Sunday, June 28, 2015

Morality is the key to personal identity – Nina Strohminger – Aeon

http://aeon.co/magazine/philosophy/why-moral-character-is-the-key-to-personal-identity/

Recent studies by the philosopher Shaun Nichols at the University of Arizona and myself support the view that the identity-conferring part of a person is his moral capacities. One of our experiments pays homage to Locke's thought experiment by asking subjects which of a slew of traits a person would most likely take with him if his soul moved to a new body. Moral traits were considered more likely to survive a body swap than any other type of trait, mental or physical. Interestingly, certain types of memories – those involving people – were deemed fairly likely to survive the trip.
---Steve

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