著者

峯村 優一

出版者

日本医学哲学・倫理学会

雑誌

医学哲学 医学倫理 (ISSN:02896427)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.34, pp.22-31, 2016 (Released:2018-05-07)

著者

峯村 優一

出版者

日本医学哲学・倫理学会

雑誌

医学哲学 医学倫理 (ISSN:02896427)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.32, pp.53-63, 2014 (Released:2018-02-01)

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According to Jeff McMahan’s brain view, personal identity is preserved by the existence of a person, a conscious entity with consciousness function due to brain function. An organism which has no consciousness function or irreversibly loses it, but has only integrative function is regarded as an entity, one which is essentially different from a person who possesses consciousness function. In this article, I examine the personal identity problem of McMahan’s brain view, analyzing the issues regarding the existence of an embryo, that of a patient in a persistent vegetative state (PVS), and the relationship between the two entities, ‘a person’ and ‘a human organism’, respectively. Contrary to McMahan’s view, I first maintain that we should consider an early embryo who has no brain function yet grows as the same entity, an organism, with the acquirement of consciousness function due to brain function while changing in different phases of life, not being a different entity, a person, with that function. Second, I claim that a PVS patient who is presumed to no longer possess cerebrum function does not lose interest in living and is alive as an organism with the same identity prior to that condition. Third, I argue that McMahan’s brain view under which the two different entities, a person and a human organism, are presumed to coexist in an organism falls into‘ the too many thinkers problem’ in principle and thus, it will not become the theory which could consistently explain personal identity.