A Dilemma for Dualism
Here's the question of personal identity over time: supposing that persons P1 and P2 are identical (i.e., the same person) but exist at different times, what explains the fact that they are identical? I'm identical to the person who was moshing to celtic punk music at Skeletons many, many years ago. What makes this the case? Here's the dualist answer:
Suppose you answer the first horn by saying this: there are no conditions that explain why one soul is the same as another over time. Any given soul at t simply is identical to a soul at some later time t*, any changes notwithstanding, and there are no further facts/conditions that make this so. But in that case, why not just go with the metaphysically simpler view, Berger asks, that we are entirely physical entities and simply persist over time? That is, why not deny both the criterial view of persistence and the dualist theory, since materialism is simpler? No souls needed.
Suppose, on the other hand, that you say this: psychological continuity explains why one soul is identical to another. In that case, however, psychological continuity is doing the heavy lifting. And absent any good reasons for thinking the soul exists, one should just prefer a materialist spin on psychological continuity (Berger).
Finally, suppose one responds to the dilemma by arguing that souls do not change. Souls are perhaps bare particulars (what Parfit calls the "featureless-Cartesian view") or unchanging substances that bear certain essential properties (so while a soul may change in its accidental properties, it is the same over time because so long as no change at the level of substratum or essential properties has occurred). If so, then one runs straight into the second horn of the dilemma, Berger argues. The second horn leads dualism into the diachronic pairing problem. What explains the fact that soul S continues to attach to body B, when B endures various changes over time? If the soul is unchanging but my body and psychological properties are changing, then what explains why the soul continues to be the soul of this body? Berger writes the following:
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Works Cited: Jacob Berger, "A Dilemma for the Soul Theory of Personal Identity" (International Journal for Philosophy of Religion).
- The Dualist Theory (DT): P1 is identical to P2 even though they exist at different times because P1 and P2 are the same soul (or have the same soul).
Either (a) souls, like physical bodies, change over time, in which case the soul theory faces an analogue problem of diachronic soul identity or (b) souls, unlike physical bodies, do not change over time, in which case the soul theory faces a related problem insofar as it cannot explain why souls inhere in particular bodies -- and so the soul theory at best only partially explains personal identity (2016).In other words, if souls change (because, for example, a soul is partly constituted by psychological states that change over time -- e.g., different thoughts, memories, beliefs, etc.), then the dualist theory faces the question, what makes one soul at a time identical to another soul at a different time? The question of persistence over time is just raised at a different level. That's the first horn of the dilemma.
Suppose you answer the first horn by saying this: there are no conditions that explain why one soul is the same as another over time. Any given soul at t simply is identical to a soul at some later time t*, any changes notwithstanding, and there are no further facts/conditions that make this so. But in that case, why not just go with the metaphysically simpler view, Berger asks, that we are entirely physical entities and simply persist over time? That is, why not deny both the criterial view of persistence and the dualist theory, since materialism is simpler? No souls needed.
Suppose, on the other hand, that you say this: psychological continuity explains why one soul is identical to another. In that case, however, psychological continuity is doing the heavy lifting. And absent any good reasons for thinking the soul exists, one should just prefer a materialist spin on psychological continuity (Berger).
Finally, suppose one responds to the dilemma by arguing that souls do not change. Souls are perhaps bare particulars (what Parfit calls the "featureless-Cartesian view") or unchanging substances that bear certain essential properties (so while a soul may change in its accidental properties, it is the same over time because so long as no change at the level of substratum or essential properties has occurred). If so, then one runs straight into the second horn of the dilemma, Berger argues. The second horn leads dualism into the diachronic pairing problem. What explains the fact that soul S continues to attach to body B, when B endures various changes over time? If the soul is unchanging but my body and psychological properties are changing, then what explains why the soul continues to be the soul of this body? Berger writes the following:
No analogous problem arises for standard bodily- or psychological-continuity-based theories. Even if what explains why P1 at T1 and P2 at T2 are the same person is that they have the same soul, we would like to know why P1's and P2's respective bodies possess the same soul, given that their bodies are (potentially quite) distinct. Without an explanation of that fact, the soul theory's account of personal identity is at best partial and arguably stipulative (p. 12).The end (but not the end for the dualist theory, I suspect).
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Works Cited: Jacob Berger, "A Dilemma for the Soul Theory of Personal Identity" (International Journal for Philosophy of Religion).
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