Am I Me Or Am I Someone Else? Essay -- Psychology, Personality

Who am I? What binds me who I am? My friends would probably say that its my genuine nature and compassion that make me who I am. They great power also say that I find ways to create my identity element without even trying and that I make my own path with my morals as a guide. Id probably say its my dashing good looks, wit, and charm. My experiences, my parents, and my surroundings, have all contributed to establishing my identity. In Derek Parfits writings Reasons and Persons and Personal Identity, he discusses his ideas on what would matter most, personal identity or survival, and he claims that it is survival, rather than personal identity that matters. Where Parfit expresses this view, this is where I disagree. I look at that where survival is there moldiness be personal identity. Both should go hand in hand and there is more to personal identity than psychological/bodily continuity. I believe to an extent that Parfit is right in claiming that survival is what matters, overall it is better to be surviving than physically dead but if your personal identity is gone, doesnt that make you dead as a person and a new person is in your place?In an article, Derek Parfit argues is that The real reason seems to me now this. Does personal identity just consist in bodily and psychological continuity, or is it a further fact, independent of the facts about these continuities? Our reactions to the problem cases show, I believe, that we believe the latter. And we seem given up to believe that this further fact is peculiarly deep and is all-or-nothing---we believe that in any describable case, it must hold completely or not at all. My main claim is the denial of this further fact (Robinson).In Reasons and Persons, Parfit makes the claim that pe... ...ontinuous with me is what is important. For me to survive, in the way that matters to Parfit, means that it is enough for someone to inherit enough of my psychological attributes. If two or more people inherit my attribu tes, that is almost as good as ordinary survival. Although, I would argue that this idea of being the resembling person is what matters in survival/continued existence. When one is divided, they cease to be. Even though they have remnants of the past them, that doesnt make it them.Works CitedFumerton, Richard, and Diane Jeske. Introducing Philosophy by means of Film Key Texts, Discussion, and Film Selections Paperback. Print. Parfit, Derek. Personal Identity. The Philosophical Review, Vol. 80, No. 1 (Jan.,197) pp. 3-27. Robinson, John. Personal Identity and Survival. The Journal of Philosophy , Vol. 85, No. 6 (Jun., 1988), pp. 319-328