has also received much wider acceptance and gained more influence among Western philosophers. Despite this convergence, there is at least one striking way in whic…Read more
  • Book Reviews (review)
    with Glen M. Segell, Derek Hook, and Jeanne Marie Kusina
    Theoria 54 (112): 109-123. 2007.
    Daniel Dennet by Matthew Elton Simon Beck Globalization and Justice by Kai Nielsen Glen M. SegellThe Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature by Steven Pinker Deborah Roberts Georges Bataille by Michel Surya Derek Hook Thinking after Heidegger by David Wood Jeanne Marie Kusina.
  •  397
    Who Gets a Place in Person-Space?
    with Oritsegbubemi Oyowe
    Philosophical Papers 47 (2): 183-198. 2018.
    We notice a number of interesting overlaps between the views on personhood of Ifeanyi Menkiti and Marya Schechtman. Both philosophers distance their views from the individualistic ones standard in western thought and foreground the importance of extrinsic or relational features to personhood. For Menkiti, it is ‘the community which defines the person as person’; for Schechtman, being a person is to have a place in person-space, which involves being seen as a person by others. But there are also …Read more
  •  368
    In Defence of Self-Interest: A Response to Parfit
    South African Journal of Philosophy 6 (4): 119-124. 1987.
    Derek Parfit argues in Reasons and Persons that acting according to your present desires is more rational, or at least as rational, as acting in your long-term self-interest. To do this, he puts forward a case supporting a 'critical present-aim theory' of rationality opposed to the self-interest theory, and then argues against a number of possible replies. This article is a response to these arguments, concluding that Parfit's favouring of the present-aim theory is unfounded, and that self-inter…Read more
  •  431
    Reconsidering a transplant: A response to Wagner
    South African Journal of Philosophy 35 (2): 132-140. 2016.
    Nils-Frederic Wagner takes issue with my argument that influential critics of “transplant” thought experiments make two cardinal mistakes. He responds that the mistakes I identify are not mistakes at all. The mistakes are rather on my part, in that I have not taken into account the conceptual genesis of personhood, that my view of thought experiments is idiosyncratic and possibly self-defeating, and in that I have ignored important empirical evidence about the relationship between brains and min…Read more
  •  245
    Lewis, Loar and the Logical Form of Attitude Ascriptions
    South African Journal of Philosophy 7 (2): 100-104. 1988.
    In this article, the attempts by David Lewis and Brian Loar to make perspicuous the logical form of sentences ascribing propositional attitudes to individuals are set out and criticized. Both work within the assumption of the truth of 'type' physicalism, and require that logically perspicuous attitude ascriptions be compatible with the demands of such a doctrine. It is argued that neither carry out this task successfully - Lewis's perspicuous ascriptions have counter-intuitive implications, whil…Read more
  •  102
    Interrogating the ‘Ticking Bomb Scenario’: Reassessing the Thought Experiment
    International Journal of Applied Philosophy 29 (1): 53-70. 2015.
    The aim of this paper is to re-evaluate the manner in which the Ticking Bomb Scenario (TBS), a thought experiment in philosophical enquiry, has been used in the discussion of the justifiability or otherwise of forward-looking interrogational torture (FLIT). The paper argues that criticisms commonly raised against the thought experiment are often inappropriate or irrelevant. A great many criticisms misunderstand the way in which thought experiments in general, and the TBS in particular, are supp…Read more
  •  6
    Editorial
    with Deane-Peter Baker and David Spurrett
    South African Journal of Philosophy 23 (4). 2004.
  •  385
    Counterfactuals and the law
    South African Journal of Philosophy 12 (3). 1993.
    This article is concerned with the place counterfactual reasoning occupies in South African law, and how philosophy might be able to help the law. I point out some of the more important and unavoidable uses of counterfactual reasoning in our law. Following this I make some suggestions as to how philosophy, and especially informal logic, can be of help to the law. Finally, I make some suggestions as to how the law in turn can help philosophy.
  •  2873
    The Misunderstandings of the Self-Understanding View
    Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 20 (1): 33-42. 2013.
