In Brian Smart’s essay “A Case for Identity”, the main conclusion is that objects do have a form that is more than the sum of its parts, while John Perry finds in “The Problem of Personal Identity” that the human form is only a part of identity. A ship is an object that has no identity of its own beyond that human beings ascribe to it, since it has no conscious thoughts, memories or reflections of its own. In the case of a person, however, identity is more than simply body parts, fingerprints or physical appearances, but as far as science knows today, the real human personality is located in the brain. In other words, the human brain is a very special part unlike any other and without it the individual does not really exist. For that reason, there can never be any genuine doubt or confusion about the Senator and the lobbyist Peter Pressher being the same person, not even if their brains were transplanted in identical bodies. They may dream that they are the same person, or perhaps even have the delusion that they are, but that does not make it true. Even if they were completely insane or hallucinating, there would still be a distinction, at least to those who know them. Each of them would be crazy in their own unique, individual way.
In the case of the legal dispute over the ship, both of the men have been victims of fraud by the Proteas brothers, who have fled the country after their dishonesty was disclosed. This situation seems somewhat peculiar since the obvious answer that there were really only two different ships involved seems to have escaped the judges. Bombos had sent his old ship X to be repaired and once it had received new planks it became the ship Y. At the same time, the yard owners cheated Morion by selling him ship Z, which they claimed was a new vessel but really had the old planks from X. Only human beings can really ascribe any identity to these inanimate objects at all, and under the law of the country concerned “the newness of a ship was decided by the newness of its component parts” (Smart, p. 322). By this standard, both ships have a mixture of new and old parts and in this sense are both new creations. Therefore Z really is the old ship X since it was constructed out of the some of the same 1,000-year old materials. Of course, this begs the question of how ‘new’ Z really is since it probably has many other component parts besides the planking, and many of these might very well be new. Ship Y still has many of the old parts of X even though its planking has been replaced so it would actually seem that this version is closest to the original ship. In sorting out who really owned vessel Z, the judges decided that it was a completely new creation that had been built in the shipyard. Even though it had some old parts, it was not identical with the original ship X. This part of the decision does seem correct since no vessel X had existed at all before being put together in the yard, and therefore the old parts were now part of a new ship, having only temporarily been part of the original. In fact, the old ship is now gone completely since Y burned up in a fire, which simply means that X has now ceased to exist.
John Perry would have been faced with a similar problem if he had discussed the transplant of a liver, kidney or heart from one body to another. Such operations are already possible and no one argues that they change the identity of the person who receives such organs. Since the memory, character and personality are in the brain (or mind or soul) only the damage or destruction of that organ would really affect the identity of a person. A human being is more than “just a live human body” any more than fingerprints of physical appearance represent total human identity (Perry, p. 324). In the future, through the use of cloning, genetic engineering or some other new technology, it might well be possible to create new human bodies and brains from various component materials, or to transplant the brain or personality into new forms. As far as is known today, if the brain or mind was transferred to a new body, the old personality would still exist. For this reason, Peter Pressher and the Senator could not possibly be the same person, even though their brains have been transplanted into each other’s bodies. They may look and sound like the other person, and have the same DNA and fingerprints, but they would not have the same identity. Even if both of them were hallucinating or delusional, they would not be the same person, but still have unique memories and characteristics. A person is more than simply a sum of all body parts and components, to be sure, except for that one unique organ called the brain.
