Thomas Kilmer

Kenneth Winkler
Personal Identity
11/7/16

Parfits Failure to Discredit the Non-Reductive View

Introduction
In Reasons and Persons, Parfit argues against the existence of separately existing entities
(SEEs), which he sees as key to the most plausible version of the Non-Reductive View. This is
important for the success of his argument for the Reductive View, since the two views directly compete,
and since the Reductive View is also quite unintuitive. At the very least, the Reductive View has
implications that even Parfit concedes are extremely incredible. Since belief in the Reductive View relies
heavily on the fact that its competing view is even more incredible than it is, it is important for Parfit that
he shows the competing view to be very implausible. Unfortunately, Parfit does not show SEEs to be as
implausible as they must be in order for the Non-Reductive View to fail to compete with the surprising
view he puts forth. I will outline what I take to be Parfits main complaints against SEEs, show that they
are insufficient to lower the Non-Reductive View below the status of the Reductive View, address the
main intuition behind SEEs and a possible argument against it, and conclude by suggesting we wait for
more scientific and philosophical advancement before having strong opinions about whether the
Reductive or the Non-Reductive View is true.

Parfits View on Separately Existing Entities

Parfit spends some time taking down arguments which support the existence of SEEs. He
addresses both views that claim we are directly aware of SEEs from our experience and views that claim
we are indirectly aware of SEEs from our experience. He continues by imagining how we might have
evidence for the Non-Reductionist View, but shows that reality is nothing like the imagined case. He
argues that in reality we have no evidence for SEEs. Even granting him all of this, given the structure of
his argument, this is not enough to show the Reductionist View to be more attractive than the Non-

Reductionist View. This is because (1) the Reductionist View has evidence against it and, (2) the NonReductionist View only has a lack of evidence for it. To make this point clear, we must make a
distinction there being a positive reason to doubt the possibility of a claim, and there being a lack of
evidence. Usually a lack of evidence is good reason to doubt the claim. To use Parfits example, we have
no evidence of unicorns, and so we should not believe that they exist. Yet, a lack of evidence of unicorns
alone does not mean we should actively believe that they do not exist. It simply means we have no reason
to insist that they do exist. We need extra information to turn an unwillingness to believe in existence
into a willingness to actively deny existence. In the case of unicorns, some background assumptions that
can get this change involve claims such as, If unicorns existed it is very likely we would have seen one
or We have a strong understanding of evolution and ecology such that it would be surprising if unicorns
existed. Their existence would contradict some of our current well-supported beliefs.

The Non-Reductive and the Reductive View Compared

For Parfits argument to work it is clear he needs to show reason for an active disbelief in the
Non-Reductive View if he wishes to show the Reductive View to be more attractive. This is because he
himself shows the Reductive View to have many shocking implications which should cause us to have an
active reason to find a more attractive view. Because the implications are so shocking and would
overturn many of our common beliefs, it is initially implausible in the strong sense. However, since
Parfit merely shows that there is no good argument for the existence of SEEs, he does not show the NonReductive view to be actively implausible. Additionally, he agrees that the Non-Reductive View is at the
very least coherent, so that rules out any knock down arguments against it.
Now, before the comparison is over, we must turn to what evidence we have in favor of each
view. We must not only weigh the cons, but we must also consider the pros. Yet, Parfit is surprisingly
silent when it comes to reasons to actively support a given view by its own merits. Most of his discussion
is based on which view is less plausible. In terms of which view is initially more plausible, it seems that
the Non-Reductive view actually wins out, since it aligns better with our intuition that certain questions

about identity should not be indeterminate. So, to conclude the comparison between the two views, the
Reductive View is implausible due to its incredible implications, while the Non-Reductive View merely
lacks a good argument to support it. Based on the above, it is not reasonable to favor the Reductive View
over the Non-Reductive View.

