Nihilism Personal Identity

1085 Words3 Pages

In a physicalist universe, where the human mind and experience is composed of only matter, identity and personal identity must be grounded in a material understanding. While it may not be necessary for discussing the topic of personal identity to some extent, it is imperative for successful dialectics, or achieving a truly established and meaningful conclusion. Throughout this essay, I will follow this process by reaching a conclusion on identity, insofar as it concerns physical matter, then explore the implications it has on personal identity. Although my argument concerning material identity can result in a nihilist form of personal identity, I aim to enable, rather than dismember, individuals through a fuller understanding of the self. To …show more content…

Since humans change across their lifetime in the same way the Ship of Theseus might, the identity they have is clearly a form of ideantity. This, of course, produces a subjective twist to their personal identity. Another individual and the self can and will both create unique ideantities for what they see as an individual. It is quiet a relativistic and nihilistic notion to say the individual has no true identity besides what others decide for them, or they decide for themselves. But, on the contrary, I find myself rather attached to the idea, as it can be rather empowering. According to the fundamental nature of ideantity, an individual has the free power and choice to be whatever they desire themselves to be. In a more practical example: if a man murders his wife and is sent to court, we would declare and ideantify him as a murderer. However, when reaching his hearing, he pleads “not guilty” because, according to him after reading my above argument, he is “not the same man who murdered, therefore the current self is not a murderer”. This is a fundamental, but understandable, abuse and misunderstanding of the argument. The man being tried has not yet rejected the self ideantity of being a murderer. For him to be declared innocent, he must destroy and reject, in himself, all things tying his ideantity to being a murderer. Therefore, unlike the current prison system, it seems apt to promote reforming individuals who have committed crimes. After ten years of investing in therapy, counseling, and general reform procedures, if the judge is certain beyond doubt that the man has cut murdering from his ideantity, there is no reason to keep him incarcerated. This example also highlights the possibility of deceit and self-deceit. A man can claim to reject

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