Philosophy Now-Aug-Sept 2019

(Joyce) #1

usages “are not simply heterogeneous; they point in sharply dif-
fering directions.” We’re talking chaos and confusion here.


Personal Identity
Until recently science was not well placed to make a positive
contribution to the debate. But in April 2003 the Human
Genome Project for the first time gave us the ability to read
humanity’s complete genetic blueprint.
Every individual has a unique genetic makeup, their own dis-
tinct form of the human genome. (Although there is some debate
on the issue, it’s possible that even identical twins do not have
exactly the same DNA.) Furthermore, our basic DNA sequences
remain unchanged throughout all stages of our growth, devel-
opment, and degeneration. The individual’s DNA sequences
are stable despite the replacement of chemical elements. They
persist irrespective of damage to DNA due to random accidents.
The sequences do not depend on cognitive abilities or con-
sciousness. The Alzheimer’s sufferer who has lost most of her
memory has the same genetic base as she had as an infant with-
out self-awareness, or as an adult during the peak of a success-
ful career. Our DNA remains the same from the first instant of
an individual’s existence to his or her last breath.
In simple terms, our DNA sequences are unique, measurable,
and constitute an objective description or plan of an individual’s
deep-seated physical makeup. As such, personal identity as
defined by the dictionary – ‘the sameness of the person at all
times or in all circumstances; the condition or fact that the person
is itself and not something else’ – is fully revealed through our
DNA patterns: we can now say how and why we are one and the
same being throughout our entire lives. By using DNA, it is no
longer problematic to ground persistence of personal identity
in the continuous existence of our changing bodies, and the dif-
ficulty in verifying whether one body at one time is the same
body at another time is overcome by looking at the genome. The
permanence of the abiding substance, the underlying genomic
pattern, can be empirically verified even as all else changes over
time. So through our understanding of human DNA it’s possi-
ble to transfer our ideas of personal identity from subjective
notions based on descriptions in the humanities, to an objective
concept based on science. Doing so is a major paradigm shift.


Group Identity
Such a shift would mean for a start that personal identity is the
product of sexual reproduction that generates new and unique
DNA sequences. In other words, the identity of the individual
emerges from a male and female who have in turn originated
from the organic substratum of the human species.
In biological terms, a species is generally defined as a group
of organisms capable of successfully exchanging genes, or in
other words, capable of interbreeding to produce fertile off-
spring. Ability to reproduce with our own kind is, therefore,
the essential constant that distinguishes us as human. This
means that communal identity becomes manifest through the
‘trinitarian’ act of reproduction, in which two personal identi-
ties of the opposite sex give rise to a new personal identity. As
such, human reproduction defines the identity of the group. So
DNA operating through human reproduction is at one and the
same time the factor that defines our personal identity and gives


rise to our communal identity. It is the organic link between
both: the common bond without which neither exists.
So we now have a succinct, measurable, and objective way to
define personal identity and communal identity, or both together.
Furthermore, the definitions apply across all disciplines.

Some Implications
If ‘identity’ is confined rigorously to its objective definitions, it
unburdens philosophy and the social sciences of the need to,
somehow identify it out of an understanding of cognitive pro-
cesses such as continued memory, sense of being, and/or human
behaviour. The implications are overwhelmingly positive.
Indeed, the consequences of our ability to define identity in
objective terms are enormous. Our genes don’t correlate well
with our commonly used tools of human classification, such as
race, ethnicity, culture or nation. Indeed, the disassociation
between our basic underlying genetic structures and our super-
ficial (and often incorrect) understanding of human differences,
questions the entire bag of instruments we use to classify human-
ity. The ‘sameness’ that defines the human species – our ability
to interbreed – is and was identical across every classification
of people that can be devised; and every subset of humanity is
permeable to the ‘other’ through interbreeding. Therefore unity
within the human family based on our ability to intermix resists
the notion of fundamental divisions.
If our systems of classification are suspect, then it’s impera-
tive to modify them in favour of classifying humanity through
the one aspect that provides the most fundamental understand-
ing of who we are: namely, our DNA. Human genetics is the
new classifier, and group differences are one of grade rather
than essence. Although sometimes helpful in the study of human
behaviour, they do not serve to constitute separate ‘identities’.
In ‘Beyond “Identity”’, Brubaker and Cooper are not per-
suaded that the word ‘identity’ is indispensable in its current
usage. They think it is overused anyway, remarking that “The
‘identity’ crisis – a crisis of overproduction and consequent deval-
uation of meaning – shows no signs of abating.” So they favour
replacing the term ‘identity’ by unbundling “the thick tangle of
meanings that have accumulated around the term... and to parcel
out the work to a number of less congested terms.” ‘Identity’ is
to be relegated to the trash can at the precise moment that sci-
ence comes to its rescue and gives it back its meaning!
Scholars are now faced with the challenge of either main-
taining an unworkable approach to identity, or else decoupling
the term from anything that does not relate to its scientific def-
initions at the personal and communal levels.
The main obstacle to the acceptance of this scenario may be
reluctance on the part of the academic world to undertake a
major shift in direction. But a collective attitude of this sort would
be preposterous. In the interest of enhancing human knowledge,
the academic world must continually and critically review its
methods and approaches. But perhaps there is a feeling that the
whole process has gone too far to execute the radical reforms in
thinking that are required to solve the human identity crisis.
© RAYMOND M. KEOGH 2019
Raymond M. Keogh, director of Our Own Identity, is a retired scientist
who specialised in tropical hardwood silviculture for over thirty years.
He recently completed a book on the new definition of identity.

August/September 2019 ●Philosophy Now 17

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