    There are two currently popular but quite different ways of answering the question of what constitutes personal identity: the one is usually called the psychological continuity theory (or Psychological View) and the other the narrative theory.1 Despite their differences, they do both claim to be providing an account—the correct account—of what makes someone the same person over time. Marya Schechtman has presented an important argument in this journal (Schechtman 2005) for a version of the narra…Read more
  •  756
    Parfit and the Russians
    Analysis 49 (4): 205-209. 1989.
    The paper takes a close look at Derek Parfit’s example of the Nineteenth Century Russian in 'Reasons and Persons'. Parfit presents it as an example which illustrates the moral consequences of adopting his reductionist view of personal identity in a positive light. I argue that things turn out to be more complex than he envisages, and that it might be far more difficult to live in his world than he allows.
  •  681
    Fiction and Fictions: On Ricoeur on the route to the self
    South African Journal of Philosophy 25 (4): 329-335. 2006.
    In reaching his narrative view of the self in Oneself as Another, Paul Ricoeur argues that, while literature offers revealing insights into the nature of the self, the sort of fictions involving brain transplants, fission, and so on, that philosophers often take seriously do not (and cannot). My paper is a response to Ricoeur's charge, contending that the arguments Ricoeur rejects are not flawed in the way he suggests, and that his own arguments are sometimes guilty of the very charges he lays a…Read more
  •  635
    Our Identity, Responsibility and Biology
    Philosophical Papers 3-14. 2004.
    Eric Olson argues in The Human Animal that thought-experiments involving body-swapping do not in the end offer any support to psychological continuity theories, nor do they pose any threat to his Biological View. I argue that he is mistaken in at least the second claim.
  •  36
    Should We Tolerate People Who Split?
    Southern Journal of Philosophy 30 (1): 1-17. 1992.
    Thought-experiments in which one person divides into two have been important in the literature on personal identity. I consider three influential arguments which aim to undermine the force of these thought-experiments – arguments from David Wiggins, Patricia Kitcher and Kathleen Wilkes. I argue that all three fail, leaving us to face the consequences of splitting, whatever those may be.
  •  618
    Let's exist again (like we did last summer)
    South African Journal of Philosophy 20 (2): 159-170. 2001.
    This paper is a defence of a psychological view of personal identity against the attack Peter Unger launches against it in his Identity, Consciousness and Value. Unger attempts to undermine the traditional support which a psychological criterion of identity has drawn from thought-experiments, and to show that such a criterion has totally unacceptable implications -- in particular, that it allows that persons can go out of and come back into existence. I respond to both aspects of this criticism,…Read more
  •  8
    Editorial
    with Deane-Peter Baker and David Spurrett
    South African Journal of Philosophy 24 (2): 61-63. 2005.
  •  382
  •  1602
    Transplant Thought-Experiments: Two costly mistakes in discounting them
    South African Journal of Philosophy 33 (2): 189-199. 2014.
    ‘Transplant’ thought-experiments, in which the cerebrum is moved from one body to another, have featured in a number of recent discussions in the personal identity literature. Once taken as offering confirmation of some form of psychological continuity theory of identity, arguments from Marya Schechtman and Kathleen Wilkes have contended that this is not the case. Any such apparent support is due to a lack of detail in their description or a reliance on predictions that we are in no position to …Read more
  •  667
    Going Narrative: Schechtman and the Russians
    South African Journal of Philosophy 27 (2): 69-79. 2008.
    Marya Schechtman's The Constitution of Selves presented an impressive attempt to persuade those working on personal identity to give up mainstream positions and take on a narrative view instead. More recently, she has presented new arguments with a closely related aim. She attempts to convince us to give up the view of identity as a matter of psychological continuity, using Derek Parfit's story of the “Nineteenth Century Russian” as a central example in making the case against Parfit's own view,…Read more
  •  1130
    The Extreme Claim, Psychological Continuity and the Person Life View
    South African Journal of Philosophy 34 (3): 314-322. 2015.