Intuitions about SEEs: Confusion about Possibility

It looks as though the Non-Reductive View is in pretty good shape since it is more plausible than
its main competitor, but do we actually have a reason to believe in the existence of SEEs? One strength
of the view is that it is quite intuitive to many people. For example, many people believe that they could
have been born as somebody else. The example that Parfit gives is that everything could have gone the
way it did, except Napoleon was Parfit and Parfit was Napoleon. In this hypothetical, the separately
existing entities swapped which bodies they were associated with. In Williams though experiment, one
of the driving forces is the fear that, despite imagining an intense personality change, you would still be in
extreme pain when the torture began. I take it that this is in part due to a belief that something about
experience does not depend on your psychology. Although Williams goes on to argue for a physical
criterion of personal identity, the example can also bring out intuitions about SEEs, since the experiment
shows experience to be more important to you than personality (or at the very least important in addition
to personality). To reply to these intuitions, it needs to be clear that these are intuitions about what is
metaphysically possible, not what is physically possible.
Let us distinguish between metaphysically possible, physically possible, and likely. Physical
possibility is what is possible in our universe given the laws (if you believe in prescriptive laws that is).
What is likely is just what we think is probably true of our universe. Metaphysical possibility involves
what is possible given the possibility of different laws and entities. For this discussion we need not
distinguish between logical and metaphysical possibility. For example, it is not physically possible to
travel faster than light (and of course it is not likely either), but it is metaphysically possible that
something travels faster than light. I believe that our intuitions about SEEs do not show that SEEs are

likely, nor do they show SEEs to be physically possible. Whether or not they are metaphysically
possible is more or less irrelevant to the current discussion, since Parfit wishes to argue about the status of
our universe, but the concept of metaphysically possibility will be important to show that it is a confusion
between these three concepts that causes people to mistake their intuitions about SEEs to be intuitions
that SEEs to be likely or physically possible. Ultimately it is probably due to the English language that
people confuse these things, since we use the same phrase it is possible to describe the different cases
of metaphysical possibility, physical possibility, and likelihood. Add this mess in with a modal claim and
you have a recipe for confusion.
I think that belief in SEEs is related to the fact that many people draw the following inference: I
can imagine having been Napoleon, therefore it is possible that I could have been Napoleon. If one
believes that it is possible one could have been Napoleon, it is likely the picture involves a separately
existing entity, such as a soul, inhabiting two different bodies. I suppose there are other views explaining
the possibility of this switch which do not entail SEEs, but SEEs are the most natural way to explain the
possibility. However, the ability to imagine something says very little about the current state of affairs for
several reasons. First of all, conceivability just means that we see no reason why something could not be
the case. It is dangerous to draw strong conclusions in such situations unless we have exhaustively shown
that there is no reason that X is impossible. Otherwise, we might be missing some information, or we
might be mistaken about the nature of what were talking about. For example, a confused person may
claim to be able to clearly imagine a triangles angles on a plain to sum to 200 degrees, and thus claim it
is possible. One might argue that the person in question was wrong when she said she could clearly
imagine the case, but if that were true, I would argue that the amount of detail required to clearly
imagine is certainly not met when we imagine being Napoleon. So, the ability to imagine says little
about what is physically possible, especially when we are imagining things which we understand almost
nothing about. Accordingly, I think most would then agree the ability to imagine cannot cause us to think
something very likelyat best the ability to imagine serves as a check that the hypothesis is not unlikely.
What about metaphysical possibility? This is trickier, but I dont think conceivability can give us

metaphysical possibility either, at least not in this case. Say that it is not true of our world that there are
separately existing entities. Also say that our inference when fleshed out in detail really means something
like I can imagine myself (as in the SEE currently tied to my body) tied to the body of Napoleon,
therefore it is possible that I (as an SEE) could have been tied to the body of Napoleon. We would be
wrong in making this inference, since there actually is no such thing as the SEE currently tied to my
body. That term is nonsensical, or perhaps empty. To illustrate this with a clearer example, let us agree
that a round square is logically impossible (if you do not agree, substitute something which you do think
is logically impossible). Picture somebody saying I can imagine drawing a round square, therefore it is
possible that I draw I round square. Clearly it is not possible to draw a round square metaphysically or
physically, due to the fact the person failed to conceive of the situation correctly. Similarly, we could just
be misguided about the current state of affairs when we think we can imagine ourselves as other people.
However, it seems more plausible that the inference can actually secure metaphysical possibility so long
as we do not insist that we are imagining our current SEEs, but rather we imagine ourselves as SEEs. In
any case, whether or not the inference justifies metaphysical possibility does not actually concern Parfits
argument, but the plausibility of metaphysical possibility being justified explains why so many people
might agree that conceivability grants possibility.
So, how does this tie into the original argument about belief in the existence of SEEs? I think
many people agree that they can imagine SEEs, and they take this to unfair conclusions. Even if were
justified in concluding that SEEs are metaphysically possible, we must not confuse that with them being
physically possible. Even worse, we must not confuse metaphysical possibility or physical possibility
with SEEs being likely. I think the most common mistake is probably the jump from metaphysical
possibility to physical possibility, causing people to take a possibly justified conclusion about
conceivability and metaphysical possibility and push it too far, causing them to believe SEEs are
physically possible. We can actually see this as related to Parfits mistake, since both cases mark a failure
to see the difference in significance between positive and negative claims of evidence. In Parfits case he
mistakes a lack of evidence for the Non-Reductive View to be a positive reason to strongly doubt it, and

