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Our Bodies, Our Selves
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2011
To this point, I have avoided the topic of personal identity in my analysis of biological individuality. I did this for two reasons. Focusing on personal identity might have deformed my account of biological individuality by encouraging me to develop a model into which personal identity could easily be inserted. The second reason is that I have never been sympathetic to philosophical theories of personal identity that treat a person as a substantial individual distinct from a biological organism (functional individual). I think that the important issues of human identity can be resolved without recourse to treating person as a substantial kind. Now that I have developed a system of individuation though, it seems appropriate to explore its application to human beings and personal identity. I intend for my account of biological individuality to provide the grounds for individuating all living things, so it should apply to human beings. In the sections below, I discuss the different kinds of biological individuality as they apply to human beings. This discussion provides the groundwork for an exploration of the connection between personal identity and the biological identity of a human organism.
HUMAN BEINGS AS BIOLOGICAL ENTITIES
In addition to explaining the nature of biological individuality for any number of other organisms, a system of biological individuation must provide an account of human individuation. A human being is a higher animal. As a higher animal, a human being is one of the easier living things to individuate and trace through time.
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