    Marya Schechtman has raised a series of worries for the Psychological Continuity Theory of personal identity (PCT) stemming out of what Derek Parfit called the ‘Extreme Claim’. This is roughly the claim that theories like it are unable to explain the importance we attach to personal identity. In her recent Staying Alive (2014), she presents further arguments related to this and sets out a new narrative theory, the Person Life View (PLV), which she sees as solving the problems as well as bringing…Read more
  •  271
    Philosophers have traditionally used thought-experiments in their endeavours to find a satisfactory account of the self and personal identity. Yet there are considerations from empirical psychology as well as related ones from philosophy itself that appear to completely undermine the method of thought-experiment. This paper focuses on both sets of considerations and attempts a defence of the method.
  •  255
    Leibniz, Locke and I
    Cogito 13 (3): 181-187. 1999.
    In his New Essays on Human Understanding, Leibniz presents a sharp attack on Locke's theory of personal identity, Matching Locke's thought-experiments with those of his own, Leibniz seeks to show that our identity cannot rest on matters of consciousness alone-being the same person is rather a matter of the continued existence of an immaterial substance. I draw attention to some contemporary thinkers who-while eschewing the immaterial substances-are sympathetic to the kind of argument Leibniz off…Read more
  •  306
    Back to the self and the future
    South African Journal of Philosophy 17 (3): 211-225. 1998.
    The thought-experiment presented by Bernard Williams in 'The self and the future' continues to draw the attention of writers in the debate about personal identity. While few of them agree on what implications it has for the debate, almost all agree that those implications are significant ones. Some have even claimed that it has consequences not only for personal identity, but also concerning the viability of thought-experiment as a method. This paper surveys what these consequences might be at b…Read more
  •  588
    Can Parables Work?
    Philosophy and Theology 23 (1): 149-165. 2011.
    While theories about interpreting biblical and other parables have long realised the importance of readers’ responses to the topic, recent results in social psychology concerning systematic self-deception raise unforeseen problems. In this paper I first set out some of the problems these results pose for the authority of fictional thought-experiments in moral philosophy. I then consider the suggestion that biblical parables face the same problems and as a result cannot work as devices for moral …Read more
  •  245
    Understanding Ourselves Better
    Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 20 (1): 51-55. 2013.
    Marya Schechtman and Grant Gillett acknowledge that my case in ‘The misunderstandings of the Self-Understanding View’ (2013) has some merits, but neither is moved to change their position and accept that the Psychological View has more going for it (and the Self-Understanding View less) than Schechtman originally contended. Schechtman thinks her case could be better expressed, and then the deficiencies of the Psychological View will be manifest. That view is committed to Locke’s insight about th…Read more
  •  309
    Points of Concern
    Theoria 47 121-130. 2000.
    This is a critical review of Raymond Martin's 'Self-Concern' (1998), focusing especially on his criticism of Parfit's use of fission thought-experiments and his own 'fission rejuvenation' thought-experiment.
  •  57
    Intuitionism, Constructive Interpretation, and Cricket
    Philosophical Papers 37 (2): 319-331. 2008.
    This paper is a re-reading of Colin Radford's paper 'The Umpire's Dilemma', published in Analysis in 1985. It argues that Radford's dilemma has been unjustly ignored and has interesting (and problematic) implications for both intuitionism and Ronald Dworkin's constructive interpretationist jurisprudence.
  •  1102
    A sporting dilemma and its jurisprudence
    with Patrick Lenta
    Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 33 (2): 125-143. 2006.
    Our purpose in this article is to draw attention to a connection that obtains between two dilemmas from two separate spheres: sports and the law. It is our contention that umpires in the game of cricket may face a dilemma that is similar to a dilemma confronted by legal decision makers and that comparing the nature of the dilemmas, and the arguments advanced to solve them, will serve to advance our understanding of both the law and games.
  •  116
    Am I My Brother's Keeper? On Personal Identity and Responsibility
    South African Journal of Philosophy 32 (1): 1-9. 2013.
    The psychological continuity theory of personal identity has recently been accused of not meeting what is claimed to be a fundamental requirement on theories of identity - to explain personal moral responsibility. Although they often have much to say about responsibility, the charge is that they cannot say enough. I set out the background to the charge with a short discussion of Locke and the requirement to explain responsibility, then illustrate the accusation facing the theory with details fro…Read more