in the case about possibility, I think many people mistake a lack of evidence against SEEs to be a
positive reason to believe in them.

Reasons to Actively Disbelieve in SEEs

Parfit is clearly not a bad thinker, so it would be nice if we could explain his mistake a bit better.
Im inclined to believe that Parfit has some background assumptions that are not explicitly stated which
might make it more plausible that a lack of evidence for SEEs makes SEEs doubtful. For example, we
saw that there are some facts that can combine with a lack of evidence for unicorns to give us good reason
to doubt the existence of unicorns. Most people would agree that it is better if we do not needlessly
introduce new entities into our ontology, or make up laws when there is no reason to. In fact, not only is
this good practice, if an introduced entity or law fails to explain anything, some might say that this is
more than just a lack of evidence supporting the hypothesis, but this is actually a good reason to not
believe it.
Perhaps something like this is at play in the back of Parfits mind? He certainly hints at it when he talks
about SEEs failing to explain psychological continuity, while our understanding of the brain does a good
job of explaining. However, SEEs could explain other phenomena, such as consciousness. Parfit does
discuss things such as the unity of experience and the subject of experience, but Im not sure those
discussions can directly address consciousness. SEEs could do some work in explaining aspects of
conscious, including the most basic question about the topic: Why are we conscious at all?.
Perhaps, SEEs would violate the principle of sufficient reason. After all, why did this SEE pair
with this body? However, there might be good reasons, we would just have to discover more about the
nature of these SEEs. Again, introducing things into our ontology is frowned upon, but there does seem
to be room for an ontological expansion in this area, since we know so little about it. Going back to the
unicorn analogy, one of the reasons that allowed us to actively disbelieve in unicorns had to do with
unicorns directly conflicting with our current beliefs. We have a solid understanding of evolution and
ecology which tells us that the existence of unicorns would be surprising, and we have enough experience

with seeing the animals of the world such that we probably would have already seen a unicorn if they
existed. Turning to SEEs and the closely related topic of consciousness, we see no analogy to the
unicorn case. We have a very poor scientific understanding of identity and consciousness, and SEEs are
certainly not the sort of thing we would have probably seen evidence of already. Of course it could be the
case that SEEs might involve reincarnation such that we would have evidence of them, but it seems just
as likely that SEEs would be extremely hard to find evidence for. Thus, although Parfit may have some
reason to initially doubt SEEs, he is not explicit about those reasons, and I cannot think of a good reason
to strongly doubt their existence given our failure to make scientific progress or philosophical consensus
on the topic of consciousness.

Conclusion
To briefly conclude, Parfits failure to give a positive reason to strongly doubt the Non-Reductive
View and his failure to give a strong reason to positively believe the Reductive-View means that the
Reductive-View should not be considered more likely than the Non-Reductive View, and should certainly
not be considered as likely to be true. In fact, this makes the Non-Reductive view seem plausible given
that its main competitor is much worse off than it, so one of the main intuitions about the Non-Reductive
View was explored, but ultimately found to be misguided due to a confusion about conceivability
implying possibility. In the end, neither view has strong evidence for it, insofar as this paper has covered.
However, after further examining reasons to actively disbelieve in the Non-Reductive View, I also came
up short handed, leaving the original verdict on Parfits argument intact. Furthermore, I find questions
about SEEs, the Non-Reductive View, and consciousness to all be closely related, and given the lack of
progress made towards understanding consciousness, it makes the most sense to wait for a better
understanding of the topic before drawing strong conclusions about the existence or non-existence of
SEEs. We can certainly continue to weigh the Non-Reductive View against the Reductive View, but
given the significant role consciousness will likely play in the discussion, it seems foolish to actively
believe in one over the other until we have a clearer view of the entire picture.

Acknowledgements
I did not cite the following article in any particular place, but it certainly influenced my general thoughts
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/haecceitism/