Surviving without a Brain: A response to McMahan on Personal Identity

Abstract

In his Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life, Jeff McMahan defends what he calls the embodied mind view of identity, and then puts forward several arguments in support of the view that physical continuity of the brain is crucial to our survival. He ultimately denies that psychological continuity
is of any importance. His strategy is to recommend, by means of thought experiments, intuitions that support the importance of physical continuity
of the brain and then argue against the plausibility of the notion of psychological continuity to which psychological theorists appeal. This paper is
specifically concerned with the alleged importance of physical continuity to our survival. It responds to the positive and negative aspects of McMahan’s case by arguing that thought experiments that recommend the psychological view are far more compelling than he allows them to be and that psychological theorists can make do with a notion of psychological continuity that is
immune to his criticisms.