Personhood, Rationality and Morality Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 1

Personhood, Rationality and Morality - Essay Example He was a proponent of the reductionist views of morality, and thus criticized various other theories of morality and rationality. Parfit made use of various experiments and theoretical worldviews to prove the point that continuity and self doesn’t matter much, in fact what matters the most is the individuality and the morals behind it which are essential to the existence of humans. To prove the point, he conducted various experiments out of which the teletransportation case is the most popular one, the claims of which will be central to the discussion of the paper. Through this experiment, which is a well conceived one indeed, he manages to prove that the survival or death of a person doesn’t matter in any case, the individual personhood and the morals behind matter. Also, Parfit is a proponent of the Buddhist view of self and thus argues that personhood in itself holds no value especially when the morals aren’t yet intact (Nagel pp 31). Thus, the paper aims at a rguing over the point by using the tenets of philosophical argumentation by using logic and consistency between arguments, relying on contemporary philosophy, he himself being one of the most prevalent contributors to the field of contemporary philosophy. The paper revolves around this context explaining and arguing over the teletransportation case, and drawing analogues with human morality and personalization. Parfit presents an imaginary story with two cases being discussed to prove the point, rather start a discussion about which case might be a closer contraception to reality. For this reason, it is crucial to first discuss the experiment and all the fundamentals attached with the experiment itself. The experiment suggests that a teletransporter is a device often quoted in fiction movies, which is used to send the human into Mars, as it enables one to move at the speed of light. According to the experiment, if I press the green button, I will be sent to Mars in several weeks aft er having travelled at the speed of light. I am rather nervous that in the course of travel I might lose my conscious more importantly my identity or brain or maybe my body, however as this experiment has been performed before, that is not a possibility. Thus, once I press the button, I find myself at Mars, and then back to earth. I have been going back and forth for quite some time now, thus I`m quite sure about the process and its results, and I don`t fear the loss of body or identity anymore, however during the course my mind and body is effected to some effect as I travel back and forth. However, this one time, I enter the cubicle and again press the green button as required by the process, but this time nothing happens. Thus, I step out of the cubicle and inquire from the attendant to see what might be wrong with the machine. As a response, he hands over a card which says that the new technology will allow the brain and body of the individual to stay back while a replica is sen t to Mars. He can now also use the intercom to even talk to himself back at Mars, as both of them are rather the same. However, soon enough he discovers a problem recently discovered with the scanner, i.e. the system ought to leave some cardiac problems on the individual. This implies that though the health of the individual will be perfectly normal back at Mars, but on earth, he has only a few days left to live. Though some of the philosophers have argued that this case is of little importance when it comes to understanding the concepts of