Excerpts from Parfit’s Reasons and Persons: Sections I and II

What are the Physical Criterion and the Psychological Criterion of personal identity? Think of some hypothetical cases in which a person survives according to the first view but not according to the second. Think of some cases in which someone survives according to the second but not the first. Can you think of actual people that survive according to one but not the other?

What exactly is “the Reductionist View” of personal identity?

Many theists think we have souls given to us by God. This view provides a simple theory of personal identity: person X is identical to person Y iff person X’s soul is identical to person Y’s soul. Why, according to Parfit, should we reject this view? (Note: Parfit doesn’t explicitly discuss souls. Rather, he discusses “separately existing entities” which includes souls among other sorts of things.)

Excerpts from Parfit’s Reasons and Persons: Section III

What in general does Parfit mean by the division of a person? If a person divides, what are the possible outcomes as far as personal identity is concerned?

Which of these outcomes is the correct one, according to Parfit? Why? Actually, Parfit in some sense denies that there is ‘the correct one’. How so?

What does Parfit mean by saying that identity is not “what mattes with survival”?